Dean (Zhuiyang) Chen

I couldn't help but notice that AP scores are out as everyone is bragging about them on facebook. For those of you who aren't with the program(such as myself) you can call (888) 308-0013 to get your grades(or just wait three more weeks for it to arrive it in the mail like a cool person would). Have your AP number OR social security number, birthday(if you don't know that you don't deserve to get your score), and a credit card number with the expiration date ready. It's all automated, designed for those of you who are antisocial, so no worries. It will charge $8 to the credit card you provided(less than a dollar per test, great deal for me :D). The process was painless for me, the computer read through my score one by one and waits for you to press nine after each score so you don't have to scramble to copy your scores down.

For all my stalkers out there, you may be wondering what I received on my test. Since I'd still value my privacy yet would like to be remotely helpful, I'll share my grade distribution:

2 fives
2 fours
3 threes
2 twos(hint: E&M hint: AB)
NO ones(:D)

With the exceptions of the fact I didn't get ones it seems my AP score distribution fits the Collegeboard AP score distribution for individual tests perfectly, which is pretty crazy. The scores were also a clusterfuck, I got a five and a two that I definitely did not deserve and deserved better than a four and a three. Anyways, this puts my two year AP grand total to:

8 fives
3 fours
4 threes
2 twos


which translates to nine credits at Duke, although I can't actually transfer more than two. But it's all good since my Yale transcript covers and goes beyond the credits that matter(and also makes up for the fact that I got a 2 in Compsci AB) Although it also meant that I could have gotten 1's on all my exams and still be in the same place I am now... I still fucking hate APs.

By the way JBC stands for Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers(Registered Wendy's trademark) for the healthy readers out there.

I recently completed a compilation of various economics data of the US economy from government sources such as the Bureau of Economic Analysis [BEA.gov] and the labor department [DOL.gov] for an ISSP class at my school. The data ranges from GDP [Gross Domestic Product] to corporate profits to the Gini index, from 1929 to 2006. I color coded the values according to their magnitudes relative to that of other values under the same category, it makes certain trends such as the gradual increase of the gini index very obvious.

The web table is located at http://ocirs.com/economic-data-table.php or just click on "US Econ Data" under "Resources" on the left panel. I've also included download links on that page for PDF, Excel 2003, Excel 2007 and CVS versions of the table. I'll probably also type up a key to all the variables and setup some mouse over pop ups that describe the variables next week.

I've also updated all the links on this site with permalinks which reveal much more useful information such as the page title and date in the URL instead of some useless page ID. I was really surprised by the fact that I wasn't able to find resources for setting up permalinks for custom coded blog backends like the one on this site. I'll probably post a tutorial for it this weekend or next weekend; it's less complicated than one would expect.