Sunday Sundries

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

We will find you: DNA search used to nab Golden State Killer can home in on about 60% of white Americans
A search could potentially allow the identification of about 60% of white Americans from a DNA sample—even if they have never provided their own DNA to an ancestry database.  By combining an anonymous DNA sample with some basic information such as someone’s rough age, researchers could narrow that person’s identity to fewer than 20 people by starting with a DNA database of 1.3 million individuals.

3 Reasons to Have Personal Genealogy Software and How to Choose
One person's view

Statistics Canada promises
It's an agency known for issuing quality data — but issued well after it's of much public interest.  According to the Globe and Mail article Statistics Canada promises more detailed portrait of Canadians with fewer surveys there's a vision of the first quarter [data] on March 31st. Having just finished reading Everybody Lies, Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are, by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz that doesn't seem that far fetched even for a government agency.

Inundated by plastic waste: companies named

RCI calls out the top brands for garbage in Canada, in order

1. Nestle (pure life bottled water)
2. Tim Horton’s (fast food chain)
3. MacDonald’s (fast food)
4. Starbucks (coffee)
5. Coca Cola.

Measuring the varied sentiments of good and bad words