Tracking Fidel: Or how I wasted my Saturday morning/afternoon

I made a comment on Friday about how Fidel Castro hasn't posted to his blog for a while (since May 4th). It was a bit weird, so I wanted to see how weird it was.

I created a small python program to parse his blog listing, extract the dates, and create three plots.



The first one is just a raw plot of when he posted. When it is darker he posted more often. It isn't the longest time since he has posted, but it looks like the last time it was longer was when he was sick.





To get an idea of how long it normally takes since his last post, I made the last chart. He has taken over a month only once before. Over 3 weeks,twice and over two weeks,three times. Over one week, only 14 out of 109 posts (12.8%).

In conclusion, Fidel Castro hasn't posted for 13 days as of this post (May 17th, 2008). Only about 2.8% of the time has he ever taken that long. I am going to estimate that he is of worse health than he has been.

Will we see an article about his hospitalization within a month? Post your predictions!

If anyone wants to get a copy of the code, just ask me. I'll add it to the post if there is interest.

UPDATE:
He posted on May 18th.