The Joy of Trash
Hello friends,
"The hard thing about talking about college admissions in the United States is that the facts don’t matter and the system is insane." That's me on the ol' blog, before summarizing the pros/cons of using grades or tests for college admissions.
Every day since April 25 I have been tweeting a flattering lie about myself. If you woud like to read all of the lies, they are all here.
"For the Documerica Project (1971-1977), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hired freelance photographers to capture images relating to environmental problems, EPA activities, and everyday life in the 1970s." I've lost an hour or two browing the collection of images. The picture above of children walking along the tracks was taken in the mining town of Fireco, West Virginia.
Incidentally, a recent news article reports that Fireco, West Virginia (now a ghost town) is haunted by a livestock-killing monster that measures "at least 10 feet long" and apparently has the strength to rip off the heads of hogs. More here.
Truchet tiles are tremendous fun. They are named after Sebastien Truchet, who wrote of them in 1704. For example, many different designs can you make with four of these tiles arranged into a 2 x 2 square?
The French apparently published their mathematics in the form of "memoirs." Pauline Boucher translated Truchet's, and it starts like this: "During the last trip that I took to the canal d'Orleans by order of His Royal Highness, in a chlteau called Motte St. Lye, 4 leagues this side of Orleans, I found several ceramic tiles that were intended for tiling the floor of a chapel and several other apartments." More here.
Some researchers think that 5 month olds can notice changes in discrete quantity, and hence have some sense of numbers, but it's surprisingly hard to find clear evidence of this. Part of the problem is that most changes in quantity are also changes in other continuous property too, like the total "length" of the objects. Are kids noticing that there are 2 things, or that whatever they are looking at suddenly got longer? It's hard to tell.
After reading Alfred Soto's playlist for Memorial Day, I listened to Decoration Day several times in a row.
From Stereogum, a list of 20 songs that sound suspiciously like others, including a mathematical one from Bob Seger: 2 + 2 = ? that certainly sounds a little bit like Seven Nation Army, though not as much as most of the others.
Some good reads: Misery, by Stephen King; The Joy of Trash by Nathan Rabin, George Saunders answers a bunch of student questions about Lincoln in the Bardo.
Goodbye,
Michael