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.

Executive compensation
Executive compensation

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
America…if only Vespucci had a map like this
The Chicago metropolitan area
The Chicago metropolitan area
My old stomping grounds
My old stomping grounds
Monsters in the southeast suburbs, another reason not to visit Indianapolis…
Monsters in the southeast suburbs, another reason not to visit Indianapolis…
Scranton–Wilkes-Barre is also under monster threat…
Scranton–Wilkes-Barre is also under monster threat…
Wolfman…I'll be near him when on holiday next weekend…maybe I'll okay…
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…
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.

Chocolate map
Chocolate map

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
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.)

Changing coastline
Changing coastline

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.

Cholera

Cholera. It’s more than just a disease on the Oregon Trail. It exists in the 21st century, though typically we do not experience it in the industrialised Western world. Where one does see it crop up are in places with poor sanitation, which is usually in the developing world. But, if one were to take a developing country and then in a few seconds wreck the national infrastructure in a devastating earthquake, one could see the creation of the right conditions for an outbreak.

Sadly, that is exactly what happened—and to a lesser degree is still happening—in Haiti. The New York Times wrote about the problem in an article in the Sunday edition. The article was accompanied by an infographic that mapped the spread of the outbreak geographically and then its intensity over time.

Cholera outbreak
Cholera outbreak

Credit for the piece goes to Joe Burgess and Lisa Waananen.

A Nice Cup of Tea

Given the absence of a post yesterday, I took some time to do a small catch-up piece for you all. Those who know me offline are well aware that I document many things about my life including when I happen to drink tea. (And that’s often.) Finding myself with some unexpected time, I looked through the data that I have amassed since 1 January through to 28 March. While I aim to do more with this dataset someday, for now consider this a start. And now a self-surveillance infographic. On drinking tea.

Tea consumption
Tea consumption

It is interesting to note that I have in fact had tea every single day so far this year.

The First Rule Is You Don’t Talk About It

There are two things one is not supposed to discuss in mixed company, and let us face it, the internet is some rather mixed company. One of those things, politics, I frequently mention and bring up on this blog. The other, religion, I do not.

Until now. (I think.)

From the National Post comes this work on the size and distribution of the world’s religions.

World religions
World religions

Credit for the work goes to Richard Johnson.

Comparing Surgeries

We have an obesity problem in the United States. And in some cases, obesity leads to diabetes. A study was commissioned to discover whether surgery is more effective than the usual prescription of drugs, diet, and exercise. It turns out that surgery may very well be more effective.

The New York Times produced an infographic to explain the three types of surgery investigated in the study.

Comparing surgeries
Comparing surgeries

Follow the Money

Follow the money is almost always good advice. And in this case, the journalists over at ProPublica have done just that. They have visualised just where the campaign (and Super PAC) dollars are going using an interactive Sankey diagram.

Who pays what where
Who pays what where

And then for those interested in how this was made, ProPublica provides those details as well.

Via my colleague Lauren Beth.

Credit goes to Al Shaw, Kim Barker, and Justin Elliott.