Russell Samora

Russell Samora is a member of The Pudding and a Scorpio. ❤️ Svelte. You can follow him on the socials or check out his website. He has worked on 59 stories to date. Explore them all below.

Get in touch: russell@pudding.cool

Stories

A series of experimental clocks that connect data to time.

August 2023
This is not a story. We made a browser extension to visualize how much each person is talking in Google Meet.

June 2023
Introducing CRUTCH, Our New Metric For Asterisking NBA Champions.

June 2023
We made a short daily photo location guessing game that is a mashup of GeoGuessr and Wordle.

April 2023
Portland, Maine, or Oregon? We calculated what place someone is most likely referring to, depending on where they are.

March 2023
We used statistics to find out which NBA players have had the greatest unexpected performances.

February 2023
One random person a day gets the chance to play against the internet in a game of words. Can you beat them?

September 2022
We watched 100 episodes of The Big Bang Theory to figure out what the government in China censors, and why.

August 2022
We’re tracking heat records in 400 U.S. cities, and you can look up your city.

May 2022
We found this cool study about age and randomness, but we think it is flawed. Can you help us reproduce it?

April 2022
Do movies with more coughs win Best Picture? A near flawless expulsion-based model that predicts a win for Dune.

March 2022
What could have been for your favorite NBA team? A data-driven revisionist history of the NBA draft.

February 2022
We tried to win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest by making AI-generated captions.

January 2022
We investigated 200 crackers to learn about food allergies and labelling. Warning: may contain troubling results.

December 2021
For groups to succeed, sometimes one person will shoulder more than their fair share of the work. Just ask LeBron James.

August 2021
A visual history of Rickrolling — millions of comments, posts, and links — that’s never gonna let you down.

July 2021
How many artists overshadow their band after going solo? We crunched the numbers.

April 2021
What do you do when your friends are sick of hearing about your breakup? Use a supercomputer to find a happier ending.

March 2021
We tracked every time someone says "cool" in community. Cool. Cool. Cool.

January 2021
Clue: We crunched the data on this controversial cookie and condiment crossword clue. Answer: Oreo.

January 2021
Crosswords are known for being too old, too white, and too male. We backed that up with data.

November 2020
These playable mini crosswords let you get a feel for who gets included (and excluded) as clues and answers in puzzles.

November 2020
To help you clear out your inbox, we’ve compiled a data-driven newsletter of popular links in other newsletters.

July 2020
Do you smell what we’re cooking? It’s stories, facts, and pixel art drawings of over 200 masked wrestlers.

May 2020
What happens when you combine music, a monkey, Joe Rogan, and probability? You get this experiment.

April 2020
Do authors write where they know? We calculated the distance between where authors lived and where their books were set.

February 2020
Will saying sorry save your reputation? We quantified the lasting impact of a YouTube appology and controversy.

January 2020
Do you "lol?" Or "haha?’ Or "hehe?" We charted the usage, evolution, and perception of digital laughter.

October 2019
Our 2019 hipster summer reading list will introduce you to an artisanal selection of obscure books before they’re cool.

June 2019
We made a map that replaces UK city names with their most Wikipedia’ed resident.

June 2019
We made a map that replaces US city names with their most Wikipedia’ed resident.

May 2019
The NBA has a defensive three seconds problem. We tracked how often players are camped in the paint.

May 2019
We looked at every political party platform between 1840 and 2016 to find how often women’s issues appeared in the text.

March 2019
Can you spell the hardest names in the NBA? Or will you miss and spell H-O-R-S-E?

March 2019
Do high school basketball stars live up to the hype? Here’s how many find success in the NBA.

March 2019
Think Gyllenhaal is a hard name to spell? It gets worse. Here are the many ways to misspell big names in pop culture.

February 2019
These are the countries that have most preoccupied Americans since 1900, according to New York Times headlines.

December 2018
Because you just can’t get enough of them, we found every boy band to chart the Hot 100 since 1980.

November 2018
From Cardi B to Carson Wentz: we charted the path to fame from Wikipedia pageviews.

October 2018
Here’s who was the most popular person on Wikipedia ever day in 2018.

September 2018
What Wikipedia pageviews tell us about how famous people are remembered after they die. RIP.

August 2018
A supercut of the most-viewed NBA plays from 2017–18. Warning: this video contains a high dosage of LeBron footage.

May 2018
Which athletes qualify as one-hit wonders? We charted the greatest single-season anomalies in the last 30 years.

April 2018
Your birthday twin is probably reading this right now. We take on the birthday paradox.

April 2018
We watched Ali Wong’s Baby Cobra too many times and charted out how she built the routine around a laughter climax.

February 2018
We can all agree that drain hair is gross. But it’s a thin line between love and hate for more than 3,000 other topics.

December 2017
How would you define an NBA superteam? We couldn’t decide so we built this tool to give you the power.

October 2017
In 2017, we mapped the cities and places with the worst access to abortion based on driving times.

September 2017
Men "gallop" and women "giggle," at least according to the gendered tropes found in 2,000 scripts.

August 2017
What’s best for animals in aquariums? We look to the past & present to gauge the future of captive whales and dolphins.

July 2017
A story about how film plots mirror (or shape) historical events.

June 2017
What’s the most timeless NBA play? We turn to YouTube views to determine which have the most replay value.

May 2017
Let’s raise a pint to the microbrew capitals of the U.S. Cheers!

April 2017
Here’s how Russell Westbrook made NBA history in 2017.

March 2017
Like teams in the Super Bowl, the popularity of Oscar contenders can also be regional. Here are the hotspots from 2017.

February 2017
A lot can happen in the last 2:00 of an NBA game and the refs don’t always get it right. We tracked the calls in 2018.

February 2017
What are the odds an artist will make it big? Three years and 75,000 concerts later, we finally have an answer.

January 2017
We analyzed 12,147 images to see how the media covers Trump and Clinton. It’s not a pretty picture.

October 2016
Hindsight is 20/20. We redraft decades of NBA picks using their career stats to find the breakouts and the busts.

September 2016

Russell Samora

Stories

A series of experimental clocks that connect data to time.

This is not a story. We made a browser extension to visualize how much each person is talking in Google Meet.

Introducing CRUTCH, Our New Metric For Asterisking NBA Champions.

We made a short daily photo location guessing game that is a mashup of GeoGuessr and Wordle.

Portland, Maine, or Oregon? We calculated what place someone is most likely referring to, depending on where they are.

We used statistics to find out which NBA players have had the greatest unexpected performances.

One random person a day gets the chance to play against the internet in a game of words. Can you beat them?

We watched 100 episodes of The Big Bang Theory to figure out what the government in China censors, and why.

We’re tracking heat records in 400 U.S. cities, and you can look up your city.

We found this cool study about age and randomness, but we think it is flawed. Can you help us reproduce it?

Do movies with more coughs win Best Picture? A near flawless expulsion-based model that predicts a win for Dune.

What could have been for your favorite NBA team? A data-driven revisionist history of the NBA draft.

We tried to win the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest by making AI-generated captions.

We investigated 200 crackers to learn about food allergies and labelling. Warning: may contain troubling results.

For groups to succeed, sometimes one person will shoulder more than their fair share of the work. Just ask LeBron James.

A visual history of Rickrolling — millions of comments, posts, and links — that’s never gonna let you down.

How many artists overshadow their band after going solo? We crunched the numbers.

What do you do when your friends are sick of hearing about your breakup? Use a supercomputer to find a happier ending.

We tracked every time someone says "cool" in community. Cool. Cool. Cool.

Clue: We crunched the data on this controversial cookie and condiment crossword clue. Answer: Oreo.

Crosswords are known for being too old, too white, and too male. We backed that up with data.

These playable mini crosswords let you get a feel for who gets included (and excluded) as clues and answers in puzzles.

To help you clear out your inbox, we’ve compiled a data-driven newsletter of popular links in other newsletters.

Do you smell what we’re cooking? It’s stories, facts, and pixel art drawings of over 200 masked wrestlers.

What happens when you combine music, a monkey, Joe Rogan, and probability? You get this experiment.

Do authors write where they know? We calculated the distance between where authors lived and where their books were set.

Will saying sorry save your reputation? We quantified the lasting impact of a YouTube appology and controversy.

Do you "lol?" Or "haha?’ Or "hehe?" We charted the usage, evolution, and perception of digital laughter.

Our 2019 hipster summer reading list will introduce you to an artisanal selection of obscure books before they’re cool.

We made a map that replaces UK city names with their most Wikipedia’ed resident.

We made a map that replaces US city names with their most Wikipedia’ed resident.

The NBA has a defensive three seconds problem. We tracked how often players are camped in the paint.

We looked at every political party platform between 1840 and 2016 to find how often women’s issues appeared in the text.

Can you spell the hardest names in the NBA? Or will you miss and spell H-O-R-S-E?

Do high school basketball stars live up to the hype? Here’s how many find success in the NBA.

Think Gyllenhaal is a hard name to spell? It gets worse. Here are the many ways to misspell big names in pop culture.

These are the countries that have most preoccupied Americans since 1900, according to New York Times headlines.

Because you just can’t get enough of them, we found every boy band to chart the Hot 100 since 1980.

From Cardi B to Carson Wentz: we charted the path to fame from Wikipedia pageviews.

Here’s who was the most popular person on Wikipedia ever day in 2018.

What Wikipedia pageviews tell us about how famous people are remembered after they die. RIP.

A supercut of the most-viewed NBA plays from 2017–18. Warning: this video contains a high dosage of LeBron footage.

Which athletes qualify as one-hit wonders? We charted the greatest single-season anomalies in the last 30 years.

Your birthday twin is probably reading this right now. We take on the birthday paradox.

We watched Ali Wong’s Baby Cobra too many times and charted out how she built the routine around a laughter climax.

We can all agree that drain hair is gross. But it’s a thin line between love and hate for more than 3,000 other topics.

How would you define an NBA superteam? We couldn’t decide so we built this tool to give you the power.

In 2017, we mapped the cities and places with the worst access to abortion based on driving times.

Men "gallop" and women "giggle," at least according to the gendered tropes found in 2,000 scripts.

What’s best for animals in aquariums? We look to the past & present to gauge the future of captive whales and dolphins.

A story about how film plots mirror (or shape) historical events.

What’s the most timeless NBA play? We turn to YouTube views to determine which have the most replay value.

Let’s raise a pint to the microbrew capitals of the U.S. Cheers!

Here’s how Russell Westbrook made NBA history in 2017.

Like teams in the Super Bowl, the popularity of Oscar contenders can also be regional. Here are the hotspots from 2017.

A lot can happen in the last 2:00 of an NBA game and the refs don’t always get it right. We tracked the calls in 2018.

What are the odds an artist will make it big? Three years and 75,000 concerts later, we finally have an answer.

We analyzed 12,147 images to see how the media covers Trump and Clinton. It’s not a pretty picture.

Hindsight is 20/20. We redraft decades of NBA picks using their career stats to find the breakouts and the busts.