The Shepherd's Calculation

From the balcony of my new apartment I can see the Mediterranean Sea. This is what it looks like:

I live in Spain, where I’ve taught math at international schools for the past four years. I taught and surfed in southern California for many sunny seasons, and last week I discovered that you can surf in the Mediterranean too! Can you tell which photo below depicts surfing in California and which surfing on the Mediterranean?

The Good Dinosaur Likes the Grand Tetons...

...and so do I! A photo of the Tetons is part of my logo above, and I've climbed there many times. A beautiful place, and Pixar knows it. They built a world for The Good Dinosaur using USGS topographical data for the Teton area and then rendered it digitally. The result is rather magical, not unlike the famous turn of the century paintings of Thomas Moran. Click the images below to learn more about both artists!

Thomas Moran. The Three Tetons. 1895

Pixar. The Good Dinosaur.

GIFS are powerful!

And pretty easy to make! I bought the cheap app Animation HD, for my ipad, then used imgflip free online to create the gif. Way easier than using photoshop in my opinion. It's cool because in less than 30 seconds you get a little introduction to quadratic functions, with automatic review since it loops!