Cultural Curiosities
Stay-at-home dads
vs.
Walt Disney Company revenue
In the United States, stay-at-home dads have met the following criteria: Their household contains kids, they haven’t had a job (full-time or part-time) for any of the past fifty-two weeks, and their spouse has had a job consistently for the past fifty-two weeks. If you think this definition is under inclusive, you’re not alone. The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses a definition that estimates the same number to be 5 to 10 times larger.
SOURCES:
National At-Home Dad Network
U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements
Walt Disney Annual Reports
Pregnancy rate
vs.
Power generated by nuclear power plants
The average nuclear power plant in the United States puts out 11.8 billion kilowatt-hours per year, or a ballpark generating capacity of 2 gigawatts. If we toast bread for three minutes in an 800-watt two-slot toaster, this means the average nuclear power plant has an output of about 50 million TPH (toast per hour).
SOURCES:
U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics Report: “Births: Final Data for 2008”
Energy Information Administration, Electricity Net Generation (tWh is “terawatt-hours,” which is a deviation from the standard “billion kilowatt-hours” generally used for major utility output.)
Money spent on pets
vs.
Alcohol sold in liquor stores
In 2008, everything dropped—from the housing market to life insurance policy purchases. Spending on dogs and beer, however, didn’t budge. In 2009, Americans spent ten times the value of the national debt on alcohol.
SOURCES:
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Survey of Current Business”
Books published about religion
vs.
Bathtub drownings
The output of published books about religion is steadily increasing, unlike the publishing of books about computers. Since the dot-com boom, computer book publishing numbers have plateaued.
SOURCES:
Bowker, New Book Titles and Editions
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Detailed Mortality Data
Days of Our Lives viewership
vs.
Death row inmates
The number of TV shows viewers can watch is growing substantially faster than the number of TV viewers. No series is likely to come close to matching the viewership of the M*A*S*H series finale in 1983, which garnered more than 105 million viewers, and certainly no show will ever match the record 67.3 Nielsen rating set by I Love Lucy in 1953.
SOURCES:
Nielsen Media Research
U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Capital Punishment”
Deaths caused by cataclysmic storm
vs.
Greatest number of f *cks in a movie
Death counts from major storms and floods often end up artificially inflated because the storms exacerbate preexisting medical conditions. Researchers have difficulty dealing with this anomaly since the deaths are often still caused by the storm. After a major storm, the normal death rate in the area decreases for a few days as some of the individuals who would have died a little later instead died during the storm.
SOURCES:
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Detailed Mortality Data
Junko Otani, Older People in Natural Disasters: The Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995
Wikipedia: “List of films that most frequently use the word ‘fuck’ ” (You didn’t think I was going to use it, did you? You thought I was going to stand behind that asterisk and wimp out of swearing in the citation. Nope.)
Gross revenue from U.S. symphony orchestras
vs.
Juvenile arrests for pot possession
There was a marked spike in marijuana arrests in 2007, but the violent crime rate was still lower than any year in the 1990s.
SOURCES:
League of American Orchestras, “New York, NY, Performing Arts—Selected Data: 1990 to 2009”
U.S. Department of Justice Uniform Crime Reports
The marriage rate in Kentucky
vs.
People who drowned after falling out of a fishing boat
Nevada has the highest marriage rate of any U.S. state by a huge margin. In 1990, Nevada’s marriage rate was 99 marriages per 1,000 people, while the next highest state was sitting at 15. The confounding variable is, of course, Las Vegas.
SOURCES:
CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, “Marriages and Divorces”
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Detailed Mortality Data
Alcohol sold in grocery stores
vs.
Total number of bridges in the United States
As of 2010, the United States had 18,780 miles of bridges, with an average bridge length of approximately 50 meters. Thus, we’ve built enough bridges to get about 8 percent of the way to the moon.
SOURCES:
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service
U.S. Federal Highway Administration, Office of Bridge Technology
Space.com, “How far is the moon?” (Answer: Very far.)
Literature books published
vs.
Suicides by hanging
In the United States, hanging is not the most popular method of suicide. Number 1 is a category of large firearms. Number 2 is handguns. Number 3 is hanging. Number 4 is a separate category of large firearms. We sure do love our guns.
SOURCES:
Bowker, New Book Titles and Editions
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Detailed Mortality Data
The Big Bang Theory viewership
vs.
Percentage of Argentina’s GDP spent by the government
The Euglossa bazinga is a species of bee in Argentina. That’s not spurious: The bee was named after Sheldon’s favorite word.
SOURCES:
Wikipedia: “The Big Bang Theory”
Smithsonian Magazine, “A Brand New Bee Was Just Named After Sheldon From The Big Bang Theory”
International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database
Reports of UFOs shaped like discs
vs.
Adults under correctional supervision in the United States
About 3.1 percent of all adults in the United States are under correctional supervision. Most of these people are on probation, not in prison.
SOURCES:
National UFO Reporting Center
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics
March Madness TV ad revenue
vs.
Reports of flying fireballs
2008 was the first year that the top seeds became the Final Four. That is, the teams that everyone thought were going to win, won. This also means that prior to 2008, the NCAA tournament selection committee was wrong every year in predicting the best teams.
SOURCES:
Kantar Media
National UFO Reporting Center
Age of the American Idol winner
vs.
UFO sightings in New Hampshire
More UFOs are spotted between the hours of nine p.m. and eleven p.m. than during all daylight hours combined. Those aliens sure are a shy bunch.
SOURCES:
Wikipedia: “List of American Idol finalists”
National UFO Reporting Center
U.S. citizens who are able to receive a text message
vs.
Price to send a letter via the U.S. Postal Service
Although the USPS delivers to over 140 million locations, in 2003 the number of possible destinations for a text message overtook the number of possible destinations for a letter.
SOURCES:
Statistic Brain, “Mobile Cellular Subscribers”
U.S. Postal Service
I’m writing an article for Morningstar: Short the NYSE composite and watch a lot of Two and a Half Men.
Two and a Half Men’s ranking against other CBS shows
vs.
The New York Stock Exchange
Most decisions about buying or selling stocks are currently made and executed by computers. A number of these algorithms are currently working on much weaker correlations than this one. After this book is published, someone will probably write an algorithm to buy and sell stocks based on the popularity of Two and a Half Men.
SOURCES:
Wikipedia: “Two and a Half Men”
Yahoo! Finance, Historic Market Data: NYSE Composite yearly best
Bloomberg Businessweek, “How the Robots Lost: High-Frequency Trading’s Rise and Fall”
Box office gross of Oscar Best Picture winner
vs.
West Nile virus cases in the United States
The biggest spike was the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which coincided with the 2003 West Nile virus outbreak.
SOURCES:
Box Office Mojo, Annual Academy Awards
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, West Nile virus
High school sex
vs.
Unemployment
Adding the percentages of high schoolers who use various forms of recognized birth control and the percentage of sexually active high schoolers who report using no form of birth control falls short of 100 percent. At least 5 percent of sexually active high school students are using some newfangled form of birth control yet unknown to the CDC.
SOURCES:
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics