Give Me a Pie Chart

Does The Company You Work For Read Your Emails?

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:13:00 +0000

If you work for one of the U.S. largest corporations, it is probably your case! Proofpoint, a company specialized in email security and data loss prevention, investigated this issue and the results really surprise me.

Their findings show that 41% of the largest companies surveyed (those with 20,000 or more employees) employ staff to read or otherwise analyze the contents of outbound email. That is scary!

Next time, think twice before hitting the send button!

Share of U.S. Companies That Have Terminated An Employee

For Violating Email Policies in the Last 12 Months

Source: Proofpoint, 2008.

Ted Kennedy has a brain tumor

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Wed, 21 May 2008 01:45:00 +0000

U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor, doctors treating him at Massachusetts General Hospital said today.

According to preliminary results from a biopsy, the tumor is a malignant glioma in his left parietal lobe. Most primary brain tumors originate from gliomas.

Unfortunately, chances to survive to a brain cancer are not very good.

Brain Cancer Survival Rate (%), U.S., 1996-2002

The survival rate for all type of cancer was 66% in 1996-2002 in the U.S.

Source: American Cancer Society

President Medvedev

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:46:00 +0000

Dimitri Medvedev has become today the 3rd President of the Russian Federation. As for Vladimir Putin, well, he is not going too far. He should be named Prime Minister later this week.

In April, Putin accepted to become the chairman of the party United Russia. This party controls the Duma and supports the new President. Any major change in Russia’s policies over the next four years would therefore be a surprise...

...a big surprise!

Current Distribution of Seats in the Duma

(Total number of seats: 450)

Images of today's ceromony...

Obama in North Carolina, Clinton in Indiana

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:29:00 +0000

Analysts have talked a lot about the importance of winning today's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina for both Democratic candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Although he has not succeeded in winning both states, Obama likes his position after today's elections! He has won the election by a significant margin in North Carolina and will probably finish only a few points behind Senator Clinton in Indiana.

Tonight’s results mean that Obama not only keeps the lead in the Democratic race, but that he has increased his advance. The speech that he gave to his supporters in Raleigh was more or less a speech of a man who thinks that he has won this fight... of a man who is ready for the next battle.

Here is what tonight’s results show. You must admit that these pie charts look as nice as the ones that CNN has been presenting all night... almost!

May 6, 2008 Primaries in North Carolina and Indiana

Results at 10:30 PM, Eastern Time

Precincts: 85% reporting

Freeconomics

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:41:00 +0000

Is "Free" emerging as The new economic model?

Some people think so. Take Chris Anderson, editor-in chief of Wired magazine, for example. He explains his idea in the interview he has given to The Globe and Mail this Monday. Interesting, isn't it!?!

I can't wait to get my free car!

Microsoft walks away UPDATED

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Mon, 05 May 2008 02:09:00 +0000

Microsoft could not find an offer – The offer – that would make Yahoo! change its mind. The software giant has given up during the weekend, a decision that puts an end to months of speculations.

This means that Microsoft and Yahoo! will remain 2nd and 3rd in the lucrative business of web search and, probably more significant, related advertising. As The Economist explains here, Microsoft’s idea behind adding Yahoo! was to challenge the clear leader, Google. Microsoft wanted Yahoo! in order to add critical mass to Microsoft's own advertising platform, to make it more competitive.

The result, today, is that Google stays the unchallenged leader in web searches, as data clearly shows...!

Share of Searches
Total U.S., March 2008

Source: comScore

UPDATE: See how the markets responded on Monday...

Tough Year for Sarkozy

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:49:00 +0000

Here is an interesting piece that The Economist has published tonight. The text gives a good overview of the first year in office of President Sarkozy in France.

As the article explains, "Sarko" has had a way more difficult first year than what he expected. He is actually the most unpopular first-year president in the history of the Fifth Republic, according to The Economist. This tells a lot...! Among other factors, The Economist blames the "Sarkozy Paradox" (I have invented this one!) regarding several economic issues for this low popularity.

Tonight, the French media indicate that resutls of a new poll that will be published this weekend show Sarkozy’s popularity has continued to drop over the last month.

Do You Trust Nicolas Sarkozy?

Source: TNS Sofres.

This proves that the very long interview that Sarkozy gave last week to convince people that France is on the right track has not reached its goals yet.

Global Press Freedom

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:15:00 +0000

This week, Freedom House, an American think tank, has released highlights from its annual survey of global press freedom. The survey results show deterioration in the level of press freedom worldwide for a sixth straight year.

According to the results, Finland and Iceland have the world’s more free press. Canada finishes in 21st position, just behind the U.S. The report blames increasing media concentration in Canada as well as isolated cases of political and legislative environment pressures. The disparition of TQS in Quebec would not improve this aspect...

North Korea and Cuba are among the countries that occupy the bottom slots... the usual suspects as The Economist names them!

Global Press Freedom, 2008
By population, %

Source: Freedom House

Ethanol, Corn and Food Prices

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:10:00 +0000

For those of you who can read in French, here is an interesting post published on Radio-Canada.ca. It explains well the tradeoff between nationalist policies and the free market in the current context of an expected global food crisis.

This food crisis has emerged in the past months and is due to higher food prices. In some country, people can’t afford food anymore, a situation that explains events such as the riots in Haiti a few weeks ago. The increases in food prices stem partly from the stepped-up use of food crops for biofuels and partly from other more fundamental factors, such as rapid income growth in emerging economies (e.g. China), high fertilizer prices, low stocks, and droughts.

Share of Corn used for Ethanol Production in the U.S.

Source: The World Bank

Corn prices rose by about 60 percent in 2005-06, largely because of the increased use in ethanol production. U.S. and world corn stocks have now reached near-record lows.

People Injured by Tornadoes in Virginia

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:44:00 +0000

More than 200 people have been injured today by tornadoes that have hit Virginia today. A tornado warning remained in effect Monday evening in the state.

Based on the trends of the last three years, there are 1160 tornadoes on average in the U.S every year.

However, what is important to know is that only a small fraction of these storms actually kill people. Tornadoes have killed 255 people since 2005.

Share of Killer Tornadoes in the U.S.
(Based on a 3-year average, 2005-2007)

Source: NOAA's National Weather Service

Hard Candy

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:14:00 +0000

Madonna releases her 11th studio, Hard Candy, album this Tuesday. You must have heard the first single, 4 minutes, that have been playing on radio for over a month now.

The world’s most-successful female musician according to Guinness World Records has sold more than 200 million copies of her albums since 1983. Here are her most popular albums:

Madonna's most popular albums

Source: Absolute Madonna

Toronto Transit Strike

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 16:14:00 +0000

The Ontario legislature is expected to pass a bill to end Toronto's transit strike, now in its second day, and avoid what could amount to mass commuter chaos Monday.

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) employs more than 11,000 people and serve over 450 million customers (passenger trips) annually.

Kilometres of Routes Operated by TTC, 2007

Source: TTC Operating Stats for 2007

Earthquakes in Reno, Nevada

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:19:00 +0000

Residents of Reno, northern Nevada's largest city, are preparing themselves for a bigger event as the area continued rumbling Saturday after the largest earthquake in a two-month-long series of temblors hit the city Friday night. According to scientist interviewed by CNN on Saturday, a magnitude-6 quake wouldn't be a scientific surprise.

However data shows that such huge earthquakes are rare, especially in the U.S. Only 10 earthquakes of magnitude over 6.0 hit the country in 2007, which is only 0.2% of all earthquakes.

Hopefully, Reno will avoid such an event.

Magnitude of Earthquakes in the U.S., 2000-08*

* as of April 26, 2008
Source: USGS

NHL Playoffs

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:01:00 +0000

Tonight is the second game of the series between the Montreal Canadiens and the Philadelphia Flyers. The Habs won the first game in overtime on Thursday.

According to an analysis produced earlier this week by Influence Communication, Canada's top information broker and aggregator, 88% of American newspapers that have tried to predict the outcomes of the series have predicted that Montreal would win. Go Habs Go!

Who will win the series?

I love pie charts

noreply@blogger.com (Simon) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 05:25:00 +0000

In all the years you've been doing this, how often can you say that we've produced truly legitimate intelligence? Once? Twice? Ten times? Give me a statistic; give me a number. Give me a pie chart, I love pie charts. Douglas Freeman - Rendition (2007)

There are stats for everything you can think of. Here, I'm going to show them to you!

If you have suggestions to improve this page, please leave me a comment or send me an email at:

givemeapiechart[a]gmail.com