Gapminder: Unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world view. NSA files decoded: Edward Snowden's surveillance revelations explained Two factors opened the way for the rapid expansion of surveillance over the past decade: the fear of terrorism created by the 9/11 attacks and the digital revolution that led to an explosion in cell phone and internet use. But along with these technologies came an extension in the NSA’s reach few in the early 1990s could have imagined. Details that in the past might have remained private were suddenly there for the taking. Chris Soghoian Principal technologist, ACLU NSA is helped by the fact that much of the world’s communications traffic passes through the US or its close ally the UK – what the agencies refer to as “home-field advantage”. The Snowden documents show that the NSA runs these surveillance programs through “partnerships” with major US telecom and internet companies. The division inside the NSA that deals with collection programs that focus on private companies is Special Source Operations, described by Snowden as the “crown jewels” of the NSA. Jeremy Scahill Fiber-optic cable
In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters ATLANTA – Stacey Calvin spends almost as much time commuting to her job — on a bus, two trains and another bus — as she does working part-time at a day care center. She knows exactly where to board the train and which stairwells to use at the stations so that she has the best chance of getting to work on time in the morning and making it home to greet her three children after school. “It’s a science you just have to perfect over time,” said Ms. Calvin, 37. Her nearly four-hour round-trip stems largely from the economic geography of Atlanta, which is one of America’s most affluent metropolitan areas yet also one of the most physically divided by income. This geography appears to play a major role in making Atlanta one of the metropolitan areas where it is most difficult for lower-income households to rise into the middle class and beyond, according to a new study that other researchers are calling the most detailed portrait yet of income mobility in the United States. 10th percentile Ms.
State Worker Salary Database: Database Updated January 22, 2015: Now includes 2014 CSU pay, 2014 civil service pay, 2013 University of California pay, and 2012 state legislative pay. This database allows you to search the salaries of California's 300,000-plus state workers and view up to eight years of their pay history. Search by name or department. For quicker searches, use a first and last name. Sources: University of California President's Office, California State Controller's Office, California Legislature Loading... Top Salaries of 2014 (Civil Service and CSU only) $497k Notes: Results for civil service workers are the actual amounts paid to them during 2013, according to the State Controller's Office. Names that show up in the database twice: Some state workers performed two jobs during 2013. UC student assistants: The UC system blanked out the names of several thousand student assistants in their latest data release, most of them earning a relatively small amount.
Far Beyond Snow Fall — The Message “Innovation” As I was finishing a final draft of this essay, the Times’s Innovation Report was leaked. It’s meticulous and well worth your time. Dig through it. (For a tl;dr edition, Joshua Benton and his colleagues have done a great job pulling out some of the best bits. Most gratifying about the report is nowhere does it say: The future of the Times is tied to complex, expensive, long-form, multi-media articles. Over the past few years, the design and content changes that have felt truly futuristic at the Times — the decisions that seemed to point to where an old company in a new medium could move visually — were much simpler and quieter than a “Snow Fall.” The standalone data visualizations accompanying, for example, elections or the Olympics have always felt true to the web and genuinely useful, and the Times has done them better and with more authority than most anyone else. More generally, the subtle but iterative tweaks on nytimes.com have been heartening. Bridging futures
17 example of long-form online story/interactives with parallax effects and HTML5 video (Snow Fall-like) - daigo.orgdaigo.org There are just so many conferences that I wish I was going, but it is impossible to go to all of them. SABR National, SABR Analytics, AAJA, EyeO (I was lucky to go this year), SXSW (I’m going next year!) Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Open Vis, NICAR, IEEE VIS Week, HTMLDevConf, Artifact, W3conf, Ampersand, FrontEndConf to name just a few…. and ONA is one of them. I was unable to go to Atlanta this past week, but I follow tons of people who were there on twitter and especially one of the session really piqued my interest. There is a pattern, such as bigger photo, parallax effect, larger font size with more white space, subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) css/js animation and html5 videos (as well as technique called cinemagraph) and stuff, and each tricks are not that difficult. Long form story telling examples UPDATE: More links and more links …and more links. Tool shed As I see more cool tools, I will add it here: Libraries Services I have not used them at all, so not an endorsement.
Nikola Tesla - Master of Lightning | Tribute by Aziz Natour Firestorm: The story of the bushfire at Dunalley Turn autoplay off Turn autoplay on Please activate cookies in order to turn autoplay off Edition: About us Today's paper Subscribe Firestorm: The story of the bushfire at Dunalley The Guardian, Send to a friend Your IP address will be logged Share Short link for this page: Contact us Report errors or inaccuracies: reader@theguardian.com Letters for publication should be sent to: guardian.letters@theguardian.com Firestorm The photograph of the Holmes family hiding from a violent bushfire in Tasmania was shared around the world. Enter © 2016 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies.