u/Browningtons1

Americans are paying $6.32 a gallon for diesel and California is at $8.42, but Germany, France, Italy and the U.K. are all near $10. The second chart divides the same gallon by what the typical person in each country makes in a day, and that is where the crisis actually lives. India pays $3.86 per gallon, one of the lowest prices in G20, but it represents 74% of a day's income. Philippes 81%. South Africa 118%. U.S. 7%.

Source: Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Study (2007, 2014, 2023–24).

Asks U.S. adults the religion they were raised in and the religion they are now.

2023–24 sample: 565 current Latter-day Saints (±6.2 points), 316 former (±8.1). U.S. membership from the Church's 2025 statistical report.

Tools: Built in React with Recharts / D3.js. Opus 5.5 + Fable 5.1

Interactive version: https://goldendata.app/dashboards/lds-church-growth

I built a chart from the Church's annual statistical reports, 1980–2025. This chart divides convert baptisms by full-time missionaries.

In 1988–90, each missionary baptized about 7.9 people a year. In 2023–25, it's 4.5. At the 2020–22 low, 3.0.

Turn that number over and you get the missionary time behind each baptism. At 60 hours a week, one convert took about 400 hours at the peak. In 2020–22, about 1,050. Now, about 700.

700 hours is roughly three months of full-time work for one baptism. Over a two-year mission, that's about nine converts. In the late 80s it was sixteen.

The October 2012 age change is marked on the chart. It flooded the field with new missionaries, and baptisms didn't keep up. Converts per missionary dropped for years afterward.

To be fair: COVID caused the 2020–22 low, and the numbers have rebounded since. 2025 was a record year for total convert baptisms, and 5.0 converts per missionary is the best single year in a while. Measured from 1980 instead of the peak, the decline is closer to a third than a half.

But even with the rebound, the three-year average is below every three-year average from 1980 to 2000. The Church recently announced a record number of converts and missionaries. Each missionary is also baptizing a little over half as many people as their parents' generation did.

The entire set is great to listen to during a long stretch at work. Great tempo and diverse but familiar sound.

deadmau5 ft. SOFI - Sofi Needs A Ladder

My first shelf item in 2016: Criticizing the Martin & Willie Handcart company leaders for leaving so far into the summer.

Six things I found interesting:

1. The trek was far less deadly than its reputation. Roughly 3.4% of the 56,042 pioneers died.
2. Mortality was U-shaped: teenagers had the best odds at 1.45%, while 1 in 8 infants and 1 in 3 of those aged 80+ didn't make it.
3. Which company you joined mattered more than anything else about you. Wagon companies lost 3.4%, handcart companies 4.5% — and the Willie & Martin handcart companies lost 16.5%, roughly five times the baseline.
4. Men and women died at almost identical rates — 3.48% of women (930 of 26,761) and 3.27% of men (944 of 28,901).
5. It was a young migration: 58% of pioneers were under 25, and 47,352 had arrived in the valley by 1869.
6. From the cause-of-death records: cholera alone accounts for more than half of all deaths with a recorded cause. The "Other" bucket had things like Indian, stampeded, eaten by wolves, murdered, and venomous bite.

Source: BYU Studies / the Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel database — the Church History Library's compiled roster of 56,042 pioneers who crossed the mid-west plains from Illinois to Utah between 1847 and 1868, with company, age, and death records where they survive.

https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/mortality-on-the-mormon-trail-1847-1868

https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/overlandtravel

Interactive version: https://goldendata.app/dashboards/mormon-pioneers/

Six things I found interesting:

1. The trek was far less deadly than its reputation. Roughly 3.4% of the 56,042 pioneers died.
2. Mortality was U-shaped: teenagers had the best odds at 1.45%, while 1 in 8 infants and 1 in 3 of those aged 80+ didn't make it.
3. Which company you joined mattered more than anything else about you. Wagon companies lost 3.4%, handcart companies 4.5% — and the Willie & Martin handcart companies lost 16.5%, roughly five times the baseline.
4. Men and women died at almost identical rates — 3.48% of women (930 of 26,761) and 3.27% of men (944 of 28,901).
5. It was a young migration: 58% of pioneers were under 25, and 47,352 had arrived in the valley by 1869.
6. From the cause-of-death records: cholera alone accounts for more than half of all deaths with a recorded cause. The "Other" bucket had things like Indian, stampeded, eaten by wolves, murdered, and venomous bite.

Source: BYU Studies / the Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel database — the Church History Library's compiled roster of 56,042 pioneers who crossed the mid-west plains from Illinois to Utah between 1847 and 1868, with company, age, and death records where they survive.

https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/mortality-on-the-mormon-trail-1847-1868

https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/overlandtravel

Tools: React with Recharts / D3.js.

Interactive version: https://goldendata.app/dashboards/mormon-pioneers/