statistics

i like doing surveys. i like doing those meme things where you tell everyone random things about yourself. and, yes, i liked doing the census last night. dave, on the other hand, went into autorant mode and got cranky about the government being nosy. despite this i did manage to get him to fill in his bit of the census so i felt like i achieved something.

so i'm a nerd. i like statistics. even when they don't seem to mean anything, i just have a curiosity about these things and finding patterns in random data (not enough to be really passionate about it, you understand, it's more a passing fancy). in a very dubious segue, saw this (via neil) and although the stats are US, it's a pretty nifty little thing, if you've ever been remotely interested in things like how popular your name is. good for procrastination.

so, in news just to hand, we discover that 'rebecca' was the 13th most popular name in the 70s. it was 82nd last year. also the spelling 'rebekah' had a big spike in the 80s and 90s, which probably has less to do with people wanting the biblical spelling as just wanting something that looks a bit 'different' (along with everyone else...remember my fondness for this site?) however, it disturbs me greatly that the spelling 'rebeca' is becoming more common...