Friday, December 26, 2008

Gun laws vs. crime rates

I'm experimenting a bit with Google Docs. This spreadsheet shows a couple of charts, comparing Brady Campaign gun law scores by state, with crime rates by state. A scatter chart with a correlation should show a pattern-Generally the points would be scattered around a diagonal line. In this case, they are very randomly distributed, indicating very low to no correlation between restrictive gun laws and crime. (This is slightly disappointing--I would have hoped to see strict gun laws associated with more crime)

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Moving Eyes Moose

A "The Hartford" promotional moving eyes wristwatch: I found this at a local thrift store, good cosmetically but not running. Took it apart, cleaned, oiled and reassembled. The eyes gave me some trouble, I couldn't remove them, and had to run them through the cleaner and hope the paint didn't come off. Seems a bit goofy for an insurance company, but fun.