Today's Shared Google Reader Items, 10/30

There's some interesting stuff in my shared items today:

• This new table display thingy from Microsoft may be amazingly awesome. I can't decide for sure.
• Some Christians prayed to golden bull to heal the stock market. Seriously (or close enough). I don't think I can make that any funnier than it already is.
• The New York Times updated their article about NYC's pitiful attempt to break the Thriller world record since I first saw it. They originally wrote it as if their 70 was a lot, not realizing Austin had 881 last Saturday and is on its way into the record books. Kudos to them for fixing it between when I read it this afternoon and when I went back to check it for this post.
• If you or someone you know lives in California, and you're thinking about voting yes on Proposition 8, please read this. Please. You don't want to hate yourself when you realize what you've done, do you?
• The Beatles aren't coming to Rock Band. They're coming to their own game made by the people who make Rock Band. They better clarify that into "Well, you'll also be able to play those songs in Rock Band," or... well, or I'll probably buy it anyway, but I'll be annoyed!
• Hubble's alive and snapping beautiful photos! Woohoo!
• A site called Ballotpedia has been set up to collect info on all that stuff on your ballot. I wish I'd found it before I voted. I definitely plan to help out with it. Hmm, I should probably do that now, actually. There are still some voters in my area who haven't voted yet, even if over 35% of registered voters in Travis County have already. BTW, that number is fraking awesome.

That's it for today. As always, leave your comments on these or anything else below.

Today's Shared Google Reader Items, 10/29

I already have a reply to one of today's shared items, so I'd better hurry up and get this thing posted! And, for the record... darnit, you're right, Jessica. Harder is better. I'm a hypocrite!

• This video synchronizing the debates is really sad. My favorites are the ones with 4 clips from the 3 debates; ie, sometimes McCain at least (I don't remember if Barack had any) said exactly the same thing twice in a single debate.
• Best "mashup" of the Google Maps API, using roughly 1 line of code from that API to make something useful. I'm surprised Google Maps doesn't let you select something to turn this feature on in the normal maps.
• Pixolu is a cool research project to create a smarter image search engine. It was really slow when I tried it out this morning, but that's probably due to the Lifehacker link.
• A video comparison of a song on both Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2. I mentioned when I shared it that the sustain-one-note-while-moving-on-others seems impossibly hard, but, as Jessica pointed out, I complain when people complain about things being hard; hard is good, so I'll have to try that out to see if it's fun hard or just annoying hard. Let's hope for fun hard.
• Great holy jeebus, are the Beatles coming to Rock Band 2? We should know for sure tomorrow.
• In case you missed it like I did (we were carving more jack-o-lanterns at my sister's), here's Barack's 30-minute infomercial. I heard good things. I think I'll vote for the guy.

As always, comment below.

Today's Shared Google Reader Items, 10/28

Things I've shared in the last 24 hours or so:

• Samsung has announced carbon nanotube-based color digital paper. As a lover of my Kindle, the idea of that in color makes me drool.
• Lifehacker has a thing about buying $25 gift certificates from restaurants.com for $2. I still can't figure out if I can recommend this. I bought some ($100 worth for a grand total of $8), but I haven't taken the time to sort out exactly how much of a pain it'll be to redeem them. Sure, most of the restaurants have a largish minimum when you use the gift certificates at them, but that just means a group of us get a huge discount going to restaurants we go to anyway.
• Dinsmore shared a story about a solar system that looks simlar to our own about 10.5 light years away. That's really, really cool. If there's an Earth-like planet there, and it eventually develops intelligent life, and that eventuality overlaps with the existance of civilization on Earth... we could talk to one another, with the relatively tiny time lapse of only 21 years. Way cool.
• Dinsmore's books are available online! Woohoo!

Leave comments on these or any of my other shared items below.

Today's Shared Google Reader Items, 10/27

Here are the highlights from the things I've shared roughly since the last post:

• How to get time off to vote, state by state. If you have early voting, use it. If not and you'll have trouble making it to the polls, definitely check this out.
• Austin sets Thriller dance record. I was planning for a month to go for this, then we scheduled a cookout during it. Oops. I still should've gone, but I managed to convince myself it was too much work. Remember: you more often regret things you didn't do than things you did.
• I don't so much want to share this article by Christopher Hitchens endorsing Obama as to name drop. I've been to a party with Hitchens, and he was as much of a pretentious jerk at that party as he is on TV; it isn't an act. When I first heard he'd endorsed, it made me question my votes for Obama.
• This site, which helps you figure out where to meet people centrally between input addresses, is freakin' awesome. I wish I'd thought of it. That makes me want to move on another idea I have, before "I wish I'd thought of it" becomes "Huh, that could have been my private fighter jet."
• Finally... Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens has been found guilty on all counts! Hehehehehehehe. As Nate points out on 538, get a pollster up there to AK post-haste! Is there any chance this will demoralize Alaska Republicans enough that they don't bother voting???

As always (being the whole point of these posts), leave your comments on these or any of my other shared items below.

Elitist Presidents

A coworker discovered something interesting today. In 1876, while serving as a member of the House of Representatives, James A. Garfield, future President of the United States, wrote a novel proof of the Pythagorean theorem.

Can you even imagine a President knowing enough math, and being clever enough, to propose a proof to a  mathematical theorem? I couldn't, so I decided to do a quick bit of research to see which Presidents would  plausibly know enough math to come close.

To be fair, it doesn't take a ton of math to propose a proof to the Pythagorean theorem. Garfield's proof is mostly visual, backed up with algebra.  But let's pretty much ignore the inspiration for this search, and just pick something that we can estimate: which recent presidents, if any, knew calculus? I'm sticking to recent presidents only mostly because I'm lazy, but also because it becomes harder to estimate these things the further you go from the modern education system; I'll bet Jefferson knew calculus, but I'm not sure how I'd estimate that from his biography. I'm going with the last 10.

So, without further ado:

34. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Graduated from West Point in the upper half of his class in 1915. West Point has always been primarily an engineering school. Chances are fairly good that Eisenhower took calculus; if he went to West Point today, he'd be required to have three calculus courses, and the school has become less focused on engineering since he was there.
35. John F. Kennedy: According to one biography I found online, Kennedy "disliked math and physics and refused to apply himself in those courses." It's possible he took calculus (I can't find information one way or the other), but it's highly doubtful that he "knew" calculus.
36. Lyndon B. Johnson: "Doubtful," according to someone I won't specifically name because there's a chance she could get in trouble for not saying, "Of course, LBJ knew everything!" But, yeah, doubtful. Maybe it's just Austin bias, but I'm pretty sure San Marcos still doesn't teach calculus.
37. Richard Nixon: While the interwebs have a calculus joke about a Nixon misspeak, I can't find anything either way about whether Nixon ever studied calculus. His education was far from anything where I'd expect calculus, but I can't say with any certainty whether he did or not. (side note from that Nixon misspeak link: holy crap, Joseph Biden knows at least a little calculus!)
38. Gerald Ford: Ford graduated from U of M with a degree in political science and economics. I find this absolutely shocking, but it's absolutely possible that Ford studied calculus.
39. James Earl Carter, Jr.: Jimmy Carter received a BS in physics from the Naval Academy. He likely has studied calculus more than I have.
40. Ronald Reagan: Reagan majored in economics and sociology at Eureka College. As with Ford, it's possible that Reagan studied calculus. Holy crap.
41. George H. W. Bush: BS in economics. Again, huh, who'ld'a thunk it?
42. William Jefferson Clinton: Studied foreign service, government, and law. Possible but unlikely that he ever had a calc course.
43. George W. Bush: Studied history, but lots of prep schools and such. It's possible Bush has had a calc course. There's simply no way in hell Bush has ever learned calculus, but he may have had a calc course.

I'll score it as:

• Definitely/very likely: 2
• Maybe: 4
• Probably not: 3
• I refuse to believe that it's even possible: 1

Then again, what do I know? I never would have thought Biden would have had enough calc to remember what an inflection point was.

Update: For anyone wondering:

• John McCain presumably got some sort of degree when he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1958, but I can't find what it was. Reportedly McCain did "just enough to pass the classes he didn't find stimulating," and that included math. He may have taken calc, but he didn't learn it.
• Barack Obama, much like Bill Clinton, spent a lot of time in college, but in areas that didn't likely pass through calculus (BA in political science, law degree).