Americans are expected to spend about $9 billion on Halloween this year as they buy costumes, decorations, greeting cards and candy for the annual Oct. 31 event.

The National Retail Federation estimates that more than 175 million Americans are planning to participate in Halloween activities this year, spending about $3.2 billion on costumes, $2.7 billion on decorations, and $2.6 billion on candy.

Bulk candy dealer CandyStore.com looked through 11 years of data to come up with the favorite Halloween candy in each U.S. state.  Continue reading →

The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History will exhibit “The Kingdom of California: Mapping the Pacific Coast in the Age of Exploration” through January 2nd.  The exhibition displays 17th to 19th century maps and books, including maps showing California as an island as well as 19th century coastal charts.  Entry to the exhibit is free with paid museum admission.  Check it out!

This one is interesting!  The New York Times has created a page with an interactive map showing every building in the US.  How did they do this?  They used data from a huge database that Microsoft released to the public this year.  Microsoft’s computer engineers trained a neural network to analyze satellite imagery and extract out shapes of 125,192,184 buildings across the country.  Click below and read on!