Halloween Aftermath: Candy Stats

frets — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 22:32:55 +0000

I woke up this morning to the joyful sound of my 3 kids sorting and trading their Halloween loot. They had meticulously sorted their candy by type (even my 6 year-old), and gave me the idea for what you see here. We talked about the various ways we could analyze this “data,” and the kids were pretty into it. Of course, now that I’ve been banging away at Excel for a couple of hours, they’re nowhere to be found…

It is amazing to me that in a 2-2.5 hour timespan, they collected nearly 11 pounds of candy! Equally impressive is the fact that each kid collected around .43 lbs. of candy per year of their age (I wanted to find a way to level the playing field but was surprised when it actually came out level). There are some great findings here, including the fact that the old standby Tootsie Rolls ruled the pumpkin over newer, “cooler” candies like Skittles or Starbursts. There is also the surprise (to me) that 40% of the brand candy they got was from Mars (over Hershey, Nestle, and Tootsie).

Check out the full analysis below (select the image to see it full size).

A Tale of Two Cars

frets — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:20:11 +0000

Last year, I sold my sports car for a Honda Fit. I wanted to do something with all this mileage data I collect, so I thought comparing a full year of ownership for each car would be fun. Little did I know how much money I’m saving since I sold that car (I guess I had a little luck with the timing). Not surprisingly, the Fit gets ridiculously better mileage. (I’ve also learned some hypermiling techniques which have helped in that regard.) Click for the full size image.

Comparing mileage data and gas $ spent on two different cars

Box of Data » personal data

Halloween Aftermath: Candy Stats

A Tale of Two Cars