DC, Division, and Doling out Power December 31, 2007
Posted by Lee in Education, Statistics.add a comment
If you’ve watched The Colbert Report, you are familiar with the recurring “Better Know a District” series, where one of the nation’s 435 congressional districts is highlighted, and the congressional representative of that district is interviewed. As of this posting, he’s covered 59 districts.
In his interview with Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate from the District of Columbia, Colbert reminds us that DC is not a state, therefore the residents are not Americans. He updated his map with an asterisk to denote this fact.
Of course, DCers are certainly Americans, but they don’t have a vote in either the House nor the Senate. Ms. Norton is a delegate, getting a vote in committees, but she cannot vote on the floor.
Earlier this month (December 2007), the residents of DC participated in a reenactment of the Boston Tea Party by dumping tea into the Potomac. This in support of the DC voting rights bill (PDF), which would increase the size of the US congress from 435 to 437. Here are some of the questions I try to answer here:
- How do we decide how many representatives each state gets?
- What political issues arise from this apportionment?
- Are there other applications of these procedures?
Subtle Presidential Mistake December 29, 2007
Posted by Lee in French, Statistics.3 comments
I always buy two newspapers every day that I’m visiting in France: Le Monde, which leans right, and Le Figaro, which leans left. However, nothing could prepare me for the graph attached to this story about the U.S. presidential race. Can you spot the mistake?
Made me laugh December 23, 2007
Posted by Lee in Scrabulous.2 comments
I finally talked a friend of mine into playing Scrabulous with me. I’m not sure what she’s trying to tell me with her first move, but it made me laugh.
I think it’s pretty obvious she has an inappropriate crush on me.
Paris, je t’aime December 14, 2007
Posted by Lee in French.2 comments
I arrived in Paris this morning. For the moment, no strikes, no riots, so everything transit-wise is great.
I’m staying at the Hotel Devillas, in the 5e. I’m just a few steps from the Panthéon, and a few steps the other way finds the Jardin des Plantes.
My flow of pictures is going to be a little stifled since I didn’t remember the cord that connects my camera to my computer. So it’s strictly iPhone pictures, at least until my iPhone gets stolen.
I try to stay in a different area of the city each visit. Twice that’s been in the 9e, twice in the Marais, and now twice in the Quartier Latin. If I had to quickly describe each region, I’d say the Opéra is ethnic: full of les juifs et les moroccains. The Marais is the hip, San Francisco area of the city. And the Quartier Latin is a strange mixture of studens and americanism.
Also near my hotel are two McDonald’s and a Domino’s Pizza, although the Domino’s seems deserted. I’ll check back.
I had lunch today at Au Soleil d’Austerlitz, a little Bar/Brasserie across the street from Gare d’Austerlitz.Nothing remarkable here except another example of my continued confusion with French toilets. Dig it:
Those foot stands are for, um, facing the other way. And the phallic copper pipe there is the water dispenser that carries everything away. To activate, I had to pull a chain from the ceiling.
Google Chart + Scrabulous December 11, 2007
Posted by Lee in Scrabulous, Statistics.add a comment
I’ve managed to read through the API specification and have generated a script to encode a row of data into Google’s format.
If you click here, you’ll get to see the following graph:
The big deal is that the chart isn’t an image stored somewhere. It’s actually generated by Google using the URL. Here’s the URL that generated the chart above:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=500x300&chd=s:teU8jZZcpQxNMQ,QLaUURhRV81JL
&cht=bvg&?chxt=x,y&chxr=0,1,14|1,0,42&chdl=Lee|Meg&chco=cc0000,00aa00&chbh=9,1
Notice the bit that’s in boldface. That’s the encoded data for the chart. Copy this link into your browser’s address bar, change a couple of those letters, and submit it. You’ll get a different chart.
Here’s another chart showing the progression of the game.
If you View Source on this page, you’ll notice that all the <img> tags point to these Google chart URLs. They don’t point to images. That is, these URLs can be embedded in <img> tags and used as if they were PNG images.
Google Chart API December 10, 2007
Posted by Lee in Statistics.1 comment so far
Developer’s Guide – Google Chart API – Google Code
This looks really interesting, if I can penetrate the API. Essentially, you send google a certain web address, and it returns a chart. The one on the right here is from the example code.
Here’s a better example:
And in other good news… December 9, 2007
Posted by Lee in Uncategorized.2 comments
Although I want the writer’s strike to end for a plethora of reasons, I must say I’m thrilled by two announcements that I discovered today.
Big Brother returns on February 12. And yes, it’s because I like Julie Chen.
Celebrity Apprentice returns January 3rd. See how many “celebrities” you can identify:
- Vincent Pastore
- Stephen Baldwin
- Gene Simmons
- Marilu Henner
- Nadia Comaneci
- Tiffany Fallon
- Jennie Finch
- Lennox Lewis
- Piers Morgan
- Tito Ortizz
- Nely Galan
Videoblogging December 9, 2007
Posted by Lee in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
I’m pretty open about my adoration of Rocketboom, with both hosts Amanda and Joanne bringing something to the party. Between the topics, the writing, and the performance, I find it to be something to look forward to.
There are others that I look forward to just as much (@annieisms). But the five-month-old WebbAlert is so thin as to be silly.
If you don’t know about it, it’s a technology video blog that essentially repeats news you find on ArsTechnia, Slashdot, and a couple of other sites, funneling it through the impossibly good-looking Morgan Webb (of G4).
Unfortunately, my subscription has now boiled down to checking out which permutation of which ear shows in her daily hairstyle, how low cut her top is, and ignoring the stale links. Watching her over-enunciation and wildly gesticulating eyebrows is almost painful.
Face to Score December 7, 2007
Posted by Lee in Scrabulous, Statistics.Tags: Scrabulous
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Well, Anthony killed me in Scrabulous. According to his game stats, this is how most of his games turn out. As usual, I’ll tell the story with pictures.
One disclaimer: Due to the change of servers today, the first few of our moves got scrambled. It doesn’t matter, really, since he so handily beat me. So the board looks a little out of whack with the graphs, but believe me, the story is all true.
For Notarizing December 7, 2007
Posted by Lee in Uncategorized.add a comment
I have two friends that are adopting a baby from another country. Since I’m a notary public, I volunteered to help them with their attestations and proofs.
Little did I know that this would take a year, and involve hundreds of documents. One particular afternoon, I notarized 120 signatures for them.
And I told them not to get me anything, since I’m always happy to help out. But they felt they needed to do something, so today brought me these two things: A nice bottle of vin rouge and a Wii game.
Score.
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