Big data has become, well, big. Maybe bigger than big. Maybe even huge. No doubt there have been statistical analyses carried out for a long time – probably as soon as someone in a lab or workspace realized he or she should find out exactly what constituted a regression to the mean or had an inexplicable urge to stray beyond the common space in a Venn diagram – but I would imagine that those numerical loop-de-loops were once somewhat limited to the purview of mathematicians or scientists or financial analysts. Now, however, almost every company or website can track what we’re buying or where we’re clicking, and ostensibly (obviously) they use this mined big data gold, subsequently invading our space with savings and deals tailored to our purchases, or big-brother-esque reminders that only one pair of the shoes we browsed is still available in our size. I both appreciate this and am somewhat appalled by it, but when I score the shoes I’m generally appeased and well-shod enough not to rant.

In my job, I do a lot of data display; while I’m not particularly adept at serious, in-depth data mining (English major), I can take the data someone else digs up and make them pretty, by means of a line chart or a histogram or a pie chart. I should’ve spent more time at the business school and less time learning to recite Chaucer in Middle English, I reckon.

Usually my ponderings about this subject don’t extend past what I do at work, but this week I got a little distracted and abstracted, and that led me to thinking about the movie “Snakes on a Plane,” which I did not see. Did the script-writer or screenwriter or some of his or her lackeys have anyone do any statistical analysis on the subject, i.e., just how likely might it be that a plane would or could be filled with snakes, without the ground crew or flight crew having any advance warning? (Again, I didn’t see it, so I’m making this assumption – because surely someone would’ve stopped this plane from soaring into the sky, which I assume it did. Otherwise, there’s not much of a story: “Snakes fill a plane, takeoff aborted” doesn’t really get the movie going, now does it? Unless there was a fierce, scaly battle on the tarmac. Maybe I should watch the movie).

But I digress, although not to the mean. (A little humor for you statisticians who clicked on this thinking “Okay, someone finally GETS me, AND my pet snake, Carbuncle Eyes!” And that’s for all you English majors who thought I might be selling out).

But again, back to my point. Is there even a slight probability of this “Snakes on a Plane” scenario, depending on where the flight originated or landed, say for instance, in a tropical setting where one hears that snakes almost literally drop and drip from the trees like Spanish moss in Savannah? Or is it just a dim, nearly impossible possibility that was exploited for movie-goers who aren’t in the least squeamish about snakes, and/or love things that go bump and hiss and slither in the night, and/or love Samuel L. Jackson enough to tolerate any of the above?

This is the point when I confess what REALLY got me thinking about all this, and it happened while I was on the treadmill. I’m in tell-all mode because I assume that – just like the good people at Target who know I looked at that leopard bikini – someone, somewhere knows I plugged my headphones into an audio jack on a treadmill and listened to NBC5 news at 5 while doing a half-hearted workout.

And when this happened, just as is the case in every newscast, the man and woman telling us all the regional good and bad things gave a teaser about a story coming up at 6pm, after Lester Holt finished giving us a recap of the national disasters. This teaser definitely got my attention, because they meant for it to do just exactly that.

Apparently, a woman was driving down the road when a snake dropped right out of her glove-box and onto her feet. What?? How is this news that needs to wait until 6pm? Is that a better time for “Snakes on Your Feet?

All my life, or at least since the tender age of approximately five, when I started having recurring dreams about a nest of snakes I stepped into right outside the back door of my N.C. home, I have been absolutely petrified of snakes. I recently killed two baby snakes in my back yard, and this DID NOT MAKE ME FEEL BETTER. Why?? Because where there are babies, there is a mother and a father snake, and they will make more. I have known about this possibility since I bought my house last summer, because I saw a container in the garage, with a snake as its graphic, left by the previous owners. I can draw no other conclusion that it is some sort of poison one should deposit somewhere, and that in some way, having done so, one would expect to kill the snakes that are possibly running rampant somewhere nearby, possibly underneath my house but hopefully not INSIDE my house.

Since I heard this story on the news, I have been very busy being deathly afraid of getting in my car, and when in my car, have been, at least thus far, quite adept at driving while glancing, every two seconds, at my feet. What is the statistical probability that I will experience a snake in my car? What is the statistical probability that, should I have such an experience I will: 1. Have a heart attack; 2. Wreck my car; 3. Turn into just another statistic?

Stay tuned. News at 6.