The Modern Number

17: Years of age.
161: Pounds (73.03: Kilograms).
24: hours of sleep...over the past five nights.
1: Caffeinated drinks in that same span (kicking the habit).

There are over 42 million blogs in the country, very few of which focus on statistical analysis and the importance of numbers in today's society. This one does.

3: Brothers.
0: Brothers older than me.
2: Dogs.
1: Quiet moments (The family went to Cooperstown last summer without me).

Ever since I can remember, I have always retained a bizarre attraction to the sheer dominance of numbers. Something about the preciseness, I suppose. You're right, or you're wrong, and that's that. No gray area.

But these numbers have to come from somewhere and go someplace else. Numbers existing in a vacuum alone have no place outside the classroom. No, this blog talks about important numbers, numbers that reflect global tendencies and shape our world on a day to day basis. Numbers that indicate future occurrences and evoke memories occurrences past. This blogs talks about numbers that are alive.

11: Colleges applying to.
6: Trips to the emergency room.
2: Semesters of Linear Algebra and Multivariable Calculus this year.
88: Keys on my piano (52 White and 36 Black)

The Digital Age both requires and generates more extensive data collection than ever before. There are those that choose to utilize this accessibility and those who throw it to the wayside. To tie in my love of baseball, I find that a Moneyball reference tends to reach a broader audience now that Michael Lewis' nerdy creation has been transformed into a Brad Pitt approved, Academy Award nominated blockbuster. Which team won?

There are those who were brought up in a world prior to the information age, where gut instincts ran rampant and ill advised decisions were even more commonplace than today. Important verdicts were reached with little to no effective research or examination. That isn't to say issues were taken lightly back in the day, but rather the resources for valuable data crunching simply did not yet exist.

2800: Homecoming Queen ballots tallied today.
22: Days spent in Germany this past summer.
6: Movements in this year's Marching Band show.
10: Freshmen in my Peer Group.

But then came along the Tim Berners-Lees, Bill Gates-es, the Steve Jobs-es. And all of the sudden, facts traveled infinitely faster and informed decisions were now feasible. Statistics were being used in the stock market, in foreign policy, in athletics, and in marketing. They were available for public use and they were locked up for the right eyes only. But most importantly, they were there. They existed, and not in a vacuum. And thus, the modern number was born.