Summing up 2014

A brief summary of 2014 at data insights...


If you could sum up your year in a word, what would it be?

Publications!

In 2014 I published and presented more than I could have expected, given that I was still on maternity leave for a quarter of the year.

I authored two entries in the Sage Encyclopedia of Transportation (Regional Transportation Plans and Regional Transportation Planning Organizations)

My essay on sexual health in the 1700s, as illustrated by details drawn from Casanova's memoir, was published by Hektoen International.


Best read

Of all of the non-fiction I read in 2014 a couple of books stand out...

Fromms: How Julius Fromm's Condom Empire Fell to the Nazis
and
Condom Nation: The U.S. Government's Sex Education Campaign from World War I to the Internet


Best conference experience?

My talk on comparing administrative records data to census counts at PAA 2014 in Boston would have been infinitely more enjoyable if I hadn't also come down with the flu...

But the food (ahem... I mean the content) at the CIC Impact Summit more than made up for any other 2014 conference catastrophes.


Most popular post?

My summary of time use and parenting (comparing the work of moms and dads, and comparing pre- and post-baby time use) generated the most traffic of any single 2014 post, but my geek joke posts reigned supreme overall.



Thank you all for sticking around in 2014!

A demographer, a statistician, and an economist walk into a bar...

If you follow me on Twitter (@DataGeekB) you know that I post a geek joke almost every Friday afternoon. Here are a few of my favorite demographer jokes, sociology jokes, and economist jokes (in no particular order):


DEMOGRAPHER JOKES:
Q: Why are demographers exhausted?
A: They're broken down by age and sex.

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.

Birthdays are good for you – the more you have, the longer you live.

Demographers are people who wanted to be accountants but lacked the personality for the job.

Old demographers never die. They just get broken down by age and sex.

A demographer is just a mathematician broken down by age and sex.

Statistics prove that number of offspring is an inherited trait. If your parent didn't have any kids, odds are you won't either.

Demographer pickup line fail: I asked a demographer for her phone number. She gave me an estimate.

Demographers are people who wanted to be accountants but lacked the personality for the job.


SOCIOLOGY JOKES:
A musicologist says to her sociologist friend, “Our studies really aren't that different.”
“How so?” asks the sociologist.
Musicologist: “We both study cymbalic interaction.”

Q: How do sociologists know what to drink at Cheers?
A: They follow Norm.


ECONOMICS JOKES:
Q: How many economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. If the light bulb needed changing the market would've done it.

The First Law of Economists: For every economist, there exists an equal and opposite economist.

If all economists were laid end-to-end they would reach... no conclusion.

2+2=__
Mathematician: "4."
Statistician: "3.9 +/-.5 with a 95% confidence interval"
Economist: (closes door) "What do you want it to equal?"

Florida now more populous than New York

Earlier this week the US Census Bureau released the 2014 population estimates.

A few highlights:

Florida passed New York in population size.

North Carolina also passed Michigan, and North Dakota passed Alaska.

California still largest state in the US, but #2 Texas is adding 40,000-80,000 more people per year than California is. (Still, at that rate it will take nearly 150 years for Texas to overtake California).

Holiday geek jokes

If you follow me on Twitter (@DataGeekB) you know that I post a geek joke almost every Friday afternoon. Here are a few of my favorite holiday geeky jokes (in no particular order)

HALLOWEEN GEEK JOKES:
Q: What do you get when you take the circumference of your jack-o-lantern and divide it by its diameter?
A: Pumpkin π.


CHRISTMAS GEEK JOKES:
Geek joke: Q: What's the inverse operation to Christmas^x?
A: Yule log.

Q: Why do economists have to stay away from the toys in Santa's workshop?
A: Because they regress so easily.

Q: How is an artificial christmas tree like √(-3)?
A: Neither has real roots

Why isn’t every man in a red suit with a beard Santa?
A: Because correlation doesn’t imply Claus-ality.


NEW YEAR GEEK JOKES:
Q: How many seconds are there in a year?
A: 12! (January second, February second, March second,...)