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]

World Progress Report - 6 days left

The opening page of We Feel Fine: An Almanac of Human Emotion reads a quote from "a woman in Maine." It sets the stage for the rest of the book.

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."

We Feel Fine the book, also by Kamvar and Harris, is a selection of some of the best entries from the database of 12 million emotions, along with some insights into the growing dataset (mostly the former).

Here are some pages from the book to give you an idea.

Want to see more? You can actually flip through the entire book online.

Who Will Like the Book

As a supplement to the online artwork, which I'm a big fan of, the book works really well. It provides lots of good excerpts, and in the end, it's entertaining. The best comparison I can think of is PostSecret. You know the blog/book that features secrets from anonymous people. Similarly, We Feel Fine is a snapshot of emotions from people you don't know; however, even though they're complete strangers, you will no doubt identify with many of them. Basically, if you like PostSecret, you'll probably like this book. There's a slightly greater data spin to it though, which of course I appreciate.

Anyways, you don't really need to hear what I think. Just check out the entire book online and form your own opinion.

World Progress Report - 6 days left

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]

World Progress Report - 6 days left

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]

World Progress Report - 6 days left

[Thanks, Canna]

World Progress Report - 6 days left

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]

World Progress Report - 6 days left

Simple yet effective. Any questions? [via 9gag | Thanks, Barry]

World Progress Report - 6 days left

FloatingSheep, a fun geography blog, looks at the beer belly of America. One maps shows total number of bars, but the interesting map is the one above. Red dots represent locations where there are more bars than grocery stores, based on results from the Google Maps API. The Midwest takes their drinking seriously.

Of course there are plenty of possible explanations for the distribution. Maybe people get all their food from superstores like Walmart in the red dot areas, so there are fewer gigantic stores than there are small local bars.

Then again, the FloatingSheep guys did their homework and found, according to Census, that the number of drinking places in those red dots are really skewed compare to the average. So it's also possible that area of the country just likes to drink a lot.

Anyone who lives in the area care to confirm? I expect your comment to be filled with typos and make very little sense. And maybe smell like garbage.

[Thanks, Michael]

World Progress Report - 6 days left

World Progress Report - 6 days left

Like everyone, I've been watching the Olympics, and it continues to amaze me how hundredths of a second can make up the difference between a gold medal and nothing at all. Amanda Cox of The New York Times visualizes and audiolizes(?) these tiny differences. She got creative with this one.

Each row is an event and going from left to right, the first dot is the gold medal winner. The amount of space between the first dot and the dots that follow is how many seconds athletes finished after the winner.

Visually, this only sort of works, but click on play to hear how these differences sound, and it puts everything in perspective.

See the rest of NYT interactive Olympic coverage here. You know, just in case NBC coverage doesn't cut it for you.

World Progress Report - 6 days left