Uncategorized – Page 4 – Coffee Spoons

Today is a Happy Happy Joy Joy Story

For the past two posts I focused on the sinking of the RMS Titanic, an historical event that has always been of some interest to me, but is not always the most uplifting of subjects. When in high-school, I once had an English teacher who took to heart our complaints that our literature selection was rather dark and depressing. So after finishing yet another such story, he had us turn to a specific page in our reader. The title of that day’s story was To the Gas Chambers, Ladies and Gentlemen; it was a story about the Holocaust.

Here is today’s uplifting story. What would happen if a dirty bomb was detonated in lower Manhattan. Courtesy of the National Post.

Credit for the piece goes to Richard Johnson.

How the RMS Titanic Sank

On 14 April 1912—that is 100 years—RMS Titanic avoided slamming bow-on into an iceberg. But her turn allowed the iceberg to slice a long gash beneath the waterline and the North Atlantic gushed into watertight compartment after watertight compartment. Several hours later over 1500 people would be dead.

The BBC has published several articles about the sinking in the lead-up to the anniversary. This one is an illustration through small multiples of how the Titanic sank, from the bow slipping beneath the waves to the point at which the liner split in two to the stern rising vertically out of the water before it too plummeted to the seabed.

At the end of the graphic is an exploration of the wreck and a small chart showing the scale of the depth at which the wreck now sits, slowly deteriorating.

Credit for the painting goes to Ken Marchshall.

Setting the Stage for the Sinking of RMS Titanic

Saturday will be the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. She struck an iceberg just before midnight—at the time the crew thought merely as a glancing blow—and within three hours she would be headed towards the seabed. By the time the survivors were all picked up, over 1500 people would die in what is perhaps the most (in)famous sinking in human history.

But, what about the iceberg? There are of course the reports that a ship scouring the sea for survivors after the sinking found the killer berg. But how did it get there? The New York Times put together an infographic exploring the science behind how the RMS Titanic might have ended up colliding with what originally was part of (probably) a Greenlandic glacier.

Also in the piece are explanations of how it is possible that the SS Californian did not come to the rescue of the stricken RMS Titanic.

Credit for the piece goes to Mika Gröndahl and Joe Burgess.

Santorum Quits. Goodbye…and Thanks for all the Varicose Veins.

So Rick Santorum is now out of the race. Mitt Romney is basically now set to run against the President. But why should Santorum go out without an infographic looking back at the Republican primary race. (Since neither Newt nor Ron come even close to running the same race as Rick.)

The New York Times put out an infographic looking at Rick Santorum’s campaign. And as one can see, he did do well in the evangelical and Christian conservative heartland of the United States. It just was not quite enough to beat Romney’s supporters.

County leaders in Republican primary states

But, Santorum did manage to last longer in the race than many others have in recent years. So who knows, depending on how the election in November turns out, we may just see more of Rick in the future.

Power Pitching (And Who’s Paying)

And the baseball season is kicking off (perhaps a bit slowly for my 1–3 Red Sox, but I’m not worried…yet). The Washington Post, the newspaper for those most likely to be following the Washington Nationals, put out a little while ago an interactive graphic looking at the payroll figures for the Top-3 starting pitchers in each team’s rotation.

Comparison of AL East and Central Pitching Contracts

Credit for the piece goes to Sisi Wei and Todd Lindeman.

Executive Compensation

Everybody knows that executives make a lot of money. But not all of it comes from just salary, some comes from bonuses, stocks, options, and other perks. So who makes the most?

The New York Times put together an interactive piece with data from Equilar about the 50 most-highly paid chief executives from companies over $5 billion in size. The data is arranged as stacked bars, with—when available—2010 data to compare to 2011. The order can be sorted a number of different ways and the executives on display can be filtered by what industry his or her—granted only 3/50 are women—company works in.

Credit for the piece goes to Lisa Waananen, Seth Feaster, and Alan McLean.

I’m On a Quest

For those that may have missed it, earlier this week Google released its newest addition to its Google Maps product offering: the 8-bit Quest map. Never before has the world been seen in such high-resolution. And if you look close enough, you might even be able to spy some interesting features.

America…if only Vespucci had a map like this

Monsters in the southeast suburbs, another reason not to visit Indianapolis…

Scranton–Wilkes-Barre is also under monster threat…

Wolfman…I'll be near him when on holiday next weekend…maybe I'll okay…

And if you know where Swedesboro is you get bonus points…

Happy Monster Hunting Quest.

Chocolate All Over the World

There are a few things in this world that I really dislike. Two of them are coffee and chocolate. So this map from the Guardian, a map made of real melted chocolate, is not quite to my liking.

While I can appreciate the concept behind it—regardless of the chocolate-ness—I am left to wonder if from a data visualisation point a world map might not have been the best choice. Only fourteen countries are shown, if I count melted chocolate correctly.

I am just thankful that at the bottom of the piece I am not looking at chocolate doughnuts.

Credit for the piece goes to Jenny Ridley.

A Warm Winter in Canada

For many, this past winter was not so wintery, warmer than average temperatures and less than average snowfall. The National Post looked at Canada’s winter experience and found it to be the third-warmest in history. The story was covered in a large infographic piece that uses small multiples to look at previous Februaries across Canada and then bar charts to look at March temperatures specifically.

Previous February temperature differences

Credit for the piece goes to Tristin Hopper, Jonathon Rivait, and Richard Johnson.

Rising Seas

Via the Guardian, Stamen Design has teamed up with Climate Central to create an interactive piece that maps the potential effects of rising sea levels. The user has control over the amount of the rise—this graphic says four feet—after which the coastline recedes to reveal the devastation. This is complemented by statistics of the land, including the population potentially affected along with the number of homes and total acres. In this case you see South Jersey, which is where I spent my summers. As you can see, the coastal beach towns I called home would be underwater. (And the little blue specks inland in Pennsylvania near my hometown, those are quarries; nobody lives there. No need to worry.)

The problem, of course, is that a large percent of the Earth’s population lives near the ocean. There are not, after all, many people living in the interiors of the continents. So receding coasts may very well be a problem in the coming years.