220a

Homework 1 – Trinity Cost

Alison Rush

• /user/a/arush/Library/Web/220a/hw1/hw1.ck

• /user/a/arush/Library/Web/220a/hw1/hw1.wav

This is a sonification of four data sets:

• Commodity cost of tobacco in the US (monthly, 1960-2014)

  • Source: World Bank via Quandl (https://www.quandl.com/WORLDBANK/WLD_TOBAC_US )

• Commodity cost of sugar in the US (monthly, 1960-2014)

  • Source: World Bank via Quandl (https://www.quandl.com/WORLDBANK/WLD_SUGAR_US )

• Commodity cost of coffee in the US (monthly, 1984-2014)

  • Source: World Bank via IndexMundi (http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=other-mild-arabicas-coffee&months=360 )

• Real value of the minimum wage (annual, 1960-2011)

  • Source: Economic Policy Institute via Quandl (https://www.quandl.com/ECPI/WAGE_AD )

First, I rounded and normalized the values in each data set to be within reasonable midi range. For example, the real value of the minimum wage ranged between ~$8 and ~$6, but midi tone 8 is rather low, so all those values were multiplied by 10 to fall between ~80 and ~60.

For commodity prices, I also normalized them all to be in cents, and in Imperial measures (i.e., per pound, versus per kilo or tonne).

• Tobacco: US cents/lb

• Coffee: US cents/lb

• Sugar: US cents/1000lbs (sugar's a LOT cheaper than tobacco or coffee, it turns out...)

Rather than tracking all four data sets simultaneously, I started with just the regression line of the data points in the minimum wage set:

The lowest value there (63) then lingers for the rest of the sonification as a depressing reminder of how much harder it's gotten to afford the Holy Trinity of American addictions while working for minimum wage.

Tobacco and sugar jump in as soon as the regression line is done (January 1960), and coffee joins the party in 1984.