100 Books Sold and Rosie's Bookapalooza on October 22-24

After a successful book signing at IUP's homecoming two weeks ago, I reached 100 sales of my book Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers.  This weekend coming up I will be selling my book at Rosie's Bookapalooza this weekend at the Community Arts Center of Cambria County.  It will run from Friday Oct. 22 from 10am-5pm to Sat, Oct 23 and Sun, Oct 24 from 10am-3pm.  Five other local authors will be there.

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My Presentation at the Writers Association of Northern Appalachia and the Upcoming Festival of Books in the Alleghenies

 

Hi all, I know that I have been away. I had my presentation at the virtual Writers Association of Northern Appalachia last Saturday.  You can see it above.  Also, this Saturday, Sept.18, I will be at the Festival of Books in the Alleghenies in Ebensburg, PA with 40 other local authors from many genres.  There will be something for everyone.  Come on down!!

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Press Release for Festival of Books in the Alleghenies

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

 

Local Author Selected For Regional Festival

(Ebensburg, PA) This year, Ebensburg will be host to The Festival of Books in the Alleghenies which will be held on Saturday, September 18, 2021 from 9AM until 4PM in Historic Ebensburg. This 4th annual regional festival is free to attend and will feature about 50 authors, local music, a children's area, writing workshops and storytellers. Proceeds from the festival will benefit county literacy initiatives. The Festival is a fund under the Community Foundation of the Alleghenies.

Local author, Paul Ricci, has been selected to be one of the authors at this year’s event. Ricci is a statistician who was born and lives in Johnstown, PA. He tracks coronavirus numbers for Cambria County, loves bicycling, and teaches at Pennsylvania Highlands Community College. He also blogs on statistics and a wide variety of issues at CSI without Dead Bodies (https://www.csiwithoutdeadbodies.com/). The title is a pun on the TV Show CSI.

 

For more information visit the event webpage at https://festivalofbooks.org/

 

###

Hope to see you all on Sept. 18

I Will Be Presenting my Book at Classic Elements and the Writers Association of Northern Appalachia Conference

I will be presenting my book Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers at the annual writers conference of the Writers Association of Northern Appalachia. It will be in Wheeling, WV on September 10-12 at Oglebay Park.

I will also be presenting my book at Classic Elements in Johnstown on July 10th at 1PM.  It's on Main St. in downtown Johnstown.  I'm looking forward to meeting you all at both events.

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An Online discussion of Coronavirus Numbers in Cambria County

On Tuesday, January 19, In This Together: Cambria County had a beautiful candle light vigil on the river wall by the stone bridge in Johnstown.  There was one candle for each of the 340 people who died from the corona virus in Cambria County since the pandemic began as of that day.  There have been 14 deaths in the county since then as of this writing.

In This Together: Cambria was organized as a response to the skyrocketing case and death rate in the county.  They have partnered with The Tribune-Democrat, the 1889 Foundation, Conemaugh Health System, and others.  They have held online events to inform the public on COVID-19 and vaccines and a spiritual prayer service for the holidays.

The next online event that In This Together will be having will be this coming Tuesday, January 26 at 7PM.  It is titled COVID Questions: By the Numbers.  I will be presenting the data that I have collected from Johns-Hopkins online dashboard, from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, and from other sources.  Chip Minemyer, editor of the Tribune Democrat, will be Dr. Jill Henning, PhD will present on the biology of the Coronavirus.  Tulsi Shrivastava will include will be stories of victims of the pandemic to show the human side of the pandemic in the county.  The event will be livestreamed on Zoom at https://pitt.zoom.us/j/94911790258 and at the In This Together Facebook page.  You will be able to ask questions of the other panelists and I.  The taped event will be available on YouTube.  Up coming events will be:

• February 9: Mental Health
• February 23: Specialists Forum
• March 9: Local Leaders
• March 23: Economic Impact
• April 6: Education

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My book is now out in local bookstores and can be ordered at Made in Somerset County, PA.  It is now available to purchase at Classic Elements on Main Street, the Bottle Works in Cambria City, the Chameleon Bookstore next to Central Park in Johnstown, AT Merchant in the Galleria Mall, the Book Nook in Indiana, PA, and IUP's bookstore.  I am working on getting it into more book stores.  The book tells the story of Johnstown with numbers. It looks at trends in population, politics, health, education, social media, and in non-profits.

The book will not be available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble for order.  Jeff Bezos has enough money.  This blog already shows Amazon Books through their affiliate program. 

In addition to my work on the book, the group Put People First will have its annual Medicaid March in Downtown Johnstown on September 29.  The flyer is listed below.  Next week will be the tenth anniversary post for this blog.

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My Book is at the Printing Press

 

After a year and a half of writing my book, Wuthering Depths in Johnstown: By the Numbers, has now gone to press and a release date will be set soon.  The book is being self published through the Somerset Daily American (Jeff Bezos has enough money).  Details to come.

It is a profile of the city of Johnstown as told by the numbers that are publicly available.  Some of it began with posts from this blog that relate to the city of Johnstown (some of which are in the related posts below).  The rest of it came from my sources such as the census bureau and other government sources and from other research projects.  Its release should come close to the tenth anniversary of this blog which is next month.  Further details to come.

Thanks to Eric Luden for the cover and back cover art, to The Johnstown Area Heritage Association, and to Nicholas Brisini, Michael Giazzoni, Jessica Maniccia Smith, and Lloyd Stires for their advice on editing.

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Top Ten Posts of 2019

As 2019 comes to a close I thought I would imitate other media news outlets and look at the top 10 posts on this site in terms of the number of page views.  The majority of the posts came in the early part of this year and in the later part.  Posts made before 2019 are included in this list.

1. Differences between Johnstown, Westmont, and Richland School Districts in Special Education

This post was on changes in enrollment and in those needing special education services in the Greater Johnstown, Westmont, and Richland School Districts.  It was posted in November.  Enrollment has decreased in all three districts while African-American enrollment has increased in Johnstown.

2. Vote for the Best Nonfiction Books of All Time

This post was made in November 2018 to introduce the poll for the greatest nonfiction book of all time.  So far the Origin of Species is leading.

3. A Documentary on African Americans in Johnstown

This post from May of this year presents a documentary on the migratin of African Americans to Johnstown.

4. Con Man Carnicella

This post from October looks at the propaganda campaign against the local candidate for Cambria County Commissioner, Jerry Carnicella.  He lost.

5.  The Civil War in a Larger International Historical Context

This post is from May 2011 the oldest post on this list.  It talks about how the conflict in the US is reflected in similar conflicts in Italy, Germany and Japan.

6.  A look at the Number of PA Abuser Priests Identified by the Grand Jury

I took a look at the numbers of abuser priests identified by Pennsylvania grand juries and adjusting them for the size of the populations that they serve in each of their respective Dioceses.  Cambria County had by far the most adjusting for population.

7.  Holiday Poverty Estimates from the Census Bureau: Johnstown SD Ranks 84th Nationally

 

This post from a few weeks ago showed how endemic the problem of poverty has become in the Greater Johnstown School District (GJSD) compared to the neighboring districts of Westmont, Richland, and Ferndale.  Nationally it ranks 84th out of 13,207 school districts.

8.  The 1st Anniversary of My Online Nonfiction Poll

This post is a follow up to the second ranked post on this list.  It is from November and gives the results up to Nov 24 of this year.

9.  Does playing in the NFL help a head coach? Not in the Playoffs

This is the first post of 2019.  It compared elite coaches in the NFL who played in the NFL (ie. Chuck Noll, Don Shula, and Tom Landry) to ones who did not (Vince Lombardi, Bill Belichick, and Jimmy Johnson).  It found that they were equal in the regular season but the one who did not play had better records in the playoffs and won more championships.

10.  Holiday Poverty Estimates for Johnstown and Cambria County

This is the next to last post of the year.  It was a follow up post to the seventh most popular post on this list.  It looked at trends in the city, county, state, and US in poverty and median income.  The gap between the county and the city and the state and the US is growing.





For this list, two of the posts were made before 2019 and six of them were on the City of Johnstown and the surrounding area.  Of the eight posts made this year, three were made in the first half of the year.  This blog almost completely covers the 2010s.  In September I will have the tenth anniversary post looking at it's all time most popular posts.

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I Figli della Madre Terra (The Children of Mother Earth)

Buon Natale a tutti.  My cousin from Italy, Lorenzo Serpente (pictured below in the Clayfox  and Spider man shirt) has written a book called I Figli della Madre Terra or The Children of Mother Earth.  It is a science fiction/fantasy/coming of age story of a boy growing up in a prehistoric tribe.  In January there will be an English version of the story available on Amazon.  I have met several authors who have published books.  A few are listed below with links to their amazon pages.

Lorenzo ora (Lorenzo Now)

Merry Christmas to all.  Il Mio cugino d'Italia, Lorenzo Serpente (nella camicia "Clayfox" sotto) ha scritto un Libro I Figli della Madre Terra) una storia di un ragazzo alla prima della storia in un tribu`.  Si puo` comprare il Libro al Amazon.  Conosco molti auroti chi fanno libri.  Tre di quelle altri autori sono sotto in questo posto con un link al Amazon.

Lorenzo quando ho incontrato lui

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Christmas Update

The past few weeks have been rough.  I battled the flu, worked.  I have been writing for other online publications.  I have two posts on The Hill Talk, one is on new hate crime data from FBI while the other is on new data from the Census Bureau on poverty in every county in the US.  I also published on the website datadrivenjournalism.net  on how logistic regression can be used by data journalists to investigate relationships between a categorical outcome and more than one predictor variables.

I should have more time to elaborate on these posts later this holiday.  I'll leave you with this video I took at the Midnight Mass at the Cathedral in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2015.

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Seven Years of CSIwoDB

Usually for my anniversary posts I look at the web traffic statistics for the site.  This year I thought I would take stock of where the blog is and where it will go.

Seven years ago I began the blog by conducting data driven journalism before I had even heard of the term.  This year I have been outsourcing my writing skills to the websites Data Driven Journalism, Kolabtree, and The Hill Talk.  These opportunities are nice.  However it takes a long time to put together data driven posts.  Opinion pieces like this one are a lot less time consuming to write.  

This blog was created to fulfill three purposes.  

• To educate people on how statistics can help people to see patterns that aren't easy to see with the naked eye.
• To keep my statistical skills sharp.
• To showcase my skills when I am not working.

After seven years I have had some success on these fronts.  My all time most read post was linked to on the BBC webpage for the program The Joy of Stats and still gets views on the web.  I already spoke on the outside columns that I am making.  There is more and more competition for eyeballs on the web however but at the same time there are more and more eyeballs too.  Sometimes it seems like I'm a voice crying out in the wilderness but it's still necessary to cry out.

On the second point I feel that it has kept my skills sharp for the skills I learned in school. There have been methods that have come out since then that I have not learned such as natural language processing.  Regardless of the new methods that come out it is still important to stress the basics.

I have had more work this year (though most of it unpaid) and I have less time to post so I will have less time to post here at least until my city council campaign ends on November 7. II did get the above note placed under my windshield wiper recently that I had to share with you all.

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Organizing a chapter of Healthcare 4 All PA for Cambria and Surrounding Counties

One way of keeping the Momentum from the primary going is to advocate for the causes that we care about. One of our Single payer healthcare which covers everyone while controlling costs and is used in almost every industrialized country except our own.

Healthcare 4 All PA is an organization advocating for a Single Payer here in Pennsylvania. On Tuesday, May 24 at 7pm there will be an organizing meeting at the PRESS Bistro where we will learn about the organization and brainstorm about activities. Anyone in the area is welcome.  For more information on the state organization see http://www.healthcare4allpa.org/ 

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The 5th Anniversary of CSI wo DB: Top 25 All Time Posts

The fifth anniversary of this blog coincides with the end of the series that inspired it's name. Because of this momentous event, instead of a top 10 all time post list I thought I would do a top 25 list out of 250 posts so lets get started.  This should give a good sampling of the posts on the blog.

25. Pennsylvania Medicaid Expansion and Legislature Polarization


Pennsylvania's last Governor dragged his feet on expanding medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.  The new governor has reversed himself but a lot of other governors haven't.

24.  Titanic Perspective

The 100th anniversary of that cursed ships sinking made me think of other disasters that have been forgotten. 

23. Morality as a Mathematical Equation

The earliest post on this list was on a discussion of how morality can be evaluated like a mathematical equation.

22. Habemus Resegnum - We have a resignation

Pope Francis became the 266th successor of St. Peter after Benedict XVI abdicated.  Here is a look at the Papacy.

21.  The David Roberts Family Fund

Last year my friend from Hartford died from brain cancer.  A site was set up for his family to cover medical expenses.  I talked about how they shouldn't have to be begging for money for this purpose.  You can still donate to their paypal account here.

20.  An In Depth Look at a Mindfulness and Stress Study

An old classmate of mine from Hartford had an article in the Huffington post on how mindfulness can reduce stress.  I discussed her study here.

19. Season's Shootings

A response to the terrible shootings that occurred about the same time as the Newtown Shootings.

18. Olympic Medal Counts Still Reflect National Power (or the Need for it) 

As the title of this post says, a look at how Olympic medal counts reflect a nations power.

17.  Ruth Institute - Making Marriage Cool (In the US but not Scandinavia)

A response to a question I asked about the effect of Scandinavian social programs on marriage.

16. A Statistical Profile of the Uninsured in Washington, DC, New Mexico, and Texas

How do uninsured rates relate to health outcomes for these three outlier states?

15. A Geographical Representation of the Mode and Ethnicity

A look at methods of displaying descriptive statistics in geographic form.

14. Controversy over the New Psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

The American Psychiatric Assn caused controversy when they decided to remove Asperger's Syndrome from the DSM-V and place it on the Autism spectrum

13.  The World Wars and Today's Wars

A look at how World Wars I & II relate to the current troubles in the Middle East.

12. Correlation with the Number of Hate Groups per Million, Poor Health Suggests More Hate

In a follow up to the post on the concentration of hate groups (seen further down on this list), I looked at the correlation between the concentration of hate groups in each state and their health outcomes.

11. Bullying & Society

In this post I argue that bullying in schools is merely a reflection of ills in the larger society.

10. Lance Armstrong's Doping Claim: A Probabilistic Calculation

When Lance Armstrong was still claiming innocence of blood doping I thought I would apply probability theory to his claim.  This is the post with the longest average time per view.

9. 2013 Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates Are Out for School Districts and Counties in PA

A look at local poverty rates in my home state of Pennsylvania.

8. A Kinder, Gentler Looney Tunes

Warner Brothers tried to modernize the Looney Tunes characters.  I thought it had promise but it didn't last.

7. Top 10 Worst Super Bowls of All Time 

We are used to thrilling Super Bowls today but there was a time when the game rarely lived up to the hype.

6. Two Years Ago in Stanton Heights

In 2009, three policemen were killed by a right wing extremist about a mile from where I live.  I gave a profile of the neighborhood where it happened.

5. Hitler, Napoleon, and Stalin: Outsider Despots

Hitler and Napoleon are often compared.  I argue that there is also considerable overlap between those two and Josef Stalin.

4. The Civil War in a Larger International Historical Context

With the 150th anniversary of the Civil War these past 4 years I thought it would be helpful looking at in with similar conflicts in Italy, Germany and Japan which would have repercussions for later conflicts..

3. A Wave of Hate Groups in California? No in Washington, DC

A look at the concentration of hate groups in the US (adjusting for population).

2. Global Warming, Wikileaks, and Statistics: What Barry Sanders Can Teach Us


The second most popular post provides a sports metaphor (Barry Sanders' running statistics) for explaining global warming/climate change to denier of this science who also is a sports junkie (ie. Rush Limbaugh, James Inhofe, etc).

1. CSI Without Dead Bodies: Income and Life Expectancy. What does it Tell Us About US? 

Thanks to this post being linked to on the BBC programme (British Spelling) web page for The Joy of Stats, this page has received over 3,000 hits (7% of total traffic). It covers the correlation between life expectancy and income.

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