#number crunch
Boomshaka spends $600 on drumsticks, over 4,000 hours on their spring show
Everyone’s favorite drum-beating, trashcan-slapping, booty-shaking rhythm, drum and dance crew may be finished for the year after their show Breaking the Chain this past weekend, but you can find out more about the loudest group on campus (up to 115 decibels!) with Intel’s Boomshaka infographic. Half of the current 20 members have previous drum and dance experience, they get their drumsticks sponsored from ProMark and a typical Boomshaka piece has around 7,920 drum hits. See more interesting facts after the jump. more 
Yes, engineers, your books really are the most expensive
The start of every quarter brings the same old dreaded hunt for the cheapest books. But inevitably, some overworked science or engineering major will pipe up claiming that their books are by far the most expensive. (Good old NU, where students compete to have the most expensive books.) Here at Intel we wondered, is that really the case? An informal poll sadly proved that fact, but some of the other results may surprise you. Check out the full graphic and stats after the jump. more
Police crackdown on underage drinking doesn’t lead to increase in arrests
With the recent shutting down of the Keg along with an outstanding amount of raids in EV1, the Deuce and even Cozy Noodle, we’re left wondering if the city of Evanston is getting rid of everything near and dear to our hearts. Even McFaddens has recently been cracking down on IDs and making students nervous about where the future of pregames lies. But students might be surprised when faced with the actual hard numbers and stats about the amount of recent alcohol-related arrests. Check out the deets after the jump. more
As every frat star will tell you, party rocking is expensive. But booze isn’t all bros have to worry about — there has to be appropriate vessel for the elixir. And when the clock hits cocktail hour, most frats opt for the timeless red Solo cup. In this edition of the Number Crunch, Intel takes an incredibly half-baked look at the price of fratting. Fair warning: all numbers are self-reported and since frats aren’t exactly Fourtune 500 companies, their expenditures aren’t meticulously recorded. more
The week where Tisdahl went soft on marijuana, hard on brothels
It’s the final week before the onslaught of midterms and in an effort to ignore the inevitable, Northwestern students are turning a blind eye and focusing their attention on preparations for this weekend’s football game against Michigan. To help you get ready, we unveiled a pregame playlist and showed you how much your friends at state schools pay to see their team play. The week began, however, by reliving the moments we may have liked to forget from the weekend’s parties (including crying about The Lion King), and then took a sociological look at our favorite dive bar, TKOE, in “How to NU.” more
Ohio State, Michigan nickel and dime students for tickets
When you pay private school prices, you expect some perks. Maybe it’s the state-of-the-art facilities, the smaller class sizes, and, oh yeah, the allure of “free” football. We can’t help but wonder if students would be as enthusiastic about our mediocre team if these tickets cost $250 a year, like they do for Michigan students. This week in Number Crunch: We break down which teams in the Big Ten demand the highest prices. Check out the graphic and stats after the jump. more
Northwestern just couldn’t seem to stay out of the headlines this year, and we reveled in the opportunity to serve the news with a side of snark. The attention might not have always been positive: from when Morty quit being a team player with the fuck saw incident to the university earning top honors as the drunkest, smartest college town. Any publicity is good publicity, right? But we’re still a little upset Gawker never caught wind of the news we broke about students shitting in the Bobb showers. A collection of this year’s newsy (and not so newsy) gems after the jump. more
With new contract, Fitz’s salary places him in the middle of the pack among Big Ten coaches
While Northwestern refused to release details of Coach Fitz’s new contract, which runs through 2020, sources told the Tribune the deal includes a new salary of $1.8 million per year for the Wildcats’ head coach. That’s a 240 percent increase over Fitz’s last reported yearly salary of $750,000. With such a mind boggling increase, we decided to see how his new salary stacks up against the competition—other Big Ten football coaches. The stats after the jump. more
What’s the likelihood that you’ll vote today?
Northwestern students are notoriously apathetic. Sure we’ll come out in force when we’re threatened with the possibility of homelessness, but when push comes to shove, we tend to acquiesce to administrators’ decisions demands (New Student Center, anyone?). So how politically involved are Northwestern students? We looked at student voting patterns at Northwestern and our oft-compared top-tier neighbor, UChicago. The results after the jump. more
Drunk-enomics: a drink-by-drink comparison of local establishments
You’re at a bar, already sufficiently drunk off extensive pregaming, but you just need one more drink. So you stumble to the bar and order your favorite alcoholic beverage. The bartender stares back at you, thinks for a few beats and then blurts out a price. Sound familiar? After a few too many similar occurrences, we became suspicious about the drink prices at the local establishments. Naturally we did some immersion reporting to find what bar (and mixed drink) is most economical. Our findings after the jump. more
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