Here, from Floating Sheep, is a map showing where different kinds of Christianity predominate in the United States. If you’re a little unclear on how these different branches of Christianity relate, there’s an overview here, a family-tree style chart here, and tables that compare their beliefs and practices here.
Via Richard Florida
It’s Official: High-speed Rail Money Announced
Exciting news: We now know where Obama’s $8 billion for high-speed rail is going. Florida is getting $1.25 billion (not the $2.6 billion they had asked for), and Illinois is getting $1.133 billion, but California is the big winner. From The Transport Politic:
California voters committed $10 billion in taxes to a high-speed line between San Francisco and Anaheim in November 2008, and their unrivaled effort has been justly rewarded, with a commitment of $2.25 billion to the project, about half of what thestate applied for in August. These funds will go to environmental work and initial construction along corridors between San Francisco and San Jose; Los Angeles and Anaheim; Fresno and Bakersfield; and Merced and Fresno. The state rail authority has pledged an equal match, though it has not yet established exactly how much each corridor will receive.
I had guessed that California’s head start on high-speed rail would put the state at the top of the list for federal money (though that’s not really going out on a limb). The total price tag for California’s plan to get 220 mph trains along all those corridors by 2020 is estimated at $42 billion, but this is a great start.
You can see a larger (and legible) version of the map above here.
Visualisation of Edits to OpenStreetMap maps over the course of 2008. Animation by Ito
Approximately two-thirds of the United States’ adult population is overweight This is because, on average, adults in the United States are eating upwards of 3,500 calories each day, when 2,000 calories a day is plenty for an active adult. Both types of foods, and the amount of daily calories an adult chooses to consume can have a significant impact on their health, as you can see by the distribution of calories in diets around the world. Click here to see the full infographic.
“For the past three years, Frank Jacobs’s blog Strange Maps has been an increasingly wonderful trove of creative cartography. All of the works cataloged in Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities find a unique way to tweak the generic map…Jacobs’s book is filled with cartographic exercises that range from the historical, like a map of Thomas Jefferson’s proposal for naming new states in the Northwest territories, to the scientific, like a pie chart of which countries’ coastlines offer direct access to Antarctica. And then there are the jokes, like the oft-forwarded map of North America divided between the United States of Canada in the north and Jesusland in the south.”
![Map of Every McDonald’s in the Country
“What I find most shocking about this map is how perfectly the McDonald’s locations outline the country’s borders, especially the Canadian border. It’s as if they’ve figured that before you leave the country to go to some heathen otherland, the last thing you need to fortify yourself for your journey is a Big Mac.” — [source]](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqhmrcakdM1qz9tjmo1_500.jpg)
Map of Every McDonald’s in the Country
“What I find most shocking about this map is how perfectly the McDonald’s locations outline the country’s borders, especially the Canadian border. It’s as if they’ve figured that before you leave the country to go to some heathen otherland, the last thing you need to fortify yourself for your journey is a Big Mac.” — [source]
