Freedom of Speech

As I dig through journals for interesting tidbits I often find myself far afield from the original topic at hand, which is exactly what happened the other day. I was reading a piece on the influence the color of the box that holds your local traffic signal has on traffic flow – not the color [...]

Education Issues – Teacher Signaling

Confession: as a teacher I have challenges with the different levels of students who cycle through my classroom. I am not unbiased, and yes, I take my students’ performance personally.
But this is as it has been and should be….
Some students are bright, but it’s not just the ability level of the [...]

Stat of the Week – Monkeys and Medals

Lionel Tiger shares the history of monkeys and medal in his latest Op-Ed piece for the Wall Street Journal. He posits that there is a biological need for humans to have games such as the Olympics
Like our primate cousins, competition is in our blood.
Is this just more justification for what my less athletically-inclined friends call [...]

Basic Economics – When your voters are challenged

Who would’ve thought Chicago would become a tax refuge? Since the voters approved a tax hike in Oregon, politicians around the US are sending delagations to the beleaguered state. Leading the charge with offers of enticement to business owners….
Richard Daley, Chicago Mayor.
Wait, seriously?
Here’s what’s spurred the increase in flights to Portland:

Oregon
Chicago

Top income tax rate:
11% (from [...]

Winter Classics and February Winner

In a departure from the somber tone of education issues, The February Winner of the Date with Kate is Laurel Lichty of Washington DC. Photo of the two gals below.
It just so happened that the DwK was sandwiched between hikes around DC in the record breaking “Snowpocalypse,” Brunch with Drag Queens, and snow ball fights. [...]

Do Girls Suck at Math?

It’s a common refrain both from the mouths of males and females. Yet, what evidence do we have to support this?
A former boyfriend even presented a LONG diatribe about the actual genetic reasons women are bad at math . . . but there’s just one problem. Namely, me.
Or Jill.
Or Heidi.
Or Shanti.
Or Leah.
Or . . .
The [...]

Seth Godin, Linchpin

I was fortunate to receive an advanced copy of Seth Godin’s latest, Linchpin. I had a very hard time writing an appropriate review on Amazon.
What others reviewers are raving about is how this book is about doers . . . kind of, but not really. This book is about people who fancy themselves single-handedly able [...]

Margaret Thatcher – We Must Win

The newsletter this week includes a favorite item from Mrs. Thatcher:
“Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.”
A few weeks ago the Wall Street journal published an opinion piece worth a [...]

Sports Stat of the Week: Old Guns, Young Guns

Sports Stat of the Week
It’s all in the numbers….
Never mind what happened Sunday afternoon . . . I turned off the second display in my office and focused on teaching our Advanced Quant class. The students didn’t have to know the Boys were being destroyed by Future Rapper Favre.

(Pants on the Ground? Really? What the [...]

Numbers for Nerds

If you get excited about numbers, today is a spetacular day.
010110
It is a rare opportunity to present the date in binary form (that’s not the actual binary date however).
So just how rare is it?
Have you figured out how many times in a century you can represent the date with 1s and 0s without getting your [...]

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