This just in from the Tortured Data Analysts Department—T-Swizzle has done it again. Her latest album, released about a fortnight ago, racked up a record-breaking 300+ million streams on Spotify in its first day. Hits different, indeed!
Music statisticians around the world begged the artist to share the secret of her success. Was it the lyrics? The music? The infectious BPMs? Karma?
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We know all too well that Tay’s streaming success is due to her being the world’s most talented singer/songwriter/performer/[fill in the blank space]. But shake it off—there’s hope for the rest of us, too. Spotify’s algorithm doesn’t optimize for talent (or broken hearts). It’s only listening for the dulcet tones of data.
Luckily, our newest data course gets you hands-on with real Spotify data, letting you go behind the streams to learn what makes a hit song... Ready for it? |
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😎 (Sun)screen time. Cloudflare shares a new way to measure last month’s eclipse: its impact on internet traffic. |
🌊 20,000 memes under the sea. Miles of underwater cables make the internet work. What happens when one breaks? |
🚗 It’s-a-me, Pareto! Here’s how a 19th century intellectual can help you win in Mario Kart. |
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It’s Spring—the perfect time to start a farm. You have $100 to get your operation off the ground, and can plant any of the crops below that you can afford, at any time. |
In 5 years, what's the most money you can make selling your crops? |
We’ll randomly choose one correct respondent for a shout-out in next month’s email. |
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Congratulations to this month’s winner, Susan Callister, who found the Sun’s distance to be about 8000 km. An honorable mention also goes out to Johan Basberg, who suggested we get rid of the shadows by burying the Sun in the dirt… invalid, but thought-provoking nonetheless.
Last month, we asked you to re-analyze Eratosthene’s classic shadow experiment, assuming the Earth is flat. The key was to draw the light rays coming from Sun to Earth, and recognize the resulting pair of similar triangles.
Check out the full solution here.
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