A statistics blog about The Simpsons and other nonsense http://www.nathancunn.com It’s not exactly news that the Eurovision voting is based on more than just who sent the best song. Neighbouring countries are often more inclined to vote for one another, or not in the case of Ireland and the United Kingdom. But which countries are most blind to the quality... Thu, 09 May 2024 08:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2024-05-09-eurovision/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2024-05-09-eurovision/ With the grim and bizarre reality of a Donald Trump presidency finally beginning to recede behind us, it’s a good opportunity to recap his time as president. For previous US presidents, we might expect to now be inundated with articles detailing major accomplishments, critical analyses of policy implementations, and so... Mon, 08 Feb 2021 08:00:00 -0800 http://www.nathancunn.com/2021-02-08-trump-insults/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2021-02-08-trump-insults/ The Covid-19 pandemic has shed an unflattering light on some of our society. More people than I’m comfortable with, when faced with a minor inconvenience, will loudly proffer their opinion that perhaps it would be better if some other people died. This extreme entitlement is often personified in American and... Fri, 14 Aug 2020 13:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2020-08-14-karen/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2020-08-14-karen/ In this week’s New Scientist, they posed the following puzzle: Alpha and Betty are playing a game. In front of them are 8 Digestive biscuits and 4 Rich Tea biscuits. On their turn they can choose to either: take any amount of either biscuit, or take the same amount of... Mon, 10 Aug 2020 13:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2020-08-10-biscuit-puzzle/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2020-08-10-biscuit-puzzle/ There’s been one thing dominating my Twitter feed lately, popping up everywhere no matter how much I try to avoid it. I’m talking, of course, about the army of Twitter bots that Fine Gael have employed to post positive responses to each of their tweets. The claim has been doing... Wed, 01 Apr 2020 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2020-04-01-fine-gael/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2020-04-01-fine-gael/ Nominative determinism is the idea that people gravitate towards professions which align with their names: Mr/s Baker becoming a baker, Usain Bolt becoming a runner, and so on. While it is often little more than an amusing coincidence, the perceived ability of names to shape our destinies has led some... Thu, 03 Oct 2019 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2019-10-03-all-the-presidents-boys/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2019-10-03-all-the-presidents-boys/ In Thinking Fast and Slow Daniel Kahnemann and Amos Tversky outlined an experiment in which they asked participants to place their hand in a bowl of cold water. In one trial they were asked to remove their hand after 60 seconds and rate the discomfort they suffered. In the other,... Fri, 12 Jul 2019 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2019-07-12-last-impressions/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2019-07-12-last-impressions/ Last year, I wrote about the evolving nature of the writing staff as a possible reason for post-golden-age decline of The Simpsons. While I’d hesitate to argue a causal relationship, the decline in episode ratings did appear to correspond roughly to a change in the writing staff. Nevertheless, there are... Thu, 30 May 2019 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2019-05-30-simpsons-cameos/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2019-05-30-simpsons-cameos/ The Reddit community /r/AmITheAsshole has a simple premise: users describe a particular situation in their lives and others respond with their opinion of whether the original poster (OP) was the asshole in the situation. A vote is made using a set of initialisms: NTA - ‘not the asshole’: the OP... Thu, 04 Apr 2019 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2019-04-04-am-i-the-asshole/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2019-04-04-am-i-the-asshole/ One of the many words The Simpsons has given to us is Flanderisation—the gradual erosion of the nuances of a character until they become little more than a parody of themselves. Although, of course, named after Ned Flanders the term has found use in a number of other works; TV... Thu, 07 Mar 2019 13:00:00 -0800 http://www.nathancunn.com/2019-03-07-simpsons-flanderisation/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2019-03-07-simpsons-flanderisation/ The prospect of a foldable phone/tablet combo has been causing a stir lately, thanks to Samsung teasing their latest innovation: a phone that unfolds into a tablet. While I don’t particularly fancy one of these devices—not that I could afford one—I can appreciate the technological feats that they are. However,... Fri, 09 Nov 2018 14:00:00 -0800 http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-11-09-foldable-phones/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-11-09-foldable-phones/ Around this time last year, I wrote a post dissecting the decline of The Simpsons from its peak in the mid 90s finding that the golden age of the show spanned an incredible 214 episodes. As a comparison, Friends, which seemed to have been on TV forever, managed 236 episodes... Sun, 21 Oct 2018 14:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-10-21-simpsons-writers/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-10-21-simpsons-writers/ It’s April 5th, the deadline for reporting gender pay gap figures passed last night and your company reported a mean gender pay gap of 23.6%. Already the tabloids are baying for blood and a trending hashtag on Twitter is calling for the boycott of your company’s products. As the headlines... Wed, 22 Aug 2018 14:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-08-22-gender-pay-gap/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-08-22-gender-pay-gap/ Updated June 3 2021 Like many others are doing at this time, I’m sure, my friends and I are trying to coordinate a sweepstakes for the upcoming Euro 2021. For anyone unaware, the general format of a Euros sweepstakes is: 24 people (or some factor, thereof) pledge an equal sum... Fri, 01 Jun 2018 11:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-06-01-world-cup-sweepstakes/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-06-01-world-cup-sweepstakes/ Has there ever been a better case of nominative determinism than a man named Arsene becoming manager of Arsenal, setting the league alight, before ultimately leaving the club like a burning building? The literal seconds of thinking I devoted to that assure me the answer is no. After 22 years... Tue, 15 May 2018 12:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-05-15-wenger/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-05-15-wenger/ I’ve noticed a lot of indignation lately towards the perceived change in how Ryanair allocates seats. For those unfamiliar with budget airline policies, Ryanair assigns you a seat at random unless you pay a charge—typically between €4 and €10. The ire has been directed at the claim that Ryanair have... Fri, 20 Apr 2018 13:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-04-20-ryanair-seats/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-04-20-ryanair-seats/ I’m one of those annoying people who make Simpsons references at any and every opportunity. In fact, in recent years I reckon my main interaction with the show has been making obscure references to it rather than actually watching episodes. I’m the worst, I know, but, I also know I’m... Sun, 21 Jan 2018 14:00:00 -0800 http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-01-21-best-simpsons/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-01-21-best-simpsons/ People really love alcohol at Christmas. Or, at the very least they love searching for alcohol at Christmas. In each of the last five years, the search volume for some of the most popular alcoholic spirits has peaked dramatically around the week of Christmas. Is this what people mean when... Thu, 07 Dec 2017 14:00:00 -0800 http://www.nathancunn.com/2017-12-07-christmas-spirit/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2017-12-07-christmas-spirit/ I promised myself I wouldn’t do this again. I promised it after writing this article 3 years ago and I promised it again when I wrote a corrected less incorrect version last year. But, then I discovered FiveThirtyEight’s How the Internet Talks project and couldn’t resist trying to answer this... Fri, 24 Nov 2017 14:00:00 -0800 http://www.nathancunn.com/2017-11-24-christmas-reddit/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2017-11-24-christmas-reddit/ It’d be difficult to argue against the fact that The Simpsons isn’t quite the show it once was. Even just a quick glance at the IMDb ratings is enough to see that the show is routinely not hitting the highs it did so regularly in the earlier seasons. I’d suggest... Thu, 26 Oct 2017 14:00:00 -0700 http://www.nathancunn.com/2017-10-26-simpsons-decline/ http://www.nathancunn.com/2017-10-26-simpsons-decline/