Today's Statistical Analysis:
People who love themselves also love hot dogs! (Source: the American Kosher Beef Frank Council, c. 1972) While trying to find the scientific data for this claim (which I was ultimately unable to do), I ran into some controversy.

While the case of the 'hot dog' is fairly well researched and free from the slap-fights that so often accompany academic discussion, 'self-esteem' is a large enough concern for Americans that the only thing more important than it on a random 'Google' search is Self Magazine.

This is a 'Professional Self-Esteem diamond', as it appears on the LaBelle Foundation's website. As I am sure you've noticed, there is no specific mention of food attained through advanced meat recovery, but be patient: I believe we're getting there.

'Self-Esteem' is defined there as:
"...an on-going process that comes from connecting with our soul and spiritual potential through self-acceptance, meditation, prayer, release, communing with nature and/or requesting strength from our higher power, source, spirit or god. It is a process of balancing our lives by consciously attending to our Soul—personality, Mind—performance and our Body—presentation."

So, "communing with nature"= eating of the 'hot dog'.

Or is it? I recommend a short video . (I see that the link will just take you back to the page. Please go down to 'Video', and click on 'a short video'. You will thank me.)

Most of the images associated with 'low self-esteem' do not feature a hot dog. At least one of the images associated with 'high self-esteem' does. So while self-esteem is "awesome", and hot dogs self-identify as "awesome", may we still take it on faith that
to love one's self is to love a hot dog?

Well, let us go to the National Association for Self-Esteem's website, which has something to say, certainly:

"Unfortunately, efforts to convey the significance and critical nature of self-esteem have been hampered by misconceptions and confusion over what is meant by the term �self-esteem.� Some have referred to self-esteem as merely �feeling good� or having positive feelings about oneself. Others have gone so far as to equate self-esteem with egotism, arrogance, conceit, narcissism, a sense of superiority, a trait leading to violence."

Oh. So 'self-love', 'self-esteem' and 'feeling good' are not all the same thing. Oh. Furthermore, this self-esteem-inducing recipe guide on kidshealth.org utterly excludes the hot dog.

So as much as it pains me to conclude so, my findings in the matter must remain inconclusive. However, the hot dog who thinks he's awesome does make a fairly compelling case, and since he seems to provide the only categorical statement on the subject, I will tentatively say that the original assertion is 90% true!



"Individuals with defensive or low self-esteem typically focus on trying to prove themselves or impress others," writes...Some Guy on the National Association for Self-Esteem website. This brings me to today's personal note.

I believe last time I published, I revealed a fast-growing friendship with a fellow scientistic. Mr. Hude came to my attention with an ad on Craigslist in which he asked for help with his blog. I looked at it, and realized that 'help' was something he desperately needed.

Having said so, I realize that myself and others in the academic community can oftentimes come off as high-handed and so on when dealing with the emotional needs of the common folk. I perhaps made myself seem like a bully when I said:

Charles,

Here are some thoughts regarding your most recent blog entry:

"Many businesses today work hard at customer service." Why is 'today' in there? Did businesses in the past not work hard at customer service?

"They are constantly telling their employees how they want their customers treated." The 'constantly' (like 'today' above) is a meaningless modifier. Lose it.

"They want the customer to feel welcome and valuable when they come into their business." Is this something that your desired readership does not know?

"How do your employees feel when the walk in?" In a world with Spell Check, there is no excuse for misspelling the word 'they'

And so on. Well...


" Most business owner feels they treat their employee’s fine." Another unacceptable sentence. 'Owner' receives an 's' in this case, and 'feel' does not. You don't need an apostrophe to show the plural of 'employee'. Furthermore, the sentence starts with another unprovable assertion: how do you know how 'most' business owners feel?


Actually, beyond there it just got worse...

I ask this not to be derisive but just for information; is English not your first language? The title of the blog post itself has a misspelled word ('basd'). If you are setting yourself up in the consulting business, a professional writing style is absolutely necessary at the very least. From there, you need to ask yourself, "exactly who is my audience?", and "how can I get my point across without being redundant?" You also might find ultimately that your business does not need a blog. It would seem that conventional wisdom holds that everyone with a website needs one, but think about it: do you go and read the blog of -say- a carpet cleaning company?

In any case, I wish you luck. And I impart a warning: as a rule, people who read Craigslist are idiots.

Best,
Dr. Frank Bobb


So, my careful concern for this man's well-being went entirely unnoticed. Indeed, he seemed to think that the proper response was to engage in some bargain-basement stand up comedy!

(And yes, he was shouting the whole time.)

Frank,

Well your response was certainly unique. So, I appreciate your review of my blog. What I was looking for was a writer. Yes, I would say if I am looking for a writer, I understand it is not where my talent is.

English is my first language. As far as the “derisive” attitude, well seriously when a total stranger says everything you said in your email I think mockingly scornful, ridicule, or showing contempt is a mild understatement. Usually when someone start a sentence with “I ask this not to be derisive” it is exactly the opposite and exactly what they mean.

May I ask what you PHD is in because I am sure it is not in people skills or tactfulness. I mean seriously I do not know you from Adam and you right me a email without one positive thing in it. If you understood people you would understand starting with something positive and then giving examples of improvements you would get a better response.

Do you answer and talk to everyone like this. I also do not understand your comment people who read craigslist are “idiots”. If that were true and you read my post it would make you a idiot.

I do believe we learn from all of all experience and I see where I do need to proof read or get a copy editor for my articles before I post them. You also had some really good point.

Best,

Charles

Well, I think that two men...Two professional men could do better than the lukewarm 'best's we each appended to our missives. I see you got my little self-referential joke about Craigslist, though. Good show!
I do happen to carry a double PhD, and yes, one of them is in People Skills or Tactfulness (Cornell, class of 1959). I struggle with my inner need to help the world, sometimes, and that leads to me performing invasive, painful surgery when a mere outpatient procedure would have sufficed.

However, how am I supposed to start off with positive comments then slyly move on to the suggested corrections when all there were were mistakes? I suppose I could have commented on his pleasing blog template. I don't know.

In any case, let us move on to the scientisticism. We can scarcely stay here.
Oh, damn it! I cannot let categorical assertions such as "Coach is an expert in busness that can help with problem areas of your business" stand unchallenged!

For the purposes of this survey, we need to find:

• Who is 'Coach'?
• Can we prove this person (or entity's) expertise in business?

(And for that matter, is there a sinister "fine print" difference between 'busness' and 'business'? Ala, "Oh, I never said that I was a business expert. If you'll look, you'll see that right there I describe myself as a bus-ness expert!')

(He also said that one of the 'advantages of hiring a coach' is "give you a competitive advantage", which is a piece of logic pleasing in its circularity.)

Well, most of us know who 'Coach' is: Craig T. Nelson!
When he was last sighted, he was telling Glenn Beck that he thought he might stop paying taxes, as the government ought to go bankrupt just like any other company that had failed.

It does show some sort of rudimentary understanding of economics, and certainly that sort of tough-talk appeals to your average business owner...
Well, now there I go. For confirmation of this, I went yet again to the office of Donn Carroll, president of the Greater Area Most Business Owners Association, and he said, "Hell no I don't think I should go bankrupt! I think what I do should be protected, and if some Hollywood crybaby doesn't want to pay his taxes, maybe we should tax the hell out of the big Hollywood studios until they either have to go bankrupt, or stop making anything with Craig T. goddamn Nelson in it! Now leave me alone!"

So no. Most Business Owners actually don't like that sort of tough-talk, at least when applied to their own business.


So then we may safely conclude that coach is not expert in bus(i)ness. Please make a note of it.

Today's Statistical Analysis:

I begin with a quote:
"LEARN MORE THROUGH BLOGGING THE MORE MINDS THE MORE POWER AND KNOWLEDGE ". These are the words of a local entrepreneur, who I am pleased to have as a colleague. A colleague in the fascinating world of scientistics!

I found his blog, and was immediately fascinated. Along with his inspired and creative use of language, several statistical claims were made. Let's look!

"Many businesses today work hard at customer service. They are constantly telling their employees how they want their customers treated."
Today, yes. I fully agree. I would even go further and remind the reader that what is implied in this sentence (that businesses in the past did not work hard at customer service) is doubly true. I remember the past, not fondly, but with disgust.

"Most business owner feels they treat their employee’s fine."
I spoke recently to Donn Carroll, chairman and head of the Greater Area Most Business Owner(s) Association (which he runs with his brothers Robb and Edd*), and he disputes this. "I don't feel that I have to," he said, scratching his head with a pencil, "so no, I don't feel that way". He then asked me to leave.

"Maybe your personal life shows through. The way you walk in that door every morning is going to affect your customer’s everyday."
Personally, I feel that it is unkind for one to comment on others' physical disabilities, but it remains true; you can be the freakiest looking person in the world, but as long as you're charming, you'll be fine. But an Unnatural Gait? Forget it! This old folk saying is both catchy and 100% correct. I am also fond of the vaguely Shakespearean, "customer's everyday".

Lest I lose sight of the work we actually do here, I'll leave aside the many other large claims made by this man and focus on the one statistic cited in the article.
"Studies show that when customers decide not to come back to a business, 70% of the time it is because of the employees. "
All right; to verify or dispel this claim, I am forced to go to the Internet. I choose to Google 'customer service', as I am loath to see what happens when one Googles 'studies'.

Well, for one thing, there certainly are a lot of places to get amusing and thought-provoking quotes on the subject. It's amazing that there are as many as there are, truly. Here's some of the quotations:

"In business you get what you want by giving other people what they want."-Alice MacDougall

(Well, that seems true...)

"There are no traffic jams along the extra mile."-Roger Staubach

(That too, although -has Roger Staubach ever owned a business?)

"A man without a smiling face must not open a shop."-Chinese Proverb

(True. And Asian!)

"Always give your customer something."-Kevin Stirtz

(True to the point of being unnecessary to state!)

"It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself."-Eleanor Roosevelt

(True, although its inclusion here mystifies me somewhat...)

"Communication is everyone’s panacea for everything."-Tom Peters

(Sometimes...Sometimes you just need a slogan. There are seven more pages of this sort of thing at Amazing Service Guy.com.)

I also note that there is an entity named The Institute of Customer Service. I figure that here would be the place to find what you need. It sounds like it might be a governmental entity.
It turns out that no, it's not. It's in England, and...Hm. This is a quote from a study titled 'Service Excellence=Reputation=Profit': "The report finds that companies regarded as 'being easy to do business with' are more likely to achieve bottom line benefits than organisations that do not have such a reputation." I feel like these people are my colleagues! They are clearly practicing the same science that I do!
There is also a study listed titled 'Customer Priorities: what customers really want', and has a subtitle that reads, 'This report explores why satisfaction matters and hence why it should be measured'. The Brits! "Hence!"

I wanted to ask, "Is negative customer retention seventy per cent related to customer service?" I wanted to check in with the "Knowledge Manager" (one Fiona Parkinson, who can be reached at icsmail.co.uk), but then noted that it might take weeks to get an answer from all the way in England.

Furthermore, I kept being led down the primrose path with yet more fascinating discoveries such as; did you have any idea that there is such thing as the Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI)? What could they possibly be measuring that by?
Oh: "which is categorised in measuring the Customer Satisfaction based on Quality, Delivery, Customer Satisfaction and Overall Performance. Each of these parameters is weighed at 50 %, 20 %, 20 % and 10 % resp." I see.

Aha! Some raw data! Over on Customer Service Manager.com, there is a giant list of facts:

68% of customer defection takes place because customers feel poorly treated. Source: TARP (Not '70'!)

Why customers quit:

1% die
3% move away
68% quit because of an attitude of indifference towards the customer by the staff.
14 % are dissatisfied with the product.
9% leave because of competitive reasons.

Source: How to win customers and keep them for life (2000) – Michael Leboeuf (Who?)

For every customer who bothers to complain, 26 other customers remain silent. Source: Lee Resource Inc (How would you know?)

It takes 12 positive service incidents to make up for 1 negative incident. Source: Lee Resource Inc (That sounds 43% true!)

It takes 12 positive service incidents to make up for one negative incident. Source: “Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner (It is possible that everybody on the list is quoting each other...)

Well, so now we can say that the original claim we were exploring here today is false. But truly, this office no longer cares, because this stuff is fascinating!
Wait a minute: TARP is publishing statistics? The Troubled Asset (something beginning with R) Program is getting into The Greatest Game (as I like to call it)? Fascinating! I need to go look!

Meanwhile, look at some charts!

	High Weighting, High Score	On Target
	High Weighting, Low Score	Underperformance
	Low Weighting, High Score	Overkill
	Low Weighting, Low Score	Supplier can afford to score low in that area

Parameter P	Weighting A	Score B	Weighting (avg. of 1) C	Weighting (avg. of 1) * Score D = B *C
P1	7	8	1.17	9.24
P2	5	4	0.83	3.33
P3	9	8	1.50	12.00
P4	3	3	0.50	1.50
P5	6	4	1.00	4.00
	Average = 6.00	Average = 5.40		CSI = 6.01

And enjoy a final quote;

Service to humanity is service to God. Let the love and light of the Kingdom** radiate through you until all who look upon you shall be illumined by its reflection. Be as stars, brilliant and sparkling in the loftiness of their heavenly station.

Abdu'l Baha

*(also the only other members)
**(fictional)

Today's Statistical Analysis:

First: some housecleaning. When the phrase 'Its absence proves the negative' was used in the last post, it should have been rendered into Latin, as it is a scientific law among statisticians.
So, suus absentis probo infitialis shall be the motto, or at least a handy explanation (I am fond of our current motto, 'Everything you suspected is true', because it is, and there is comfort in such notions) for much of what we know and find. Please make a note of it.

HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAGE FOUND TO CAUSE CRIME! We here at the Bureau generally eschew political "hot potatoes", as we find such things distasteful. That said, we have uncovered some astonishing new statistics that happen to intersect with a topic much in the news today.

An issue that has been repeatedly raised in the last several election cycles has been whether or not homosexual marriage being recognized by the state is per se injurious to the state. The arguments supporting the view that it would be are religious in nature, and therefore cannot be proved or disproved. What few non-religious arguments that have been forwarded have been proved to be religion-based, ultimately, when not entirely incoherent: "Opponents say same-sex marriage would undermine traditional male-female marriage, rendering men and women interchangeable and destroying the connection between children and marriage."
So far, no noteworthy civil or legal argument has been put forth, the terrifying specter of interchangeable men and women to one side.

It hasn't been scientifically explored at all, but the possibility that homosexual marriage might be good for society certainly looms in the absence of any evidence of it being bad (or, suus absentis probo infitialis). No evidence, that is, unless one considers the overwhelming disapproval of God, though that entity is impossible to subpoena, and can't be held to damages.
In fact, through the science of statistics, it can now be said to be certain that it wouldn't be a bad thing, since those who say so cannot prove their case. Ipso facto: Gay Marriage Is Good!

So the unexplored territory is: does this de facto mean that heterosexual marriage is harmful to society?

Damage to society is measured by crime, death and damage to infrastructure. Statistics on longevity vis a vis marriage are often published, with marriage and good health inevitably linked (source: any daily newspaper, every six months or so).
(Troublingly, it would seem that the article cited actually contradicts this belief, even employing the phrase "no warrant for the current belief". However, the article is from February 1875, and certainly we have had some scientific progress made since then. Additionally, everyone thinks this is true, so it is.)

No numbers are currently extant as to sexual orientation/marital status regarding impact on roads. One may assume that the numbers cancel one another out, until you consider that while homosexual couples may adopt children (in some states), they still do not have the ability to breed incontinently, whenever they feel like it, populating the landscape far and wide with their issue. Big families need big vehicles, big vehicles are damaging to roads, hence: heterosexual pairings damage infrastructure!

Now, the crime statistics are more difficult to parse. Our colleagues at the Department of Justice (though we are not, strictly speaking, a governmental organization, they are our allies in science) responded by playfully attempting to drown us in information, like spiteful prosecuting attorneys.

Our initial query was ;

I am seeking some statistical data for a research project
regarding the incidence of violent, drug-related or
molestation crimes (or any crimes including fraud,
confidence schemes or stalking)
committed by offenders who were in
heterosexual marriages at the time.
I suspect that the numbers are available.
Thank you.

And the reply was;

The questions you ask are very broad, and
not specific enough to give a you a concise answer.

Then they proceeded to list no less than thirty possible resources, with the possibly smirky phrase, "I hope this was helpful and thank you for asking BJS."

But the problem with all of the reference wells was that they seemed to do statistical analysis on anything but marital status. The Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report for 2008 as aggregated by the FBI has many categories, such as:
Percent Change by Population Group
Percent Change by Geographic Region
Percent Change for Consecutive Years and
Offenses Reported to Law Enforcement by State by City 100,000 and over in Population


None of which are helpful to this office. The National Criminal Justice Reference Service, on the other hand, was potentially more helpful in that it showed conclusively that marital rape is 100% caused by marriage. (And it might even be probable that marriage causes suicide.)

Another study is more of a wash, although including the perhaps-telling phrase, "marriage...may simply be another indicator of social irresponsibility." And this DASIS Report paints a positively rosy picture of marriage re: marital status and substance abuse treatment admissions for 2005.

But this detracts from the original hypothesis, which is that things like spousal abuse, child abuse, "accidental" shootings and the like must per se happen with greater regularity among The Married. And from there one may note that the percentage of married adults in the United States probably dwarfs the number of unmarried adults, so therefore more of The Married are criminals. Alcohol abuse and related crime is almost certainly high, knowing what we know of marriage.
The overwhelming number of crimes committed merging with the enormous number of marriages would seem to more than prove the original hypothesis, but the scientific community at large seems mum on the subject. When they can be roused from their slumber at all, it seems that they inevitably croak something about how prisoners who want to visit with their families do better somehow, and when they note the large number of married offenders, they say that those marriages are unhappy, and criminals tend to marry other criminals anyhow.

So it would seem that the verdict comes by dint of conspiracy: heterosexual marriage causes crime, and perhaps even more so than we are being told.

Since all society is plagued by crime, it might be a bit disingenuous to point in only one direction, of course, and one wonders what dangerous forces might be unleashed by doing so. For instance, God cannot be sued, but can God bring suit for libelling His favorite social institution? This office awaits a reply.

Today's statistical analysis:

43% OF ALL STATISTICS MADE UP ON THE SPOT! As is posited here, in this blog. Well, 18% of what they had to say on a specific topic concerning their target audience, and they fully admit it. Well, as we say in the statis-teering business, its absence proves the negative.

PAY OFFERED VERSUS PAY REQUESTED: A focus group convened recently, sponsored by a local market research concern. The participants were given one hundred dollars and all the beer they could drink. An informal poll conducted after the official polling suggested widespread satisfaction.
The next day, an ad was posted on Craigslist by this office. It read "PAY ME ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS AND GET ME DRUNK". That was all; nothing was promised by this office to the potential benefactor (though that certainly didn't prevent several of the respondents from assuming something else), short of an evening of conversation.

Somewhere in the ninety percentile responded positively to this happening in their lives (being given 100 USD and unlimited alcohol), while only a paltry 13% responded positively to this idea (giving someone else 100 USD and ulimited alcohol) being presented as a suggestion in a public marketplace.
Specifically: if people are enticed toward (say) a focus group with this tactic, the result will be overwhelmingly good for the party attempting to raise interest. Inversely, just putting up an ad on Craigslist in which you request that someone do this for you seems to have almost no interest generation, except among some groups who need more study. This was surprising.

'MILLENNIALS' MOST DIVERSE GENERATION! There has been an ongoing controversy surrounding this statement since it was made on Sunday, March 8, 2009. (Specifically; "As the most diverse generation to hit adulthood in this nation, we are used to recognizing and celebrating our differences.")
How to prove or disprove such an extravagant claim was discussed at length. Criteria needed to be determined.

A 'millennial' (also known as Generation Y, generally said with a slight whine, as in 'whyyy?'), at least has a concrete definition: one born between 1975-1990. It does not mean 'anyone born during a thousand-year period', i.e. everyone.
It seems that all of them are from the United States, though literally this definition would extend to include someone in their twenties-to-early-thirties who is from (say) Guinea-Bissau. Despite this, the thoughts of this age group living in the second and third worlds are somewhat under-represented, perhaps due to factors like warfare and starvation.

Since diversity itself is a highly subjective criterium, it pays to stick to sheer numbers, wherever possible. By the yardsticks laid out by the scientist/author quoted above, 'millennials' (again, as delineated from denizens of other millennia, or even those also living in this millennium, though not in said age group; it is important to be scientifically accurate):

• are of several minds concerning issues of faith
• are likely to work a low-paying job in the hope of attaining a better-paying job
• drink either in moderation or excess (op cit.?)
  
• were raised on 'Sesame Street', by Vietnam vet (or "Baby Boomer") parents (or "our shared love of Sesame St and other national media efforts aimed at us")
• are somehow more adaptable to the change that is an inevitable constant
  
• consistently refer to themselves as 'us', as contrasted with an easily identified 'them'
• have remarkable ideas concerning biological determinism

[Further yardsticks as elucidated by the scientist/author:
"our selfishness and unfounded feelings of entitlement
our liberal-leaning social politics and our social activism
our understanding, use, and abuse of digital technology"
(This office feels that this post will go on long enough as it is, without having to delve into the sticky issues suggested by that first one.)]

While the numbers for any one of these items may seem hard to come by, in fact they run exactly like this:
Confusion about religion & faith-based issues- Millennials: 100%; rest-of-world: 100%= no diversity points.

Numbers are not available for the amount of people who started out in low-paying jobs, and attempts to do any serious demographic survey were met with negative responses, to be polite. However, by any anecdotal yardstick, this office feels it's fair and accurate to say- Millennials: 100%; rest-of-world: 100%=no diversity points.

Drinking alcohol, in societies that permit the drinking of alcohol, is a personal choice ranging from not drinking alcohol to drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. Some choose to drink moderate amounts of alcohol. Since no millennials were cited in the study who abstain entirely, we may conclude that all millennials drink to the same degree. This makes them quite different indeed from the rest of the world, which boasts a significant number of people and even a representative amount of societies who do not drink at all. Diversity points: 50.

Only some can claim to have been raised since 1969, when 'Sesame Street' first began broadcasting, or since 1959, when the first advisory troops (from the United States) went to Vietnam, later to raise children.
So the numbers would seem finite, until one considers that the subcategory 'Vietnam vet' includes several generations of Frenchmen, Japanese and countless more Chinese. In this, the millennials are dwarfed by the sheer scale of world history, and the extreme population curves it produces. Diversity points: -50.

It is even less easy to determine the numbers (soberly measured, anyway) of people who use the bifurcation 'us & them' in their daily life as contrasted with the use of this phrase among those who, somewhat unfairly, claim an entire millennium. It would seem again that history has produced large numbers of people who would use this somewhat limited view (just imagine how many people have sung along to the Pink Floyd song of the same name!), doubtlessly dwarfing the finite number of people born between 1975 and 1990. Diversity points: -100.

But the ideas concerning biological determinism contained in the above-cited essay (and the fanciful language employed in making the argument) cancel out all other considerations.
If any arbitrarily determined 'generation' can claim to have even one person espousing views so openly bizarre and at odds with the whole of human society (i.e. women cannot be priests in the Catholic church because they can give birth to children, and men can become priests because babies die), it deserves One hundred diversity points.

Which leaves them, all totalled, with fifty points left over. This makes them the winner, as no other generation seems to have ever claimed to be the most diverse.
Although, the generation two above them has been said to be "The Greatest", which would be interesting to attempt to prove. Perhaps tomorrow.

Today's statistical analysis:

HAT USE IS UP 4%! Source: The American Hat Institute.
Also, the claims previously made by the brewing industry that "Beer Is Good" (and, strangely, "Life Is Good" according to one particular beer manufacturer) continue to stand, despite some heated debate on the topic.

On physiognomy and nomenclature:

ALL PERSONS NAMED 'TED' ARE STUPID! According to a source close to the General Accounting Office, it has been determined recently that all persons named Ted are stupid, which has been the privately held view of this office for years. The numbers, apparently, are overwhelming.
Issues of confidentiality and national security prevent us from revealing the source, or even the methods used to achieve this finding. We apologize for this.

LIMITED NUMBER OF FACIAL TYPES FOUND IN PERSONS NAMED 'BOB'! Science is not to be argued with. It has formulae that have been honed and sharpened over the millenia, and as long as one sticks to empirical criteria, one may never be wrong.
An online aggregator will have distilled information from every information source that is of any relevance. Its reach includes the world at large, or that which has ever been recorded anywhere, which is -for the scientific profession- all that matters.

And so we are proud to release the final numbers on the facial types available to men named Bob. Thirty. Source: Google Images.
Strict parameters were observed. No Bobbys, Robs, Roberts, Billy Bobs or bob-style haircuts were permitted. Inanimate objects that could be described as a 'bob' or 'bobber' have also been excluded.


Here is an example.

Below is another.


































'YELLOW' NOT YELLOW! A stunning reversal has been recorded in the annals of the naming of things. A freight company stationed somewhere in the western hemisphere has decided to overturn centuries of color-recognition with what could only be described as a cognitive coup:

That which is said to be what it is, is, according to tradition. The fact that this has been somewhat brutally cast aside by Yellow Freight Lines, with its conspicuously orange logo, is strange.
Times before in history that this has happened: none.
Possibility of recurrance due to precedent: high.

This perversity also extends to their motto:
Yes you can creating?
This sinister turn of events has been noted, and future incursions into the fabric of perception itself will be carefully tracked.