Here's the idea. The government recommends a diet for healthy living (right pyramid), but at the same time there are billions of dollars of lopsided subsidies (left pyramid) whose distribution doesn't look anything like the former. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) used the above 3-d pyramids to present this information.
Interesting point. Funky presentation. Discuss (remakes highly recommended).
[via The Consumerist]
The opening page of We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion
I have a problem I'm sure many other bloggers face: I am perfectly comfortable sharing intimate details about my emotions with complete strangers I meet online but shy away from expressing my true feelings to anyone I know in real life.
For those unfamiliar, We Feel Fine is a project from Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar that's been online since 2006. At its core, the goal is to show the emotions of the authors behind millions of blog posts on the Web by looking for sentences that start with "I feel" or "I am feeling." It's an interactive artwork "authored by everyone."
Continue Reading
In a follow up to his McDonald's map, Stephen Von Worley of Weather Sealed maps the dominating burger chains across the United States. McDonald's obviously has a stronghold in a lot of areas but not all of them. Most noticeable is Sonic Drive-in with over 900 restaurants in Texas alone. Personally, I'm rooting for Carl's Jr. and In-n-Out.
[via We Love Datavis]
EPCOR, the water utility company that runs the fountains up in Edmonton, Canada released this graph yesterday. It's water consumption during the Olympic gold medal hockey game, overlaying consumption of the previous day. How much do Canadians love their hockey? A lot.
The first period ends. Time to pee. The second period ends. Time to pee. The third period ends. Time to pee. Consumption goes way down when Canada wins and during the medal ceremony.
Finally, when it's all said and done, the rest of the country can relieve itself, figuratively and literally.
[via contrarian | thanks, @statpumpkin]
In an effort to put transit data from the Toronto Transit Committee to better use, MyTTC provides a trip planner to help you find the best route from point A to point B. This video, compete with smart arses sitting on a couch, provides a peek into how the underlying algorithm works.
[Thanks, Canna]
Big news for all you Edward Tufte fanboys and girls. He will be joining the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel who will advise The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board. The Board's purpose is to track and explain how the $787 billion in stimulus funds is being put to use.
I'm doing this because I like accountability and transparency, and I believe in public service. And it is the complete opposite of everything else I do. Maybe I'll learn something. The practical consequence is that I will probably go to Washington several days each month, in addition to whatever homework and phone meetings are necessary.
Whether Tufte will have a direct impact on graphs like these, I'm not so sure, but it certainly won't hurt. I mean the man does know a thing or two about dispersing information.
[Thanks, Yuri and @tbeauchamp]
Here's looking at you, data point.
Footprints - Every building footprint, and nothing else, in Montgomery County, Ohio. It's interesting how buildings can define an area.
Data, data everywhere - The Economist reports on the explosion of big data and the challenges that come with it.
Q&A With Shawn Allen of Stamen Design - Always interesting to hear from these guys [thx, tim].
The Case For An Older Woman - Another thoughtful analysis from the okcupid group on why men should be more open-minded to dating older women.
There's this article on CNN, from The Frisky, that has this little theory about who is most likely to win the Oscar for best actor:
[T]he Oscar generally goes to the dude who has the most best actor and best supporting nominations under his belt already.
That seemed like a curious statement. Didn't Forest Whitaker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Jaimie Foxx recently win on their first nominations for the coveted award? Okay, so Hoffman was actually up against a bunch of other newbies, but what about the rest?
Only 10 out of the past 29 winners, or just over a third, had the most nominations their year. Take a look at the data since 1980. Is the theory valid? You decide.
Of course when Jeff Bridges wins tonight, the theory authors will declare victory, but oh well.
Just for fun let's take a poll:
It was a good month for FlowingData. We passed the 30k-reader mark, and I think this past month was an all-time high for pageviews. Thanks again. everyone for reading and sharing FlowingData.
I also managed to switch servers (semi-) successfully while updating the FD homepage in the process. Make sure you check that out if you haven't already, and let me know what you think in the comments.
In case you missed them, here are the most popular posts from last month ranked by a combination of views, comments, and trackbacks. I especially enjoyed a lot of the thoughtful discussion that came out of these posts.
There was also some good stuff going on in the forums with a couple of job postings and some data goodies.
Data Visualization Guru - Energy group EnergyHub is looking for someone who can help visualize their data.
Interactive Data Visualization help needed - So is FrogDesign, but for a smaller project.
Visual Architects Contest - Do you have what it takes to win?
WinterOlympicMedals - The Olympics are over, but that doesn't mean you have to stop playing with several decades of medal data [thanks, annie]
I call myself a statistician, because, well, I'm a statistics graduate student. However, ask me specific questions about hypothesis tests or required sampling size, and my answer probably won't be very good.
The other day I was trying to think of the last time I did an actual hypothesis test or formal analysis. I couldn't remember. I actually had to dig up old course listings to figure out when it was. It was four years ago during my first year of graduate school. I did well in those courses, and I'm confident I could do that stuff with a quick refresher, but it's a no go off the cuff. It's just not something I do regularly.
Instead, the most important things I've learned are less formal, but have proven extremely useful when working/playing with data. Here they are in no particular order.
Continue Reading
