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Teaching Mitt Romney’s Campaign About Venn Diagrams with Venn Diagrams About Mitt Romney’s Campaign

Pictured above is a Venn diagram, a lovely mathematical tool for visualizing how things fall into different categories. If you’ve done any discrete math in any of its forms, which includes taking a logic course or computer programming, you’ve probably internalized the concepts behind the Venn diagram.

Many people misuse Venn diagrams, including Mitt Romney’s campaign team. Take a look at their attempt at creating a Venn diagram below:

Let’s ignore the actual message for the moment (generally a good tactic with the Romney campaign, as their messaging is likely to have changed by the time you read this) and just deal with the misuse of Venn diagrams. Luckily for mathematics, the folks at Upworthy have created the graphic below explaining the proper use of Venn diagrams to the Romney campaign using the Romney campaign itself:

Here’s another amusing Venn diagram that shows where Romney belongs in the categories of people who say they own a gun and people who say they don’t own a gun.

Apparently, there’s such a thing a quantum gun ownership. Someone should notify the Nobel committee — I think we have a contender for the physics prize!

And finally, one more Venn diagram showing tax positions, abortion positions and where the various quantum states of Mitt Romney exist among them:

 

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Pinup Robert Downey Jr. (or: There’s a Tumblr for EVERYTHING)

Pinup Robert Downey Jr. is proof that there’s a Tumblr for everything. Take old illustrations of pin-up girls, hastily Photoshop Robert Downey Jr.’s mug onto them, and voila — instant, disturbing entertainment!

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Videogames vs. Real Life

I liked this bit from a Dorkly comic looking at the differences between how we act in videogames and how we act in real life. But hey, paper cuts hurt, man — especially if you follow up with hand sanitizer.

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Game of Hipsters

It took me a moment to recognize them out of their costumes, facial hair (where applicable) and usual setting.

 

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Funemployment Diary, Entry #19: Even More Hints of My Activities and Whereabouts

Today’s the last day of my secret side trip. I thought I’d drop a few more hints of where I am and what I’m up to. I got up, had some noodles for breakfast and got dressed, as you can see above. I rather like this look.

My local benefactors are wonderfully generous. Not only did they give me a place to crash, they even loaned me their “beater” car! It drives like a dream, and my only quibble is that the GPS could stand to have a much better user interface. If that’s not a First World Problem, I don’t know what is.

It took me a half hour to reach my destination, and it took me half that time to find a place to park.

Between the parking lot and my destination, a poem.

I spent from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in a place that had the view pictured above.

Afterwards, a coffee break at a little boulangerie, some more walking about, and then dinner with friends.

Tomorrow, it’s an early bird flight to Tampa and back to Anitra. Tomorrow night, we’re going to be like this.

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IKEA: Particle Board Meets Particle Physics

I’d be really worried if I finished putting together my IKEA hadron collider and still had a few extra parts at the end.

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Funemployment Diary, Entry #18: Hints of My Activities and Whereabouts

I’ve been getting emails and Facebook messages asking about the Secret Side Trip I’m currently on. I thought I’d share some photographic hints.

To make things a little easier, here’s another hint: I took the colour photos. The black-and–white ones are simple Google Images finds.

Another hint: at the time of this writing — 11:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, which is not necessarily the time zone I’m in — the temperature is 13 degrees C.

I took both colour photos in this post yesterday.

Also noteworthy: there are a lot of bicycles and cafes in the area.

I’m having fun here, and I’ll eventually be able to tell all. In the meantime, have fun guessing!