Articles in category: data

Delete Facebook

7 January 2024 - As per tradition, I’ve created another Google search volume chart suggesting that people not only make New Year’s resolutions to quit smoking, but also to delete Facebook. This time, I’ve also included a line for people searching how to delete Twitter (as yet, few people seem to search for ‘delete X’).

Selecting neighbourhoods for surveillance

3 January 2023 - A number of Dutch municipalities target specific neighbourhoods for surveillance, which may include house searches. An analysis shows that targeted municipalities tend to be among the poorest neighbourhoods in the municipality they were selected from, and among the neighbourhoods with the highest share of people with a non-western background.

Weather data

16 February 2022 - Hourly weather data is available from observations, but also from models that estimate local weather conditions - a bit like weather forecasts for the past. In this article, I compare estimates from Oikolab and ERA5 to observations from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), for three locations in the Netherlands.

Delete Facebook

30 December 2021 - Every year when it’s time for New Year’s resolutions, there’s a spike in google searches for ‘quit smoking’, but an even bigger spike in searches for ‘delete facebook’. An update.

Changing the Dutch electoral system

2 October 2020 - The Dutch government plans to change the way in which representatives, including Members of Parliament, are elected. The number of votes candidates get will play a larger role in deciding who gets elected. I’ll explore how this might impact candidates by gender, incumbency, and where they live.