A couple of days ago, the New York Times featured a wonderful piece detailing the extraordinary business of a defense analyst turned bagel salesman. While he has been successful as a dough purveyor, and he finds it much more fulfilling that his former civil service career, what makes his current pursuit so intriguing are the scores of data about his customers and his sales that he has collected for years and years.
His primary quest? To correlate any possible factors to the varying theft rate of his bagels which he sells by 'honor system' stations in companies throughout the Metro DC area. His observations are priceless.