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The FiveThirtyEight 2014 Holiday Gift Guide: Data Sets Edition

Still looking for gifts for your loved ones? The gadgets and art in our 2014 gift guide are fantastic, but FiveThirtyEight is, at the end of the day, a site about numbers. Because free data makes for bad presents, here are some handy spreadsheets available for purchase this holiday season.


Presidential Vote Counts (County-Level)

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Surprisingly, the most accurate U.S. vote counts are compiled not by the government, but by a guy named Dave Leip, who makes them available for sale on his very ’90s website. You’ll also find data on governor races, the Senate, the House and voter registration.

Price: $57-$95

Where to get it: USElectionAtlas.org


Combined Dollars For Docs Data Set

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Want to know how much your doctor has been paid by pharmaceutical companies? You can look that up in ProPublica’s excellent Dollars For Docs interactive. Want to see how much every doctor has been paid? Purchase all 3.4 million rows of the data set from ProPublica’s data bodega, established this year.

Price: $1,000 for journalists, $10,000 for academics

Where to get it: ProPublica.org


Complete List Of Arby’s Locations

Arby'sEver seen this famous map of every McDonald’s location in the U.S.? How about these maps of competing coffee chains or IHOPs vs. Waffle Houses? Well, you may not know that they’re all sourced from the same site — AggData — which has compiled location data for restaurants and retailers throughout North America. Nobody’s made a map of the 3,324 Arby’s locations in the U.S. and Canada (as far as we know), so there’s a free idea for you.

Price: $49

Where to get it: AggData.com


Geocoded IP Addresses

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A practical gift for a practical friend, this 6.3 million-row database lets you determine the country, region/state and city associated with IP addresses worldwide. If you’re feeling generous, spring for the premium version that adds data on latitude, longitude, ZIP code, time zone, ISP, domain, Internet speed, area code, weather station name, mobile network code, elevation and IP usage type — for just $1,849.00.

Price: $199 for a one-year license

Where to get it: Ip2Location.com


Frozen Processed Food In The U.S.

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What do you get for the man who has everything? You get him a $900 data set (and accompanying report) on the state of the frozen processed food market in the United States.

Price: $900

Where to get it: EuroMonitor.com

Reuben Fischer-Baum was a visual journalist for FiveThirtyEight.

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