Briefly

• Ok, it’s not statistics as such, but you have to see the mash-up of the Cyclone Lusi animation and Van Gogh’s Starry Night, by @bobsyouruncle

• Cathy at Mathbabe.org on survey questions, pointing out that the sun does too go around the earth.

• Buzzfeed says “According To Pornhub, The South Watches More Gay Porn Than Any Other Part Of The U.S.” The point, for those of you not up on US sociogeography, is that the South is religiously conservative.  It turns out that’s not really what the data say. The figures aren’t % of men who watch gay porn, they are % of porn that is gay male. The data are equally consistent with straight guys in religiously conservative states watching very slightly less porn than those in other states. Data on total porn consumption are mixed.

• ProPublica, the non-profit, public-interest journalism foundation in the US, are setting up a data shop. Data that they could just download, they’ll make available for free, but the data that took a lot of effort will cost. Interesting to see this as a data journalism funding model.

• From ProPublica, a good example of simple arithmetic applied to unreasonable claims.

Since 2009, Dagogo-Jack has been paid at least $257,000 by Glaxo, Lilly and Merck.

“If you actually prorate that by the hours put in, it is barely more than minimum wage,” he said. (A person earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 would have to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week for more than four years to earn Dagogo-Jack’s fees.)