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The Definitive Halloween Candy Hierarchy

A HISTORY It began, as all things do, with a geology joke. We ranked candy based on their ability to elicit “joy” or “despair” and then worked in that ranking in various geological strata, both real and imagined. The strata, not the ranking. This started in 2006, and grew from there. At the beginning, we…

TELL US ABOUT YOUR HALLOWEEN CANDY PREFERENCES, AND OTHER THINGS BESIDES

With so many costumes adorning this election season, you might think the Halloween get-ups are overkill. Think again, because David Ng and B.R. Cohen are here to present the official universal survey about your candy favorites for the 2016 hierarchical delineation of candy virtue. There’s the stuff about science, and ranking, and surveys, and strata, we say that every year. There’s the extra layer about experimental proof, rigorous data analysis, metrics of repeatability. Got it, we got it. – – – So we’re here are again. Last year was a kind of game changer in the candy ranking industry. We…

2015 CANDY HIERARCHY: SUPPLEMENTAL RAW DATA AND NEW ANALYSES

PREAMBLE: This is for you data nerds who might want to dig into the data a little deeper (we didn’t have a lot of time to play around with it). We’ve provided access to the full excel spreadsheet (which also includes data that was cut off from our analysis due to us having to get started earlier for today’s piece on BoingBoing), as well as the ongoing data published via google sheets. We’re essentially hoping that with more rigorous analysis of the data, we might be able to find out whether there are statistically relevant differences in how different folks…

SCIENCEGEEK ADVENT CALENDAR EXTRAVAGANZA! (DAY 23)

SANTA BREAKS SILENCE TO DISPUTE RIDICULOUS CLAIMS BY SCIENTISTS THAT HE DOESN’T EXIST (By Murray Brozinsky) For Immediate Release North Pole – December 12, 2011 – Against advice from Mrs. Claus and 62% of the elves, Santa Claus today excoriated what he called the irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric of overeducated physicists with nothing better to do than employ fancy mathematical equations in an effort to deny children a sense of wonder. I am beside myself, Santa said. Literally, I’m standing next to myself. How can the supposed brilliant and creative minds at Fermilab not only question my existence but proclaim…

SCIENCEGEEK ADVENT CALENDAR EXTRAVAGANZA! (DAY 21)

IS THERE A SANTA? (By Paul Clarkson) Being a scientific investigation of a cultural conundrum Soon it will be Christmas Eve, and once more children will be divided into distinct factions. Here, Cyr [1] described younger children (12 years) who have ditched this ‘childish’ belief. But he fails, by excluding from his questionnaire, to describe a third group who aren’t really sure – the undecided voters if you like. And as the eldest child, I have spent a large part of my life in this group. Moreover, being scientifically minded even at the age 7, I of course approached this…

SCIENCEGEEK ADVENT CALENDAR EXTRAVAGANZA! (DAY 20)

THE CELESTIAL SNOW ANGEL (catalogue entry: Sharpless 2-106 | Sh2-106) “The Celestial Snow Angel (catalogued as Sharpless 2-106 or Sh2-106),[2] is an emission nebula and a star formation region in the constellation Cygnus. It is a H II region estimated to be around 2,000 ly (600 pc) from Earth, in an isolated area of the Milky Way. In the center of the nebula is a young and massive star that emits jets of hot gas from its poles, forming the bipolar structure. Dust surrounding the star is also ionized by the star. The nebula spans about 2 light-years across.” Text…