Quiet Revolution Promo Video 2

Small Book Image
Click to visit the book’s web site.

Without any software for my 11 TRS-80 computers, I set out teaching myself how to program them myself.  Fairly quickly, I found myself on my knees thanking every Algebra teachers I had ever had.  There was finally a purpose for what had seemed to me like purposeless form of mathematics.

Manual for BASIC language programming
The BASIC programming book that came with the early TRS-80 computers.

You see, I instructed the computer with numbers and mathematics was the language.

Algebra was my syntax.

Video 2

 

Only Four Countries do not Provide for Paid Parental Leave.

While researching for this article, I ran across a 2013 NYT piece on Pew’s finding that in 40% of U.S. families the sole or primary earner is the Mom. In a quarter of married households, the woman is the sole or primary wage earner.

I was surprised recently when I learned that almost every country has federal laws that require paid parental leave.  Apparently, there are only four that do not.  They are Suriname, Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and The United States.  I’m including here the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of each country and their Gini coefficient, both of which seem relevant for considering the U.S. position on this issue.

Suriname

Per Capita GDP: $16,623

Gini: 52.9

Lesotho

Per Capita GDP: $1,091

Gini: 54.2

Papua New Guinea

Per Capita GDP: $2,517

Gini: 50.9

United States

Per capita GDP: $57,220

Gini: 40.8

The Gini coefficient is a mathematical measure of a nation’s wealth distribution. The lower the value, the more equitable their economy. Higher values indicate an economy that favors people who are already wealthy at the expense of the poor.  

Here is a list of the eleven top ten developed countries with their Gini indexes. Canada and the U.S. are tied for #10. The graph compares the wealth distribution of these eleven countries by their standard deviations from the mean.

 

    Gini Index
1. Norway 23.5
2. Australia 33.6
3. Switzerland 29.5
4. Germany 30.7
5. Denmark 27.5
6. Singapore 46.4
7. Netherlands 26.2
8. Ireland 30.0
9. Iceland 24.0
10. Canada 33.7
10. United States 40.8
Gini Coefficient for Top Developed Nations

TopCountriesGINI 2.jpg

 

Sources:

https://statisticalfuture.org/?p=24
http://wikipedia.org/
http://pewrsr.ch/10ycfVX

Stop the phantom traffic jams!

Phantom traffic jams have the unique effect of both fascinating and infuriating me. I always knew there had to be some pseudo-scientific or mathematic reason for it but I never took the time to figure it out. Thankfully last night I stumbled upon some videos that explain the very phenomenon. This is the kind of […]

Stop the phantom traffic jams!

Phantom traffic jams have the unique effect of both fascinating and infuriating me. I always knew there had to be some pseudo-scientific or mathematic reason for it but I never took the time to figure it out. Thankfully last night I stumbled upon some videos that explain the very phenomenon. This is the kind of stuff they should teach in driving class so people don’t lose their minds on their morning commutes.

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What are the Odds?

What are the odds that you exist? No doubt this is something few people have thought about, but according to this infographic, the odds are 0. Luckily, this world has you, and hopefully luckily, the world has every one of your students. In teaching odds, this would be an interesting infographic to share. Beginning with […]

what-are-the-odds_50290d9b95578What are the odds that you exist? No doubt this is something few people have thought about, but according to this infographic, the odds are 0. Luckily, this world has you, and hopefully luckily, the world has every one of your students. In teaching odds, this would be an interesting infographic to share.

Beginning with the chances of your parents meeting the odds are increasingly less likely. Then, once your parents have met, the infographic goes into the odds of a specific egg and sperm meetings (this infographic may be reserved for only the most mature of students), and creating you. On top of this, as this infographic shares, your existence is dependent upon not only these events, but these events occurring for every one of your ancestors.

Dealing with odds, exponents, and other various mathematics, this would be a great infographic for the math classroom. Share this infographic with your students, and hopefully they will realize how lucky they are. And hopefully this feeling of luck will make them want to learn more, rather than live a crazier life.

Blog: http://visual.ly/what-are-odds

The Whizzpopping World of Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl had quite an imagination. Reading through this list of books that Dahl wrote, it would be interesting to see what was going through his brain. What this infographic also shares is the inspiration behind his book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and some facts related to his book, James and the Giant Peach. Choose a […]

Roald Dahl had quite an imagination. Reading through this list of books that Dahl wrote, it would be interesting to see what was going through his brain. What this infographic also shares is the inspiration behind his book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and some facts related to his book, James and the Giant Peach.

Choose a book that you are reading, or a favorite of a student, and try to find out the inspiration for the book. Is it based on an event, something that happened in to the author, or something they wish would happen? Using math and science, try to discover something factual about a book. How far do they travel in the Lord of the Rings?

Create an infographic based on this data, especially information discovered by science and math. This infographic shows the heigh of Roald Dahl next to his giant peach.

Blog: http://visual.ly/whizzpopping-world-roald-dahl

What are the Odds

Today’s infographic involves a lot of math and probability. It shows that there are many things stacked against us being here, as we are, today. Beginning with the probability that our parents met, and then stayed together. The infographic continues with probabilities involving a certain sperm and egg meetings, and on the fact that all […]

Today’s infographic involves a lot of math and probability. It shows that there are many things stacked against us being here, as we are, today. Beginning with the probability that our parents met, and then stayed together.

The infographic continues with probabilities involving a certain sperm and egg meetings, and on the fact that all of our ancestors met and reproduced the right person who led down to us is astronomical. There is an extremely slim chance that all of this happened to create you, the odds are basically 0.

Rather than thinking about these odds that involve tens of thousands of 0s, let’s think about different odds. The odds that you get a certain cookie, the odds that you run into someone in the hall way, or the odds that you get a certain student.

Blog: http://visual.ly/what-are-odds

Best State That Money Can Buy

Scaling down the travel part of my work has provided me with weeks at home instead of days or hours. This leaves me with time to play/learn more about some tools I’ve only been tinkering with in the past. In addition to that, it’s given me time to pay more attention to some topics that I’ve ignored for way to long – politics. I’ve especially become interested in the politics of my state, North Carolina, as has much of the rest of the country and parts of the world. I’ve already written a bit about it here (Will Public Education in North Carolina Rest In Peace?) and here (In Defense of Liberal Arts – Sort’a).

Click here to download the large PDF version.  The spreadsheet can be seen here.

As many of you know, my daughter has been contributing semi-regular blog posts here, featuring selected infographics and some data visualizations.  It’s of particular interest to me and one of the few topics I continue to present on in conferences – and with the benefit of time, I’m learning more about working with vector graphics.  

Making an infographic is fairly easy.  Making one that effectively conveys a message is hard.  As an IT guy at a local CityCamp said, “Don’t try this on your own.”  Well that’s the kind of challenge that inspires me, not to mention the message that our state has been hijacked by corporate concerns, masquerading as social knee-jerk issues.

For this project I dug into the North Carolina election results for 2012, the year that it happened.  I created a spreadsheet that tied the election results (North Carolina Board State of Elections) in with the costs of the campaigns (Follow the Money) for our governor and General Assembly elections.  It revealed some pretty interesting facts about who elected who, how much it cost and who paid for it.  See full size infographic here.

Of note:

  • All fifty seats of the North Carolina Senate were up for election. Democratic candidates received 1,854,358 or 47.22% of the votes cast. Republicans received 2,072,984 or 52.78% of the votes cast. Yet, Democrats won only 17 seats compared to 33 seats to Republicans. I’d like to know what math we teach in schools that reconciles that.
  • Even though Republicans won 76 seats to only 42 seats going to the Democrats, 48% (1,842,541) of the state’s votes were cast blue while only 52% (1,998,155) cast red.  Again, an interesting Algebra project.
  • Democratic Senate campaigns spent $3,257,182 (25% of total spending) while Republican campaigns spent $9,602,925 (75% of total spending).  In the House, Democratic campaigns spent $6,021,281 (34% of total spending) compared to $11,762,624 (66% of total spending).  There seems to be a closer correlation between dollars and who governs than votes.  How did this happen?
  • What surprised me was the money spent on campaigns compared to the number of votes.  In the state Senate races, each vote cast for a Democratic candidate cost $1.76 in campaign spending.  Republicans spent $4.63 for each vote cast for their candidates.
  • For the House races, Democrats owe somebody $3.27 a vote while Republicans own somebody $5.89 per vote.
  • I’ve listed the top contributors to both parties, not including candidate and party committees.  These are organizations that contributed more than $100,000 dollars.  The red bar shows the portion going to Republican candidates and the blue indicates investments in Democrats.  As you can see, most contributed to both parties, though most gave most of their money to Republicans.
  • Looking at specific campaigns, it was a shock to me how much money some of our democratically elected representatives paid for their campaigns.  Pat McCrory paid $5.00 ($12,202,756) for each of his 2,440,707 votes.  Walter Dalton, the Democratic candidate paid $2.09 ($4,044,750) for each of his 1,931,580 votes.
  • The obscenity is in some of the General Assembly campaigns.  Thomas Tillis (Rep), the Speaker of the House, paid $59,15 for each of his 27,971 votes. Phil Berger (Rep), the Senate’s president pro tem, paid $38.59 for each of his 58,276 votes. Tim Moffitt (Rep) spent $23.61 for each of his 21,291 votes and John Szoka (Rep) paid $21.87 for each of his 16,208 votes. To be sure, the Republicans were not the only ones spending obscene amounts of money for their votes. William H. Battermann (Dem) spent $61.30 per vote, getting only 38% of the vote. Rick Glazier (Dem) won, spending $14.47 for each of his 17,266 votes. Jane Whilden (Dem) spent $13.84 per vote, trying to defeat Tim Moffitt (Rep).

My question is, “How are they earning that money?”

Downloads: Infographic (http://goo.gl/He1ICB) • Spreadsheet: (http://goo.gl/60MqZw)

Solids of constant width

This absolutely fascinates me. Functionally, these objects are as good as spheres, yet they’re edged and asymmetrical. Looking at these shapes it never would’ve entered my mind that they might possibly have an unchanging width. Even though I can’t think of a practical use for this kind of object, I can say that it could […]

Solids of constant widthThis absolutely fascinates me. Functionally, these objects are as good as spheres, yet they’re edged and asymmetrical. Looking at these shapes it never would’ve entered my mind that they might possibly have an unchanging width. Even though I can’t think of a practical use for this kind of object, I can say that it could possibly turn people around to the idea that math can be interesting. Just maybe.

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How Storms Affect Businesses

Application of information is the only reason to gain information, and thus it is a very important skill that was not adequately taught when I was in school. It is useless to make students memorize and recall information, if they don’t know how they can use it later in life. This is why I have […]

Application of information is the only reason to gain information, and thus it is a very important skill that was not adequately taught when I was in school. It is useless to make students memorize and recall information, if they don’t know how they can use it later in life. This is why I have chosen today’s infographic. Part of the fifth grade curriculum is weather in North Carolina, and in my own experience, many students do not know why they are taught this information. However, this infographic is a great example of why it is important to learn something that can be sought otherwise.

Hurricane Sandy affected many businesses. Many were forced to close their doors, and those who served the entire country were greatly affected, and greatly affected others. For instance, I worked in a stationery store for a few months this past winter. Several major stationery companies were forced to close during the winter months because they were based in the Northeast. There was no way to call about questions, and production time was increased due to these closures. Another example involves a friend of mine here in North Carolina, who works in the marketing department of a major supplier of electronic supplies. When Japan was hit with the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, many plants were forced to rebuild their machinery, and she noticed a drastic spike in sales. So companies can be affected in two ways, by weather where they are located, as well as by weather to their suppliers.

Challenge your students to make other correlations. How will they use other skills in their future lives? How do politicians use history? How do marketing analysts use science and math? In the end, why are your students learning this information?

Blog: http://visual.ly/how-storms-affect-businesses

Toy Snake Math

Here’s an interesting video showing many ways to incorporate mathematical ideas in to playing with those plastic connectable snakes.  This creative girl has many videos on youtube showing math both on paper and represented by every day objects. …

Here’s an interesting video showing many ways to incorporate mathematical ideas in to playing with those plastic connectable snakes.  This creative girl has many videos on youtube showing math both on paper and represented by every day objects. Hope you like it.

Toy Snake Math