And you are here why?

Back in 2009, C.L. Moffatt put together this gorgeous cheat-sheet on SQL JOINs As he put it I'm a pretty visual person. Things seem to make more sense as a picture. I looked all over the Internet for a good graphical representation of SQL  JOIN s, but I couldn't find any to my liking. Some had good diagrams but lacked completeness (they didn't have all the possible JOINs), and some were just plain terrible. So, I decided to create my own and write an article about it. Enjoy... Hat tip Alex Popescu

via Stephen Wildish

These posts pretty much sums up everything you need to know about my attitude towards fanboys. That said, every now and then somebody else truly encapsulates the experience.  In this case, WuMo has at it ...

Blame the Mercator projection , blame the lack of geographical knowledge, heck, blame the full moon, but regardless you can pretty much assume that most people don't quite realize how absolutely huge Africa is.. This - from Kai Krause - should set you right (click to embiggen monstrously)

So yeah, there was a tornado outside Oklahoma City , and yeah, there was damage , and yeah, there were deaths .  But god forbid we do anything preventative against the next tornado. This from the Star Tribune  [There is] a general resistance to government mandates in politically conservative states such as Oklahoma, where tornadoes are most prevalent. Even the director of an association of storm shelter manufacturers, based in Texas, is opposed to a storm shelter mandate for new homes. "Any time a governmental entity says `thou shalt' and tries to take an individual decision into the public domain, it's going to get pushback, and you're also going to raise the cost of things," said Ernst Kiesling, executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association and a retired civil engineering professor Texas Tech University. And this from Steve Eddy - the City Manager of Moore (ground zero for the tornado damage) via NPR We're a pretty independent lot ...

The Global Data on Events, Location, and Tone (primary author - Kevin Leetaru ) is ... a new CAMEO-coded data set containing more than 200-million geolocated events with global coverage for 1979 to the present. [...] The data are based on a variety of international news sources coded using the TABARI system for events and additional software for location and tone; the data will be updated daily. The New Scientist has mapped the data pertaining to the civil-war in Syria.  Check it out...

Francis Smart , over at Econometrics by Simulation , has the first (and quite possibly, only ) R-based simulation of how one can escape from zombies . From the post # Escape Zombie Land! # This is a simulation an escape from a hot zombie zone.  It freezes and gives an error if you get get killed so you had best not.  To play it you attempt to navigate the zone by constructing waypoints. It is remarkably configurable, (you can set the number of zombies, their acceleration, waypoints, and pretty much everything else.  Most importantly, you can generate really cool animated GIFs like the above. Go check it out, its worth the time :-)

Submitted from the LA Times A Sig Alert on the 210 Freeway was extended until 10 a.m. Monday after a big rig carrying 35,000 pounds of grapes crashed across the center divider in Monrovia. Talk about a sticky situation. The wreck, which blocked two eastbound lanes and three westbound lanes near Myrtle Avenue, proved anything but fruitful for commuters looking for an easy drive to begin the work week.

via @gapingvoid

From Deadspin , we have the highest paid public employees on a state by state basis .  As expected, its pretty much either a football coach or a basketball coach - with a few exceptions for med-school types (and the further exception of the great state of Maine and its law school dean!) From the article Most of these databases include only the coaches' base salaries, which are drawn directly from the state fund. This is how you could be led to believe that   Virginia's offensive coordinator earns more than its head coach . Far exceeding these base salaries is the "additional compensation" that almost all of these coaches receive, which is tied to   media appearances, apparel contracts, and fundraising . While this compensation does not come directly from the state fund it is guaranteed in the coaches' contracts; if revenue falls short, the school—and thus the state—is on the hook to cover the difference. Plus, even it doesn't come directly from taxpay...

Eurostat's report from 5/15 shows that the European continues to suck.  From the NY Times The 17-nation euro zone contracted by 0.2 percent from the last three months of 2012, Eurostat, the statistical agency of the  European Union , reported  from Luxembourg, less than the 0.6 percent dec line recorded in the fourth quarter, but more than economists’ expectations of a 0.1 percent fall. Of particular interest, Greece's economy shrank by 5.3%.  ( We're no. 1! We're no. 1! ) Cyprus by 4.1% ( We're better than Greece! ) Portugal's shrank by 3.9% ( We're better than Cyprus! And Greece! ) Ireland stayed flat ( Yay! We're not cratering! (ignore the fact that we're not growing please...)) Seriously, this  is good news? That Austerity Now! Austerity Forever!  is working? I guess the EU/Germany is going to continue to bleed the patient till, well, whatever.

Yes, this is the food-item that you have been waiting for. Its the  Waffle Taco . Seriously. From Eater , we have the following Ever since  Taco Bell  discovered they  could sell  a million Doritos Locos Tacos every day , they've acquired a taste for novelty tacos. Case in point:  According to Brand Eating  apparently the Mexican-ish fast food chainis testing Waffle Tacos . You know, tacos but with a waffle instead of a tortilla. They're for breakfast, obviously. After spying the Waffle Taco (the waffclo?) on Instagram, FoodBeast  proved they were real  at a Taco Bell in Orange County, California, and a rep for Taco Bell confirmed to Eater that  "waffle taco is testing."  It turns out these freaks of nature are stuffed with sausage and eggs and come with a side of syrup. Would you like fire sauce with that? I weep...

Roy Rogers for Pennsylvania Railroad. No further comment necessary... hat-tip Both Kinds Of Music

From the inimitable John Kovalic ...

Isomorphismes has this great map showing the the U.S. population as multiples of the Canadian one ...

You know what the Dow Jones Index is, right? And you know that the 30 companies in the index have varied over the years, right? ( Pacific Mail Steamship was in it back in 1884, but not any more...) Well, CNN has put together this handy-dandy timeline of the Dow through the years .  Go check it out (the below is just a screen-grab).  Mind you, for a much more detailed (if more complex) timeline, go here ...

Courtesy Amanda Rosenberg on G+

Furia puts together a visualization of pretty much every style of music there is (and a huge catalogue of the artists in that style of music).  You can click on a genre to hear a typical example, or click on the associated arrow to see the artists - and hear them . I wonder what one calls this - an Audibalization? An Audi-visualization? Regardless, its pretty cool! (Note, the below is a screen-grab. Go here for the original )

The Elita Apartments in Bangalore, in case you are wondering...  

Did you know that since 2500 B.C., only 1042 meteorites have actually been seen hitting the earth? Even though 34,513 have been recorded? Go here to check out a wicked interactive visualization of each and every one... (The below is a screen-grab...)

Dorothy Gambrell @ Very Small Array analyzes Craigslist, and puts together this gorgeous map of where the missed connections around the country are . The fascinating ones - McDonalds (in Kansas), and Walmart (in South Dakota). McDonalds ? Really ?  

J Homersham wades through the entire history of English Puddings . Why? I don't really know, but we are the better of for it.  Mind you, if you want to know more (a lot more), you're probably better off reading the relevant entry on Food Timeline which contains such gems as Botellum sic facies: sex ovi vitellis coctis, nucleis pineis concisei cepam, porrum concisum, ius crudum misces, piper minutum et sic intestinum farcies. Adidies liquamen et vinum et sic coques (from Apicus in Ancient Rome, roughly translated to "Blood sausage is made as follows: 6 hard-boiled egg yolks, finely chopped pine kernels mixed with onion, finely sliced leek. Mix raw blood with finely ground pepper and fill a pig's intestine with this. Add wine and liquamen and cook. (Ap. 55) Anyhow, heres the pictorial history (click to embiggen)

Simon McCardle @ The Logo Company puts together an infographic showing the evolution of corporate logos for a bunch-a well known companies. Its fascinating how some have changed so wildly, and others, well, not at all... An illustration by the team at The Logo Company

Noah Veltman does yeoman's work in wading through the history of most SF Street Names - complete w/ Wiki links, interactivity, and whatnot. e.g., Did you know that Howard is named after William Davis Merry Howard , who was not only not a Brandybuck, but was " A sailor and early settler who served on San Francisco's first city council. He was also involved in the formation of the Committee of Vigilance in 1851. " The below is just an image, go here for the original interactive version hat-tip Nathan Yau