Thursday, May 28, 2015

Shark Attacks

A group of girls having a conversation near my desk this week, talking about horrible ways to die1

(I’m paraphrasing heavily…)
Student #1: I wouldn’t want to go swimming there because then I’d get attacked by a shark and die!
Student #2: Okay, there are actually only an average of two deaths due to shark attacks per year.
Student #1: (Look of lightbulb suddenly turning on…) But there have already been two this year,2 so that means it’s safe for us now!
Me: (Turning to my right, slowly…) Have. You. Learned. NOTHING in this class this year?!?

:)

Hmmm…

conditional_risk

  1. Yes. They were talking about ways to die. It was weird, but to be honest, in all my years of having to listen to girls talk about weird things, this didn’t even crack the top 5 (don’t ask). []
  2. I wasn’t paying close attention to the conversation up to this point so somewhere they must have established that there have been two fatal shark attacks this year thus far. :shrug: []

You Draw It: College Enrollment vs Family Income

draw-your-own-chart-about-income-and-college-enrollment-1432757557397-master675-v3

Here’s a cool one from the NY Times:

The Upshot [NY Times]: How Family Income Affects Children’s College Chances1

You get to draw a line/curve on a graph,2 and then see how well you did versus the rest of the general population.

  1. Although I’m not quite sure how I feel about the use of the word “affects”… []
  2. and yes, this appears to work on mobile devices just fine! []