And you are here why?

The ultimate dubstep shopping experience

For those of you who care about this, a pretty nifty interactive visualization of what was being twittered during the SOTU speech - broken out by geography and subject. (Yawn)

In case you haven't heard of the Big-Mac index - it was invented by The Economist  as a way of measuring "Purchasing Power Parity" - think " What does it take to buy the same item in each country " - i.e., a way of seeing how far off the exchange rate was from the " internal rate " for a country. As they put it Burgernomics was never intended as a precise gauge of currency misalignment, merely a tool to make exchange-rate theory more digestible. Yet the Big Mac index has become a global standard, included in several economic textbooks and the subject of at least 20 academic studies. For those who take their fast food more seriously, we have also calculated a gourmet version of the index. This adjusted index addresses the criticism that you would expect average burger prices to be cheaper in poor countries than in rich ones because labour costs are lower. PPP signals where exchange rates should be heading in the long run, as a country like Chin...

Remember this transit map that WNYC pulled together in March of 2013? Andrew Hardin, a  graduate student at UC Boulder pulled the data together for San Francisco, Seattle, Boulder, and Denver, and has created the same kind of transit maps for them.  A nice feature here is that you can actually pick the day of the week (yeah boyo, Sunday =/= Monday!) Check it out below! (Visualization below, image above)

via The New York Press Matt Taibbi: Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas L. Friedman Flathead : I think it was about five months ago that Press editor Alex Zaitchik whispered to me in the office hallway that Thomas Friedman had a new book coming out. All he knew about it was the title, but that was enough; he approached me with the chilled demeanor of a British spy who has just discovered that Hitler was secretly buying up the world's manganese supply. Who knew what it meantbut one had to assume the worst "It's going to be called The Flattening," he whispered. Then he stood there, eyebrows raised, staring at me, waiting to see the effect of the news when it landed. I said nothing. It turned out Alex had bad information; the book that ultimately came out would be called The World Is Flat. It didn't matter. Either version suggested the same horrifying possibility. Thomas Friedman in possession of 500 pages of ruminations on the metaphorical theme o...

/via  +Richard Carlsson

Remember Sergei Grits? The AP photographer who got beaten up in Belarus ? He is now in Ukraine, chronicling the ongoing chaos.  His photo-journal is here at Corbis - I encourage you to go see it, but I've attached a few of the more harrowing ones below - all from Central Kiev - January 25th 2014 unless otherwise noted ) Central Kiev - January 24th 2014

Herewith a handy Visualization breaking down the Davos participants by Age, Region, and Gender (and oh yeah, a complete list of participants) Frankly, I don

via the irrepressible WuMo

Its true! Its true! via Sheldon

There is a spot reserved in the 7th circle of hell for the vaccination deniers (yes, I'm looking at you Jenny . And you too Katie ). And frankly, I'm getting tired of writing about this - its f**king stupid that I have to. But, every now and then, you get something like this, showing all the outbreaks that could have been prevented through vaccination . Its from The Council for Foreign Relations , and the highlights (helpfully summarized by The Incidental Economist ) All that Red?  Its measles. Get rid of Measles, and you see Mumps Both Measles and Mumps are part of the MMR vaccine (that f**king Jenny and her ilk are against) Almost all the whooping cough is in the USA. (Yay! We're no. 1!) Please, please, please  get your kids vaccinated.

via The Guardian   everything you wanted to know about the nutritional content of Krispy Kreme donuts . (And yes, I know, if you're looking to donuts for nutrition, well, you shouldn't be) But then again, somebody  had to pull this stuff together - I mean, what if you had a sudden urge to know which Krispy Kreme donut had the most fibre? Or protein? Check it out below, or go here for the full-screen version ...

The Atlantic  has an article about the nations that drink the most coffee . Its nice, and its cute, but it brings up one really, really  important question How does this correlate with alcohol consumption? And the answer, sadly, is - "no correlation". If you cross-reference Teh Voice Of Authoriteh , you basically get this The Czechs  are No. 2 on the alcohol list, and Slovenians  are No. 9 . None of the others come even remotely close.  Sigh...

"Booth Babes" are easily one of the most embarrassing things about going to conferences ( just do an image search on "booth babe" - you'll see wh y). Now  Spencer Chen of Frontback has a nice article about this over at TechCrunch involving an A/B split test he did at an SAP show He had two booths, one w/ "booth-babes", and one with - literally - grandmothers.   Professional, knowledgable, and enthusiastic grandmothers, mind you - but most definitely not "booth-babes". In his words The results? They were great. The booth that was staffed with the booth babes generated a third of the foot traffic (as measured by conversations or demos with our reps) and less than half the leads (as measured by a badge swipe or a completed contact form) while the other team had a consistently packed booth that ultimately generated over 550 leads, over triple from the previous year. He has a whole bunch of reasons for this, but the ones that I agr...

Most (all?) discussions about inequality in the USA end up getting side-tracked and/or derailed for one simple reason - most people are unaware of where they actually are on the scale.  Or, to put it differently Surveys reveal that the majority of people (no matter whether they are poor or rich) believe that their position is in the middle of the distribution of wealth and income. It seems likely that part of the reason for this is that we primarily know people in a similar economic situation as ourselves, and that we have a hard time imagining that others are significantly richer or poorer than ourselves.  To put it in chart form And now, to really hammer this home, Maximilian Kasy of Harvard's Econ Dept has put together the Wealthometer .  Plug in a few quick numbers, and see exactly how misinformed you  are!

Ya know that T-Mobile has been repurposing its old EDGE frequencies to allows HSPA (i.e., fast access to the inter-tubes), right? And that this means that in some areas, you can get on T-Mobile at 1900MHz, right? Instead of needing to do it at 1700MHz, right? (that last bit is important - it means you can use most "world-phones" instead of "T-Mobile only" phones) Herewith a handy-dandy map showing you where people have been spotting the repurposing .  The short version? In a bunch-a places, but not everywhere...)

via GoogleSystem While Google Drive lets you upload any file, the support for files that can't be edited using Google Docs/Sheets/Slides is limited. For example, you can embed PDF files and videos, but Google doesn't offer permalinks for images. So you've uploaded a photo to Google Drive and the only options are to download the file and link to the image page. But what if you want to embed that image in a web page or simply post a direct link to the image? You may think that right-clicking the image lets you copy the image URL, but that's not true. Even if you check the source code of a page or use features like Firefox's "view page info", you'll get a link that doesn't work. Fortunately, there's an easy solution - replace this URL from the address bar: http://docs.google.com/file/d/FILEID/edit with:  http://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=FILEID (where FILEID is a long sequence of digits and letters).   This only works if you...

Brought to you by the AirTraffic team , and The Tubes of You , 24 hours of commercial air traffic in one short snappy video. (And yes, time codes would have been very  useful) Check it out!

Originally from here . (For all 17 people that actually care about Donald Duck nowadays...) Click below to embiggen - monstrously...

Yes, he is supremely talented...

Another impeccable Springsteen cover from Fallon, this time referencing Christie's BridgeGate

and the appropriate animated gif

via r/skeptic , a salutary lesson in why one should never confuse correlation with causation (I hope Jenny McCarthy never sees this...)

Loosely based on this Coarsely pound 2 tsp coriander seeds 1 tsp cumin seeds 2 cloves 1 dried red chilli 2 cardamom pods (green, not black!) 1" cinammon 1 bay leaf 1 tsp tumeric This is your spice mix Cut 1.5lbs of Tilapia   into large (1.5") cubes, and sprinkle with 1tsp salt  and 1tsp tumeric . Mix it all up till well coated. ( If you use your hands, you'll end up with yellow stains from the tumeric! ) Let this sit in the fridge while you get the gravy done. Grind  2 large onions . Heat 1/4 cup canola oil  in a pan, and fry the ground onions till most of the liquid is gone, ant it is kinda firm - at around med-high, it'll take roughly 15 minutes ( be sure to keep stirring if you don't want it to end up burnt ). Make long vertical slits in 4 green chillies , and add them to the  mix.  If the oil hasn't separated out ('cos you stinted), you might need to add a wee bit more oil. ( For a pop of flavor, add  Mustard O...

Largely based on this Pressure Cook  1 cup  of  Chana Dal (Bengal Gram)  with almost  2 & 1/2 cups of water 1 green cardamom, 1 clove, 1/4 tsp of turmeric and  salt to taste (around 1/2tsp? more?) for  6 minutes after steam has built up in the cooker  or say about  10-12 mins on the whole  - basically "till its done" (yeah, a little experimentation here might be necessary) Heat  1 tbsp of Ghee (or Oil  - go with the Ghee. It tastes better )  in a pot.  ( For a pop of flavor, add  Mustard Oil  instead of Ghee ) Add to the oil 1 small bay leaf, 2-3 green cardamom, 2-3 cloves, 1" thin stick of cinnamon and 2 dry red chilis Once you get a pretty little aroma o' spices, add 2 tbsp freshly grated coconut  (you can find the stuff frozen in the freezer section of your friendly Indian grocery store) and fry the whole thing till the coconut browns. Add a pinch of  asafoetidia ...

AFAICT, this really wasn't around in India when I was growing up - a tremendous loss, fwiw And then, there is the Butters version

DoctorWho.tv  has pulled together the timelines of each of the Doctors (up to the 11th - future ones are, sadly, not present) in this one glorious interactive visualization. If ever there was any doubt that time is like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, this should pretty conclusively settle it!

via Stephen Wildish - a handy guide to help you differentiate 'tween Oranges, Tangelos, Minneolas, etc.

via isomorphismes  via who knows, the population of the USA in "Canada-Units"

via WuMo

via Flowing Data , a whole bunch of awesome Back To The Future Classics Moar Classics and all of them in one place

The title pretty much sez. it all. Its interactive, and the slices of music are an inspired touch.

@Kristw of Twitter has put together this gorgeous interactive showing the spread of Happy New Year!  tweets by time around the world . You can either do it manually, or just press " Play " and enjoy! For extra credit, check out UTC+1, when most of Europe + Central Africa kicks in

At the National Post ,  Steve Murray has a wonderful description of the difference between Marvel and DC movies .  In short, DC went all in on GrimDark™, and Marvel bet on "Fun". Back in the ’60s when Marvel Comics characters such as Thor first appeared in their books, they were complex, well-rounded antidotes to the campy, consequence-free narratives of DC Comics’ Superman and Batman. However, somewhere along the way to modern movie appearances, the managers of the DC characters mistook complex for mirthless, and Marvel has managed to balance their history of multi-dimensional characters with a sense of fun onscreen. You come back to Marvel movies for the characters, not the spectacle. Now this, of course, is a Cultural Lesson gleaned from 2013, but I don’t think DC and their parent company, Warner Bros. are going to change tactics with the 2015  Superman  sequel featuring a Ben Affleck Batman. It will undoubtably have the dark palette and brooding characte...

This, from a series of ads in '86 via Lawyers Guns & Money

via The Tubes of You and chrisgsauce Woke up to a balmy -41C this morning in South Porcupine, ON. Thought I'd share what happens when you mix boiling water and a water gun and take it outside for a few shots This my friends, this  is what science is for!

I could go through a remarkably long post, but I'll let this do the speaking for me Mind you, my favorite item is no. 11 "and everything else!", which, to me, include Mortadella Culatello Pretty much all other sliced meats Farinata Focaccia di Recco Pesto Ok, Italian Food, all of it, including trippa The pace of life and last, but not least, at least one Italian woman (hello Nikki!) via https://twitter.com/jjcomellas @dieswaytoofast To help you cope with the cold: http://t.co/KbHNiWu0ad — Juan Jose Comellas (@jjcomellas) January 4, 2014

via SMBC , the proof in one easy panel

Have you ever wondered about the correct utilization of the word "Fuck"? If so, fear not, the interwebs to the rescue! Herewith a video telling you pretty much everything you need to know. Of course, if you don't feel like sitting through all of that, Stephen Wildish has you covered

A handy guide to differentiate between Jackets, Coats, Cloaks, Stoles, etc. via Stephen Wildish

via Stephen Wildish .  How many of these do you recognize? And agree with?

Pretty nifty - and the disconnect 'tween the pilot and the ground is quite visceral...

Unrellius , over at deviantArt , has pulled together a monster poster of every single cast member of Futurama - it took him 14 months (which I believe - this is seriously  detailed and comprehensive!) Check out the low-rez. version, or head over to deviantArt for the full-on image

via Boston.com , this story about rare flutes being destroyed by Customs Before you whine about an airline temporarily losing your luggage, think of poor Boujemaa Razgui (at right). The flute virtuoso who performs regularly with The Boston Camerata lost 13 handmade flutes over the holidays when a US Customs official at New York’s JFK Airport mistook the instruments for pieces of bamboo and destroyed them. Razgui, a Canadian citizen who lives some of the time in Brockton, had flown last week from Morocco to Boston, with stops in Madrid and New York. In New York, he says, an official opened his luggage and found the 13 flutelike instruments — 11 nays and two kawalas. Razgui says he had made all of the instruments using hard-to-find reeds. “They said this is an agriculture item,” said Razgui, who was not present when his bag was opened. “I fly with them in and out all the time and this is the first time there has been a problem. This is my life.” When his baggage arrived in Boston, t...

via MetaPicture

Vincenzo Cosenza maps the evolution of social networks worldwide from 2009 through 2013 . FWIW, this is based on Alexa traffic trends.