educate your child interactive data viz on choosing a school and the impact that has in Chicago Meet Calumma uetzi, a rainbow-colored chameleon from Madagascar that was just named after a VCU professor “It’s one thing to have a species named after you,” he said, “but it’s another thing to have a really nice and pretty species named after you.” erinspace/sonify: Use data to create and play MIDI files! Take a CSV of data, output sound! Using Python! Small b blogging What’s going on here? I call it small b blogging. It’s a virtuous cycle of making interesting connections while also being a way to clarify and strengthen my own ideas. I’m not reaching a big audience by any measure but the direct impact and benefit is material. –what’s this look like for departments/education?

you-draw-it – bl.ocks.org How to do that awesome draw/predict the chart interactive piece from NYT Where To Catch Me For personal reasons, I stopped accepting ordinary speaking engagements in August 2002. Your offer will have to be exceptionally interesting to pass my filters. The Final Flight of Martin McNally | Feature | St. Louis News and Events | Riverfront Times But nothing could have prepared McNally for the interference of a young Florissant businessman, David Hanley, who was among the bystanders ogling the drama from the terminal. Hanley did not remain a bystander for long. As the jet taxied down the runway, its massive engines revving in preparation for takeoff, Hanley’s 1971 Cadillac Eldorado crashed through the runway’s perimeter, battering through a fence at 80 miles per hour on a collision course with Flight 119. The plane, heavy with fuel, was essentially a bomb with wings. Over the intercom, the captain’s voice crackled with panic. “Oh my god, there’s a vehicle on the runway!”

Episodes – Do Not Track Young Adolescents as Likely to Die From Suicide as From Traffic Accidents – The New York Times It is now just as likely for middle school students to die from suicide as from traffic accidents. That grim fact was published on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They found that in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, the suicide rate for children ages 10 to 14 had caught up to their death rate for traffic accidents. ————— The immediate lunge into blaming social media seems like it needs more factual/research support. Spanish parents urged to put children on weekend homework strike | World news | The Guardian Parents in Spain are being urged to go on a weekend homework strike this month in protest against the “unacceptable” amount of after-school tasks their children are given. The homework load of Spanish children has long been a sore point with some parents, who argue that the burden is too great, places too much pressure on pupils and eats into family time. According to a 2012 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Spanish 15-year-olds have 6.5 hours of homework a week compared with an average of 4.9 across the 38 OECD countries. Nothing To Do With Arbroath: Mystery […]