Easter Math!

Just what you wanted, I'm sure!

Actually, it's really very cool:

[Source]

Easter is one of the Christian religious holidays without a fixed worldly calendar date. It is celebrated on the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or soonest after March 21. Easter season begins on Easter Sunday and lasts seven weeks. In 500 years (from 1600 to 2099 AD) Easter was and will be most often celebrated on either March 31 or on April 16 (22 times each) – the latter incidentally being this years' date on which Easter Sunday falls. [Source]

Now, it makes sense to me that there would be this curve - dates to either side occur less frequently as Easter shifts about, and the middle dates would occur more often. I can even understand the wave pattern, so that we have four high dates, with dips between them. But I need someone to explainto me that big dip on April 9. It seems odd that it drops so suddenly for that date, and then jumps back up. 

Anyway, this is cool.  

Pretty picture! It's a selfie! And scattered dandelions!

Links!

• Library Land
• Books or Bombs: A Battle for the Soul of America

  It’s National Library Week this week. Typically this seven days would be a mix of nostalgia and gentle prodding to get you to come take a look at your local library. We’d earnestly show you how libraries are more relevant than ever (Current Trends in public libraries include the Library of Things, Veterans Services, and Library as Safe Space). We’d waive your fines to get you back in the door and have some fun activities for the whole family. In a typical year, in a typical America, it’s a fun celebration of public education and culture. We usually see an uptick in use after some friendly press and it is always great for staff morale.

  This is not a typical year, this is not typical America....
  
  This is about how we see ourselves as a nation, it’s about what it means to be American in 2017. Do we offer a hand to our neighbor or do we shun and fear them? Do we want to see our tax dollars spent on education for local communities or do we want them tied up in missiles sitting in storage waiting to kill enemies a thousand miles away? Do we aspire or do we cower?

• Who doesn't love book giveaways? Enter to Win: 5 Coming of Age Stories
• How to Build a Habit of Pleasure Reading (and why it’s important) "Pleasure reading connects you to humanity, expands your universe, AND keeps your brain sharp."
• Facebook’s News Literacy Advice Is Harmful to News Literacy "There’s actually no evidence that this approach works. And conversely, there’s quite a lot history that shows this model does not work. We actually already trained a generation of students with variants of this method. Sometimes we called it CRAAP. In K-12, it often went by the name of RADCAB. There are dozens of other variations, but they all look basically like this. And it failed."
• Related: How “News Literacy” Gets Web Misinformation Wrong
  "...[W]e need a web literacy that starts with the web and the tools it provides to track a claim to ground. As we can see from the confusing and confused reactions of students in the Checkology program, that’s not happening now, and 'news literacy' isn’t going to fix that."
• It’s Obvious Why Students Cheat; We Just Can’t Agree on the Reason  "Is the problem with cheating that it undercuts your own learning? That it steals glory from classmates in the zero-sum competition for grades? That it betrays the teacher’s trust? Are all acts of cheating equally terrible, and if not, what does that mean for 'zero tolerance' policies? We all know cheating is bad. But we seem unable to talk honestly aboutwhy. So, I offer up these dialogue-starting cartoons, a few badly drawn meditations on the most basic question: Why do students cheat?"
• Health, Science, & Technology
• In this ant species, 21% of the colony has major injuries from war "Though many ants spend their lives peacefully tending fungus farms and herds of aphids, others have it much rougher. Such is the case with the ant species Megaponera analis, native to many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, whose days are spent endlessly hunting termites to eat. In fact, a typical M. analis will engage in at least two battles per day with nests of angry termites. They sustain so many injuries that these ants have developed something that is extremely rare in the insect world: M. analis has learned how to rescue and rehabilitate ants that suffer extraordinary injuries on the battlefield."
• International
• Thailand bans online contact with three critics of regime  "The military-run government of Thailand has announced a ban on all online interaction with three of its most prominent overseas critics. A letter from the digital economy and society ministry warned citizens that engaging on the internet with the Thai academics Somsak Jeamteerasakul and Pavin Chachavalpongpun as well as the journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall could violate the law.... Thai authorities had previously warned that even Facebook shares could be considered a violation of the lese-majesty law. A student activist, Jatupat Boonpattararaksa, was charged in December for sharing a BBC profile of the new king on Facebook. Jatupat remains in jail having been denied bail."
• Satellite photos show North Korean nuclear site 'primed and ready' "'The activity during the past six weeks is suggestive of the final preparations for a test," 38 North analyst Joseph Bermudez told CNN. Their prediction comes as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that North Korea may have the capability to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas
• Syria's Assad says chemical attack '100 percent fabrication' "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said a suspected chemical weapons attack was a 'fabrication' to justify a US military strike, as Moscow digs in to defend its ally despite increasing strains with Washington."
• U.S. News
• US drops largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan  "The US military dropped America's most powerful non-nuclear bomb on ISIS targets in Afghanistan Thursday, the first time this type of weapon has been used in battle, according to US officials.... Officials said the target was an ISIS cave and tunnel complex and personnel in the Achin district of the Nangarhar province."
• I'm sure this was all done thoughtfully and by-the-book. Spicer refuses to say if Trump was in Situation Room for Afghanistan strike, flees amid questions "White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer refused to say whether Donald Trump was in the Situation Room for the strike, and the president would not confirm whether he even authorized it." Oh, well, then.
• 18 Syrian Fighters Allied With U.S. Are Killed in Coalition Airstrike "The strike, on Tuesday in Tabqah, Syria, was the third time in a month that American-led airstrikes may have killed civilians or allies, and it comes even as the Pentagon is investigating two previous airstrikes that killed or wounded scores of civilians in a mosque complex in Syria and in a building in the west of Mosul, Iraq." Once is an accident; twice, maybe - but three in a month? I don't know, man. That looks really bad. After a while, "Oops" just doesn't cover it.
• Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a trailblazing judge, found dead in Hudson River  "Abdus-Salaam's death came the same week a prominent Chicago judge was killed outside his home Monday. A suspect in that case has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Judge Raymond Myles."
• North Miami Officer Is Arrested Over Shooting Of Therapist During Standoff "The daytime shooting took place last July, when therapist Charles Kinsey was working to bring a 27-year-old man in his care back to the group home for mentally disabled adults. Video from the scene showed Kinsey lying on the ground next to his patient, his hands in the air, shortly before he was shot." I'm just wondering why it took almost a year to arrest the guy. 
• Prayers on the eve of Arkansas’ Easter executions  "'The cathedral will hold services if we reach the point when there is nothing left to do but pray,' said the Very Rev. Christoph Keller III, dean and rector, in an email message to Episcopal News Service. 'Then we will pray for the men who are about to die, and those who love them; and for those who died and suffered in the crimes for which they have been convicted, and those who love them.'"
• What’s at Stake in Trump’s Proposed E.P.A. Cuts "What is at stake as Congress considers the E.P.A.< budget? Far more than climate change." Try: tap water quality programs, criminal and civil enforcement of environmental regulations, regional cleanup programs, cleanups of hazardous materials (including radioactive metals), redevelopment of former industrial sites, research into endocrine disruptors, climate protection programs (including the popular Energy Star and SmartWay programs), Federal vehicle and fuel standards, programs to help states handle dangerous pollutants not covered under the Clean Water Act, and programs designed to keep the public informed about possible radiation dangers and respond to radiation threats. "One enforcement activity that could be set for an increase: security for Scott Pruitt, the new E.P.A. administrator." 
• Trump Has Already Spent Almost Double Obama’s Annual Travel Budget  "If Trump keeps up the current pace of trips, he could spend $60 million in taxpayer cash solely to visit Mar-a-Lago this year. And, of course, that doesn’t even come close to estimating the full cost of protecting the president and his family."
• Cult of Mediocrity  "Being raised in a country that pretends it is a meritocracy sends most of us toward adulthood with some questionable expectations about how life is going to work. It doesn't take long for the national myth of 'Work hard, be the best, and you will succeed!' to reveal itself for what it is. At some point you realize that there are an awful lot of people at The Top who only meet the 'success' part of that formula…too many to be a coincidence. Often there is an urge to lie to ourselves, because we don't want to give up on the idea that we might someday Make It. But by the time one enters the workforce permanently, all of the illusions are gone. Most of the people at The Top are mediocre at best, idiots at worst, and they achieved thanks to an extraordinary array of advantages that almost none of them are willing to admit they had."