Tag Archives: Statistics
Sad Things (12) Terror Transparency
ISIS, the terrorist organization from Syria and Iraq, publish an annual report detailing all their attacks, expenses, acquisitions, strategic goals, new recruits and so on. They even have fancy infographics. You can download the full report here (PDF, 410 pages). The … Continue reading
FIFA Football World Cup in Qatar 2022: the Scorecard
Exact date of the 2022 World Cup: uncertain, because FIFA was surprised by the existence of hot climate on the Arabian peninsula in mid-summer, when Football World Cups are traditionally held. Amount of bribes paid by Qatar to FIFA members: … Continue reading
Plastic Surgery Statistics
While browsing charts and graphs about property bubbles and purchasing power parity, I came across this chart in The Economist which shows how much plastic surgery is performed in the following countries. There is a lot to be said about … Continue reading
Shrinking Lithuania
Now I understand why it was so easy to find a beautiful and affordable apartment when I moved to Lithuania: The population of Lithuania is shrinking. It has fallen below 3 million, meaning that this cute little country has lost … Continue reading
Not so fast, Usain Bolt
Whenever somebody says “Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world”, I cringe. My sense of logic feels under attack by this sentence – and by similar outrageous statements. I am not saying that Usain Bolt could not be … Continue reading
Bird Flu is not that Bad
From time to time, usually when nothing else of interest happens, the news remind us of bird flu (avian flu, H5N1) again. See The Wall Street Journal, Business Week and The Washington Post for examples from the past few days only. It is … Continue reading
Don’t be afraid of the stranger!
My default attitude towards other people is trust. Unless or until I become aware of a reason to mistrust someone, I will trust anyone whom I meet. Because of this I use Couchsurfing when travelling, I host Couchsurfers, I have … Continue reading
Globalisation is a Myth
Globalisation, this concept that everyone writes about and that many people blame for their woes or use as an excuse for their policies, is in large parts a myth. Who am I to claim this? Having grown up in a … Continue reading
If you don’t read my blog, you will die.
That caught your attention, didn’t it? And on the face of it, it’s true and backed up by facts and statistics: About 150,000 people died worldwide yesterday. Of these, none had read my blog yesterday. The few people who did … Continue reading
Assessing the risk of nuclear technology
The nuclear industry is keen on coming up with probabilistic risk assessments that show that a serious accident at a nuclear power plant can only happen every 20,000 years or so (admittedly this number is from a somewhat outdated report … Continue reading
The Happy Hermit 