Most Popular Purchases Online in Each State

Some of these popular online purchases are spectacular, by which I mean "awesome". Wow.

(Tip of the cap to George Takei.)

Vin Scully Reading a Shopping List

On several baseball broadcasts over the years, I have heard the comment that Vin Scully would sound amazing even if he were reading a shopping list.

Apparently, about four decades ago, somebody recorded Vin doing it. This recording was played on the ESPN broadcast last night, and it does sound amazing. Vin's voice is just so soothing.

Vin Scully is the best announcer ever, and 2016 will be his last year broadcasting baseball. It's been awesome to listen to him broadcast Dodger games for well over three decades.

Urban Bacon Network: Can I Publish my Study in an OUP Journal?

Really, Oxford University Press? What a horrifying and depressing type of censorship. (Tip of the cap to Katy Remy.) Then again, it seems that pigs are not actually banned from OUP publications, though they might not make the cut in, for example, the choice of what animals to put in a background picture sometimes. (I am bothered by that statement in the explanation in the Guardian article, though I'm glad to hear that the reported censorship was exaggerated rather than factual.)

OK, now my collaborators and I really need to analyze the shopping data set (the "Stanford Basket Data") with the urban bacon network (and also a suburban bacon network) so that we can find something scientifically interesting enough to publish. And clearly we need to submit this paper to an Oxford University Press journal.

Also, you might not want to work on topics like Graham Higman's PORC conjecture. (Thanks to Ursula Martin for passing that link along.)

Meanwhile, for your viewing pleasure, here is a visualization of the "Urban Bacon Network" from the Stanford Basket Data.

Why Can't it Just be Labeled "Soap"?

I just went to quickly buy some shampoo, and I am continually frustrated by the fact that there seem to be millions of different products with names like "bathing cream" and the like that I fundamentally don't understand. Then when I look at the descriptions, I read how it's supposed to reduce my stress, make me relax, and so on. I don't see any descriptions about how it's supposed to make me clean, which is why I want to buy the bloody thing in the first place! There are just all these damn words I don't understand and with long, meaningless descriptions that don't explain anything ("full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"). I can't tell which product is which. Grrr. Why can't it just be labeled "soap"?

At Which Store Do You Think This Happened?

This series of incidents apparently happened in Oxford. Now that's a big win.