Monday Trivia, No. 156 [Michael Cain wins!]
Like I wrote in the blurb on the front page, I think this one’s kind of easy, although it’s also kind of fun. So seriously, no fair using the internet on this one for at least the first day.
Davis, CA
Palo Alto, CA
Boulder, CO
Berkeley, CA
Eugene, OR
Fort Collins, CO; Santa Barbara, CA; Chico, CA; Flagstaff, AZ; Miami Beach, FL; Portland, OR; Mountain View, CA; Gainesville, FL
Missoula, MT; Cambridge, MA; Bloomington, IN
Ann Arbor, MI; Madison, WI; Tempe, AZ; IA City, IA; Bellingham, WA; Somerville, MA
Provo, UT; Santa Fe, NM; Seattle, WA; San Francisco, CA; Minneapolis, MN; Muncie, IN; WA, Washington, DC; Oakland, CA
Athens, GA; Champaign, IL; Costa Mesa, CA; San Mateo, CA; Greeley, CO; Tustin, CA; Tucson, AZ; Santa Monica, CA; New Haven, CT; Evanston, IL; Passaic, New Jersey; Burbank, CA; Denver, CO; Boise City, ID; New Orleans, LA; Salt Lake City, UT; Newton, MA; Sacramento, CA; College Station, TX; Pompano Beach, FL.
Burt Likko is the pseudonym of an attorney in Southern California. His interests include Constitutional law with a special interest in law relating to the concept of separation of church and state, cooking, good wine, and bad science fiction movies. Follow his sporadic Tweets at @burtlikko, and his Flipboard at Burt Likko.
Is this a measure of the percentage of residents who have a bachelor’s degree or higher?Report
Percentage of residents who are full-time college students?Report
Something along this path. I only know most of these places because of affiliated colleges/universities.
Though Passaic, NJ is a curious one.Report
I was going to guess start-up companies spun off from a nearby university. I notice that the western part of the country is heavily over-represented relative to population, and the southern states under-represented.Report
Maybe it’s the percentage of residents who graduated from a university in the town.Report
When I lived in Davis, jury duty was a hoot. Court is in Woodland, so everybody is either a Woodland local who knows everybody else in Woodland (teachers especially), a professor at UC Davis, or a student at UC Davis. Every time the judge asks the rest of the pool “does anybody know Juror X?” a half dozen hands go up.Report
Amost all are college towns except Miami Beach. Now the City of Miami at least has FIU, which is has a lot more students than people realize. But Miami Beach is a higher education waste land.Report
Isn’t the University of Miami right across the causeway in Coral Gables?Report
Percent of residents employed by a university? Hmm, though I’d expect to see more small college towns like South Bend in there.Report
Could be immigrants with a college degree?Report
percent of residents who are lawyers?Report
LOL! I wish; I’d move back to Santa Barbara!Report
I know that the percentage of lawyers in SLO is rather high…Report
Tuesday hint: several comments have already been made noting the high percentage of college cities. This is definitely a related fact, but the list relates to a behavior. As with so many other lists, we are working with percentages of the population.Report
Most bicycle commuters.Report
Local joke… How can you tell you’re in Boulder? When the $500 car next to you at the stop light has a $5,000 bicycle on the roof rack.Report
Heh. I was down at the mall yesterday and commented on this dudes beautiful bike. It was one of those big tire jobbies. He told me to pick it up. Thing weighed like ten pounds. Carbon fiber this and that; single small chain ring up front with an eleven ring cluster in the back; ultra-light disc brakes…. Definitely the finest machine I’ve ever seen. He was the owner of the company that makes em and he came to Boulder from his home in Minnesota to suss out retailers to sell em. Retail price: $5850. I told him he came to the right place.Report
Just now saw this guess, and I think it is correct.
Unless the real answer is, “Most pedestrians run into by bicycle commuters who fail to obey traffic laws.” Though Austin, TX would presumably be near the top of this list in that case.Report
I’m a bit skeptical it’s bike-related. Too many year-round very hot climes listed that are not necessarily known for “enviro-consciousness”. I’m looking at LA and FL (x3) in particular. People who have to commute to office jobs in hot climes, and are not super-enviro-conscious as a rule, prefer A/C cars.Report
I’m now certain that he’s correct, because I looked up Michael’s answer. I also know how Burt grouped them (I’m not sure if he’s waiting for that as part of the answer), but since I looked it up, I won’t say it out loud.Report
Completely off topic, but two pieces of information for whoever is in charge of software quality control…
Recently, when I follow a link from the main page to a specific article with comments, most everything shows up but the download eventually hangs waiting for fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net, the download icon on the Firefox tab spins forever, and something is using ~25% of a processor core worth of CPU. Mac OS X 10.9.2, Firefox 28.0. Problem doesn’t happen on Safari; visually the difference is that Safari actually shows something for the Tweets widget, Firefox doesn’t.
Very recently, the collection of reply text entry widgets stays at the bottom of the page, even if I’m replying to an existing comment clear up at the top.Report
This is the correct answer. I’m way busy today so… Get Chris to explain it further.Report
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_most_bicycle_commuters
They’re grouped by cities within a single percentage point (that is, between 2.0 and 2.9%, 3.0 and 3.9%, and so on).
I am still pretty sure that Austin would be #1 in pedestrians hit by bicycle commuters not obeying traffic laws, and perhaps just bicycle commuters not obeying traffic laws, because for the first, I would put us over the top, and for the second, that’s every bicycle commuter in Austin. Red light? That’s for cars! Cross walk with pedestrians crossing perpendicular to me? They’ll get out of the way! I need to get around some cars? That’s what the sidewalk filled with people walking is for!Report
The only two things I remember about bicycle commuting in Austin 25+ years ago are (1) I didn’t ever hit a pedestrian and (2) the lights were timed going up Congress Avenue from the bridge to the Capitol grounds, and I could win beer bets by making it from a standing start at 1st Street when the light turned green and get across 11th onto the grounds before that light turned red. Of course, I was a whole lot lighter and fitter then, and there was probably a lot less traffic than today.Report
They did a “study” a few years ago, timing how long it took to get from somewhere just south of the bridge to the capitol on Congress, either on a bike, in a car, on a bus, or walking, and the bikes beat the cars pretty handily.Report
Wishful thinking there on my part. Make that 35+ years ago…Report
Yes, U. of Miami is in Coral Gables, but these are 3 different cities: Miami Beach, Miami, Coral Gables.
I like the bicycle answer. Also, number of people wearing flip-flops as their preferred footwear.Report
percentage of students who smoke pot?Report
Percentage of residents who work for venture-funded start-ups.Report
Free trade coffee consumed per capita?
Vegetarians/vegans per capita?
Umm… protests on the quad per capita?Report
The groupings look like, but not quite, NCAA conferences. There are enough odd men in/out that I’m not exactly sure, but I’m leaning towards something college sports related.Report
Assuming that you’re right, then since Davis is #1 I’m going to guess it has something to do with the ratio of NCAA championships and scholarships. (The Aggies are famous for not giving out sports scholarships.)Report
Or maybe not ratios. Maybe it’s something simpler, like most NCAA championships won by teams without a scholarship player.Report
Percentage of residents who self-report engaging in behavior that qualifies as binge drinking.Report
Note that the items are grouped into distinct brackets. Unless that’s a red herring, which seems unlikely, the answer probably isn’t a continuous variable like “percentage of whatever that whatever.”Report
If this were a list of the fifty largest cities grouped so, that would be one thing. But there are some pretty obscure cities on that list. It’s entirely probable that cities in the same brackets are tied by percentage.Report
You can bracket continuous variables: 0-1% 1-5%, 5-10%, 10-20%,20-50%,50-75%, 75-100%
Continuous and bracketed.Report
Yeah, you can. It seems odd to me, though.
I mean…I was trying to lead people astray because I thought it was so obvious.Report