Tipping Point for the Spread of Ideas, just 10%

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.

The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals. As an example, the ongoing events in Tunisia and Egypt appear to exhibit a similar process, according to Szymanski. "In those countries, dictators who were in power for decades were suddenly overthrown in just a few weeks."

"In general, people do not like to have an unpopular opinion and are always seeking to try locally to come to consensus. each of the individuals in the models "talked" to each other about their opinion. If the listener held the same opinions as the speaker, it reinforced the listener's belief. If the opinion was different, the listener considered it and moved on to talk to another person. If that person also held this new belief, the listener then adopted that belief.

Source: Science Daily

How do you measure wellbeing and happiness

The Office for National Statistics in UK was asked by the Prime Minister David Cameron last November to find out - or at least to work out how to find out.

After a six month-long consultation the wellbeing project came to the conclusion of a crucial difference:

* happiness is one intangible thing.

* wellbeing is - they say - measurable in the same way our economy is.

The project leader said:

It is essential that the set of measures of well-being is relevant and well-based in what matters to people, both as individuals and for the UK as a whole

So, how will they do it? The study has been split into a search for two types of indicators - subjective ones about how we feel and objective measures of things that affect our wellbeing.

On top on 4 extra questions in the Integrated Household Survey (IHS), they plan to investigate four major areas:

* Childhood

* Economy and inequality

* Health

* Work/life balance

The first results are expected back in July 2012.

Source: The Guardian

Google statistics

"I guess Google Correlate [googlelabs.com] is a dream come true for any person appreciating statistics and social science (or just likes to explore which line graphs match up). It is Google's newest addition to its already rich and powerful collection of data tools, which already include Google Data Explorer, Google Trends, Google Insights for Search, Google Fusion Tables, Google Visualization API, Google Chart API, or Google Wonder Wheel."

Link: Infosthetics

Best Expat country

The interactive, geo-located bubble world map is based on a large survey of about 4,000 expats conducted in 2010.
Link: Expat explorer

Microsoft ExcelWebApp - Online Slicer Graph

Source file: ferrero consulting

Also upgrade from Excel 2003 to Excel 2010, with an Excellent free pdf book. Learn a bit more PowerPivot, at powerpivotpro.

Difference in Pay

Does this reflect inequality or not?

24h body clock - groundbreaking discovery

A group of Cambridge scientists have successfully identified the mechanism that drives our internal 24-hour clock, or circadian rhythm. It occurs not only in human cells, but has also been found in other life forms such as algae, and has been dated back millions of years.

"The implications of this for health are manifold. We already know that disrupted clocks – for example, caused by shift-work and jet-lag – are associated with metabolic disorders such as diabetes, mental health problems and even cancer."

A second study identified a similar 24-hour rhythm in marine algae. This groundbreaking research shows that body clocks are ancient mechanisms that have stayed with us through a billion years of evolution.


Source: Gizmag, Ancient body clock discovered that helps to keep all living things on time

Försäkringskassan

Så mycket betalas ut av Försäkringskassan till andra länder. Vore intressant att ställa det i relation till hur mycket som betalas ut inom Sverige.

Källa: DN:Miljarder hamnar utomlands

Recession - Time to recover

This is an intersting graph comparing the time to recover from a recession. I think it would be equally interesting to view the opposite; Boom - Time to turn. Also it would be interesting to see how the stockmarket reacted. Their job is to know what will be known, soon.

Source: NY Times - Comparing recoveries: Job changes
Normal salary: Levels of income

State of the Union Address 2011

U.S. President Barack Obama has released his State of the Union Address of the year 2011, with Infographics - like a mixed video & ppt slide presentation.
The speach in itself is impressive but the edited version makes it is far better.
Since the best companies usually has the best leaders, when USA now has probably the best leader it is going to be very interesting to see what will happen. I sincerly hope he can keep his job long enough to change the world.

Source: information aesthetics

SlimScan - Wallet sized receipt scanner

A receipts scanner to keep a record of your daily expense.
Don't expect to scan too many receipts. Their pen version has a battery time of max 200 scanned pages and a transfer rate of  about 10pages/minute.
Links: PlanOn SlimScan, Engadget
Current price: US$119.99

Exoplanets Atlas (infographic jpg poster)

Interesting map. Even though the negative temperature scale is wrong.
Source: Wired


Updated 2013-01:

In the media

Source of picture: link

Source of picture: link

Source of picture: link

Unsorted

Analytics
https://www.openanalytics.com.sg/tour.aspx, http://www.openmeasures.com/, http://blog.analysis-one.com/

GDP/captia trends
GDP/captia trend: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/07/gdp-projections-china-us-uk-brazil
Taiwan: http://www.economist.com/blogs/asiaview/2010/11/taiwan_and_japan?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/breakingformation

Graphics
How to tell a story: http://infosthetics.com/archives/2011/01/research_telling_stories_with_data.html
Dataquilts: http://infosthetics.com/archives/2010/11/geneaquilts.html
Media hypes: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/mountains-out-of-molehills/
School reform: http://infosthetics.com/archives/2010/11/explaining_education_reform_through_interactive_infographics.html

Structures
Pyramid of needs: http://brilliantgem.blogspot.com/2007/05/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs.html
Pyramid of wisdom: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/data-information-knowledge-wisdom/comment-page-1/#comments
Definitions: http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm
Taxonomy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_Taxonomy
Human Development Index: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/mpi/

Software
Defrag only files: http://wincontig.mdtzone.it/en/index.htm
Remove in picture: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2010/12/27/inpaint-serial-key-free-download-to-remove-unwanted-objects-in-photo/
Map ftp drives: http://www.netdrive.net/index.html
Right clikc: http://www.moo0.com/
Academic edition of Office 2010: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/about-time-office-2010-academic-edition-microsoft-actually-listens/3560, http://www.microsoft.com/student/en/us/techg.aspx, http://store.digitalriver.com/store/msshus/DisplayStudentHeroRegistrationPage?resid=TAIWhwoHAi0AADaYHCgAAAAM&rests=1291670179836
Pregnancy tester: http://www.gizmag.com/duofertility-ovulation-temperature-monitoring-system/16718/

Creating Value - 4 cornerstones of Corporate finance

In this 40min video presentation, McKinsey partner Tim Koller explores the four guiding principles of corporate finance that all executives can use to home in on value creation when they make strategic decisions.
I found the 2nd part 'Core-of-value principle' and the last part of 'Best-owner principle', most interesting.

Global Property Guide

Property trends: Sweden, South Korea, ... see Data left hand side.

Most expensive appartments

Global Property Guide

Energy map

On EnergyMap.dk you can find information about the latest energy and climate related technologies, projects, solutions, cases and events. EnergyMap is the national Danish internet portal for energy and climate related solutions.

On EnergyMap Danish companies, organisations, institutions and public authorities are given the opportunity to present their work and ideas on technologies and programmes that may help combat climate change and improve energy-efficiency

PhD, what do you know

This is what you know, when you really know what you are talking about.
Source: 1, 2

Religion and GDP/capita

Interesting correlation between religion and GDP/capita.

Source: Religious Outlier

Self actualization

The questions to self actualisation (what, why, how, where, when, who, ...):
If someone don't do it for you: http://www.justspotted.com/map/
You can do it yourself: https://www.google.com/latitude

A good way to find new sites, similar to your own.

Source: ...

The World's Best Countries

Newsweek: The world's best country, New Hansa countries