Sunday Times

Mr. Billett and I have the Sunday edition of the LA Times delivered to our door. We recently got a bill, and Mr. Billett sat down to figure out whether we are saving money by having the paper delivered, or whether it would be better to walk down to the corner and pick one up in person every Sunday.

According to the bill, we paid $17.20 to have the paper delivered every Sunday between 03/10/08 and 05/05/08. The price of the Sunday Times is $1.25 if you buy it in person.

Your job is to figure out:
1. Which is the better deal: delivery or walking to get the paper?
2. How much would we save over a whole year with the better deal?

Submitted by Jazmin

The following problem was submitted by one of my students, Jazmin. It is an excellent example of everyday Math.

Curtains

Ten years after moving into our house, we finally decided to trade the tired looking blinds in the living room and dining room for cozy curtains. First I went downtown to the fashion district, and purchased some lovely material. (see photo) Then, I did a lot of measuring of all the windows, and started sewing the curtains. Mr. Billett volunteered to pick out an order the curtain rods, rings and clips.
As he was looking for curtain rods online, he asked me how wide each panel was, so that he can figure out how many rings to get. The website we ordered from suggested four rings per foot. Unfortunately, I measured the curtains in centimeters, because I grew up in Hungary using the metric system, and feel more comfortable with it. When I told him the width of one panel was 230 cm, he had to do some math to figure out how many rings to order, keeping in mind that we will need two panels for one window. He did it, can you?

NASA Survey

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently released the results of a survey conducted among airline pilots. The release of the results was delayed because NASA officials thought the findings would scare airline passengers. Here are some of the numbers as reported by the Associated Press.

The survey showed:

• 1,266 incidents in which aircraft flew within 500 feet of each other (near miss)
• 1,312 cases where pilots suddenly dropped or climbed accidentally more than 300 feet in flight
• 166 reports of pilots landing without clearance (permission) at an airport

What is your interpretation of this data? Do you find it scary? Can you tell the true meaning of these numbers? What additional information would help make sense of the information?

The Real Mac Pro

On Sunday, December 23, Mr. Billett's 6-year-old G4 stopped working once and for all.

So the next day we went to the Apple store at the Glendale Galleria, and picked up a brand new Mac Pro to replace it. The Apple store was a lot of fun - we tried the iPhone, the new iPod nano, and got expert advice from Josh, a friendly sales associate. Lucky for us, Apple offers an educational discount. The regular price for the Mac Pro is $2499, but with the educators' discount, we paid $2299.

Your job is to figure out about what percentage was our savings. It may seem complicated at first, but proportions, our good old friends, will come to the rescue. Here's how:
Here is another hint to make your job easier: You can round the total price and the sale price to the nearest hundred.