Russell Atkinson's Blog, page 34
September 13, 2021
Baby name trends – downward
My last post showed those baby names that gained the most in popularity from 2017 to 2020. Today I show those that plummeted the farthest.
Boys’ names that gained the most in popularity from 2017 to 2020
Name
2017
rank
2020
rank
Gavin
96
141
Brayden
72
111
Bryson
86
115
Chase
94
123
Jason
92
119
Ayden
99
122
Connor
56
78
Sawyer
95
116
Evan
85
105
Nicholas
68
87
Girls’ names that gained the most in that period
Alexa
65
230
Aubree
86
156
Samantha
54
90
Adeline
64
100
Arianna
87
123
Kaylee
84
117
Savannah
38
67
Isabelle
92
121
Aubrey
31
56
Sarah
62
87
I notice a few things of interest here. First, the boys’ names that dropped the most tended to be ones not in the very most popular to start with, at least compared to the girls’ names. In other words, boys’ names don’t follow trends quite as much. The popular ones stay popular longer. another thing I noticed is that the biggest drops appear to be related to current events. I can’t help but feel the drop for Gavin is related to California Gavin Newsom (although there are some very popular YouTubers named Gavin). As for Alexa, I’m compelled to conclude that it’s related to the Amazon device of that name. It may be as simple as parents who have one not wanting the device to respond every time they call their daughter by name. One other oddity that caught my attention is how many of these girls’ names begin with A. If you look at the last post, not a single one of the big gainers started with A, yet four began with E. Curious.
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Baby naming trends – upward
A couple of years ago about what baby names were trending upward or downward. At that time the most recent Social Security data was from 2017. Now the 2020 baby name data is out, so I thought I’d update that post. After all, trends tend to be very … trendy. If you just want to know what baby names are the most popular, there are plenty of sites online for that, include the Social Security site . What I’m more interested in are the names that are rapidly gaining or falling in favor. So here goes.
Boys’ names that gained the most in popularity from 2017 to 2020
Name
2017
rank
2020
rank
Theodore
61
23
Maverick
84
49
Asher
59
32
Leo
62
36
Ezra
69
44
Elias
78
53
Mateo
42
20
Hudson
64
42
Santiago
93
71
Jameson
100
79
Girls’ names that gained the most in that period
Gianna
91
12
Nova
94
38
Everly
82
43
Emilia
77
40
Eliana
88
53
Willow
81
48
Luna
37
14
Valentina
95
73
Naomi
69
52
Ellie
44
29
In my next post, I’ll show you the biggest losers.
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September 9, 2021
A bit of kindness
A nice thing happened this morning. It was a very small thing, but sometimes that means a lot even so. We had two toters out at the curb for the garbage trucks to collect. One toter was for garbage, the other for recycling. The garbage one was picked up first. The truck that does the job has extension claws that reach out, grab the toter, lift it to dump the contents into the truck and put it back down. All that happened normally, except the toter was put down wrong and it ended up a long way out from the curb into the street.
Later, as I was passing by the front window, I noticed this and went out to retrieve it and put it back by the side of the house. As I got there, I saw the next truck coming by for the other toter. It was only one house away. I realized that the first toter was in the way of the truck and the driver would have had to drive around it awkwardly, or get out and move that toter to reach the second. So I hurried over and hauled that toter back beside the house. As I turned around to go back out for the second toter, I noticed the truck backing up with the empty recycling toter in its claws. The driver deposited it at the foot of my driveway instead of where it had been. This saved me about 50 feet of walking (25 extra each way). He had appreciated that I moved the first toter out of his way and was reciprocating by saving me a few steps. I waved and he drove on.
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September 3, 2021
We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen
We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I was trying to find a good sci-fi book, but ended up instead with this poorly-written overlong fantasy story. The best that can be said about it is that could possibly be a script for the worst ever episode of Star Trek. The author clearly has no knowledge of science and made no attempt to provide even remotely plausible physical events. The story could have been told using zombies or fairies instead of androids. It takes place in a spaceship on a mysterious uncharted planet, but that’s about as close to science fiction as it gets. The rest is junior high school level squabbles among the crew and a sort of half-assed mind melding. To top it off, the font was too small, with too little white space (i.e. little dialogue and narrow margins) and at 351 pages was obviously a 500-page book crammed down to fit commercially viable size. At least 400 of those pages could easily have been done away with. After the first 100 pages or so I skimmed very liberally, but I did finish it. Why, I don’t know.
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August 29, 2021
What3Words is coming to America
I learned recently that the British location system, What3Words, has been adopted by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to assist in dispatching. I have posted about W3W in this blog several times before. Check out and to learn more about it and have some fun.
This time I thought it would be fun to try to find the location of some ordinary products using W3W. I’ve discovered that:
Foster.Grant.glasses can be found just off Highway 50 near Dodge City Kansas.
To get a Chase.Bank.Visa you should visit the Nature Center at Crawley, England. For that you’d first need a United.Airlines.ticket and for that you’ll need to cross a few miles into Saskatchewan.
For a Home.Depot.hammer or General.Motors.vehicle, on the other hand, you’ll need to go all the way to Australia.
Quite a few Fortune 100 companies have valid W3W names. Check these out:
United Health GroupInternational Business MachinesExpress Scripts HoldingUnited Parcel ServiceMarathon Petroleum Corporation
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August 27, 2021
New crossword Seeing Double
Seeing Double
Click on the image to work the puzzle online, or download the PDF file here: Seeing Double
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August 20, 2021
What Unites Us by Dan Rather
What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism by Dan Rather
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
In this humblebrag Rather relates the lessons he has learned from his upbringing in rural Texas through his lengthy career as a network news reporter and anchor. Much, nearly all, in fact, is stuff on which virtually everyone can agree: we should work together as a nation and as fellow citizens (“Why can’t we all just get along”), war is hell, there are many people in this country and everywhere who are very poor, very sick, or otherwise have been dealt a bad hand in life, etc.
I don’t take issue with these self-evident truths, but I find Rather’s delivery of them to be grating and unnecessary. If he had the cult following of Donald Trump or some fundamentalist preacher, say, perhaps it would do some good for him to put out a book with these sentiments. He might actually persuade some people. Instead, he just comes across as preachy and self-promoting. This is particularly futile because he also comes across as not that bright. He talks with pride about having attended an obscure Texas teachers’ college and being bad at science. He may find these traits endearing to the public but it serves only to undermine one’s confidence in what he has to say. I listened to the audiobook, which he narrates, and he often mispronounces words, just as he used to do as the CBS anchor. At least we are spared the cutsie Texas homilies he used to scatter in those broadcasts. In the end, though, it’s a quick read or listen and the content is probably worth being reminded of from time to time even if there’s nothing profound in it.
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August 18, 2021
Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert
Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author has penned a book that is at the same time disturbing, engaging, and hopeful. It is not just a book about climate change, although that plays a big part. It is, rather, about scientists’ various attempts to undo man’s damage to our environment by making other changes, perhaps more radical and damaging. It begins, for example, with current efforts to introduce non-native species to control other, previously introduced non-native species. One thing I learned on the hopeful side is that Asian carp, considered an invasive species in the U.S., make good eating. Let’s all dig in.
The style of writing is surprisingly entertaining and almost in the form of a travelogue. She describes where she went, how she got there, whom she talked to, and what the surroundings were like. She has a knack for description. She isn’t preachy. She doesn’t seem to promote a view of her own; rather she presents what scientists, scholars, and technologists have told her and does so in a balanced manner. She gives equal voice to those who contradict and oppose others whose work she has just described. It’s clear she has no idea whether or not some of the more radical ideas proposed should be carried out. What is clear is that radical change on a massive scale is ahead. If we do nothing to change our human behavior, or otherwise intervene, climate change and all the “natural” disasters it entails will continue. If we take some of the steps recommended by some in the book, we could start a cascade of unfortunate and unforeseen events on a global scale. Or, nature could send us a surprise – a pandemic that would make Covid look like the sniffles, a series of world-blanketing volcanic eruptions, another ice age, the magnetic poles switching, Greenland’s ice sheet, or the Ross Ice Shelf breaking free and raising the worldwide sea level overnight by hundreds of feet. The book presents no moral, no plan for how to proceed, but makes for fascinating reading.
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August 15, 2021
Our Watershed Moment
The period 2020 – 2021 is a watershed moment in the history of mankind. That’s my opinion. You may object that a two-year period isn’t a “moment,” but in geological and evolutionary terms, it most certainly is a mere instant.
I say it is such a moment because so many things have drastically changed in a very short period of time, locally, nationally, globally, and ecologically. I see so many signs of this change. The IPCC report on global warming issued three days ago is truly frightening and disheartening. It outlines in stark black and white the irreversible effects of climate change, including worsening droughts, forest fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, cold snaps and floods. The Trump presidency, and in particular, his insurgency and attempted coup, have threatened democracy itself. The very nature of human governance is teetering on the brink. The 2020 U.S. Census has just revealed significant demographic changes here in America and the same appears to be happening in Europe.
Perhaps most obvious is the Covid pandemic. This has upset so many people’s lives that businesses and households have made major changes. I have never known so many people to decide to move in such a short time. Friends who have lived in the same place for decades are now relocating. This includes retirees who, I thought, had long ago settled in the area where they want to spend their final days. Not so, it seems. It includes my own son, who loves his job and is very well paid here in Silicon Valley, but has decided to move for a better work-life balance at lower pay elsewhere. It includes my next door neighbor, the one who moved out and the family who is now moving in. It includes the migrants and refugees on the southern border. I believe people all over the world are rethinking their priorities in light of a dangerous and uncertain time ahead.
I have no panacea and no advice other than to point out it may be time for you to re-evaluate your own personal situation and make a change now rather than wait.
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August 11, 2021
For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose
For All the Tea in China: Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula for the World’s Favourite Drink by Sarah Rose
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Rose has penned a journeyman work about an interesting historical character that I knew nothing about previously. I suspect the same is true for you. Robert Fortune was an English botanist who was dispatched to China to acquire tea plants and seeds to be transplanted in the Indian Himalayas, which England then controlled. This was to strip China of its monopoly on high quality tea. It was more than a mere botanical research excursion. Fortune would have been killed had his identity and purpose been made known. He traveled incognito, disguised as a Manchurian mandarin, and met with some exciting adventures and misadventures. The author relates these quite well, with a dash of flair.
I’m a bit lukewarm about the book largely because I am lukewarm about tea. It’s okay as a beverage, although I can’t tell Darjeeling from Earl Grey from Orange Pekoe. To me it’s pretty much just bitter hot water, just as beer is just bitter cold water. I don’t like the taste or effects of tea any more than those of alcohol. It mystifies me why either is so popular, so a story about stealing the secret to tea is akin to, say, stealing the secret to producing licorice. Still, the adventures in the books were a pleasant and unexpected bonus.
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