I recently ran across an amazing infographic at xkcd. I have summarized it below.

Here is some relatively startling news: a new study reveals that many college students put potential employers' social network policies above their financial compensation when deciding what job to take.

The study focused on 2,800 college students and young adults between the ages of 21-29. One in three of those asked claimed that a flexible social media policy was more important to them than financial compensation.

The upshot is that, apparently, the young people would rather have the opportunity to play on Facebook during the workday than to get paid more.

As Alyssa Rosengarden notes, many of those entering the job market have, for their entire (more-or-less-)adult lives, interacted constantly with their friends and families through social networking sites. So, in one sense, it is no surprise that they aren't prepared to relegate this interaction to the 5-10pm hours.

It is hard to say whether, on balance, we should take this as good news. On the one hand, it's nice that young people aren't prioritizing scads of money over regular interpersonal connection. On the other hand, it seems like what the survey has really uncovered is that college students would prefer a job at which they're not expected to work all day, and while that's hardly anything new, it's not the most attractive thing I've ever heard, either.

At any rate, it certainly comes to me as news. Perhaps to you as well.

You should check out Are Girl Scout Cookies Deliciously Evil?, a strange and interesting homebrew analysis of the famous Girl Scout Cookies fundraiser.

The author notes the following. In 1992, a box of cookies cost $2. In 2011, they cost $4. I quote: "Total inflation from 1992–2011 was 57%, but the price increased 100%. From 2006–2011, annual US inflation was close to 1% over that period and the net inflation was 9.25%; ); there was a 14% price increase. Perhaps the Girl Scout leadership is to blame."

The analysis is interesting, and well worth a read, for at least two reasons:

1. The working hypothesis is that the Girl Scouts are evil.
2. It's an interesting case study in evaluating charities on your own.

Spoiler alert: It looks like the local Girl Scout councils, rather than the national leadership, are probably to blame.

Ever since the recent Japanese Tsunami, I've been trying to think about whether graphic design efforts to generate donations to foreign disasters are good. (Spoiler: I haven't decided.)

In the process of thinking about it, though, I ran across a nice infographic from Good that has to do with U.S. Foreign Aid.

Here's the interesting thing. If I'm reading this infographic right, the average American thinks that the fed is spending a quarter out of every dollar in the federal budget on foreign aid, and he thinks it should spend a dime. In fact, the US spends roughly a penny out of every two dollars.

What does this mean? Isn't this the age of information?

Check out these data visualizations from Mother Jones. Well designed to promote the splenetic humors.

A Harvard business prof and a behavioral economist recently asked more than 5,000 Americans how they thought wealth is distributed in the United States. Most thought that it’s more balanced than it actually is. Asked to choose their ideal distribution of wealth, 92% picked one that was even more equitable.

A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244.

The new website CommonTreasure promises to provide a very cool way to visualize the federal budget. You can see the big picture, or drill in by, for example, type of spending, year, or agency.

Take a look at this nice attempt at redesigning the US Dollar by the Dowling-Duncan firm. I quote part of their interesting design brief below.

We wanted a concept behind the imagery so that the image directly relates to the value of each note. We also wanted the notes to be educational, not only for those living in America but visitors as well. [e.g. $1 – The first African American president; $10 – The bill of rights, the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution; $100 – The first 100 days of President Franklin Roosevelt.]

We have kept the width the same as the existing dollars. However we have changed the size of the note so that the one dollar is shorter and the 100 dollar is the longest. When stacked on top of each other it is easy to see how much money you have. It also makes it easier for the visually impaired to distinguish between notes.

Check out this nice little infoviz by Ezra Klein at The Washington Post, which illustrates the the new findings of a congressional panel:

A Republican plan to extend tax cuts for the rich would add more than $36 billion to the federal deficit next year -- and transfer the bulk of that cash into the pockets of the nation's millionaires, according to a [nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation] analysis released Wednesday.

Via.