Craft Breweries

From the Atlantic Cities, an offshoot of the Atlantic magazine, comes a nice Friday/for-the-weekend post. It looks at states that have the most craft breweries? Surprise, the states with the largest populations! But then comes the more interesting follow-up, what if we account for population differences? Ah, now we are talking. The visualisation type is a choropleth. Nothing fancy. But, hey, it’s a Friday. So bottom’s up. Cheers. Slainte. Salud. Enjoy the weekend.

Craft Breweries per 100,000
Craft Breweries per 100,000

Credit for the map goes to Zara Matheson.

Oh(lder) Canada

Canada is getting old. At least so the Canadian census data says. As a percentage of the population, the map made by the National Post below looks at where the old people are. Within reason, one would expect to perhaps see a more even distribution across all of Canada. However, it appears that the northern territories and provinces have fewer old people than their southern counterparts.

Old Canada
Old Canada

Credit for the piece goes to Andrew Barr, Jonathon Rivait, and Richard Johnson.

Canada Invades the Land of the Mole People

Subways. Home of the mole people. And in the United States an unwanted recipient of government money to build things. Along with being generally unwanted. By those who do not live in cities. Probably because of said mole people. Or something.

But in Canada, they like subways. At least enough that Toronto is building an extension to a university and from there to a suburb. But the invasion of the mole people homeland is a complex process that, fortunately, the National Post explains in an illustrative infographic, a cropping of which is below.

One of four sibling boring machines: Holey, Moley, Yorkie, and Torkie.
One of four sibling boring machines: Holey, Moley, Yorkie, and Torkie.

Credit for the piece goes to Mike Faille and Peter Kuitenbrouwer.

The Election in the Burbs

One area of particular contention for the American presidential candidates this year will be in the suburbs of major urban areas. This was where Romney in particular was able to defeat his Republican rivals, but is also home to large number of potential Obama supporters. Given his likely support in cities, Romney will need to well in the suburbs this time around.

The Washington Post looks at how suburban counties voted over the past two elections.

Cropping of the map
Cropping of the map

Credit for the piece goes to Ted Mellnik, Laura Stanton, and Karen Yourish.

The Cities of Champions

From Slate comes an interactive map of which cities have won what championships across the big four sports (baseball, basketball, football, and hockey). It plots the championships over time and allows the user to see just how dominant certain cities have been in certain sports.

Where the winners won
Where the winners won

Credit for the piece goes to Chris Kirk.

Mariano Rivera

Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees is(was?) one of the best closers in baseball history. I’ll give him that. So when a freakish accident brought to an end his season—and possibly his career—the New York Times of course had an(other) infographic about his historic numbers.

Rivera compared to other closers
Rivera compared to other closers

But I’m a Red Sox fan. And this whole sequence of events will always be my memory of Rivera.

A great night
A great night

Playing Politics

The election campaign for the presidency has begun in earnest. The President launched his official campaign over the weekend and Mitt Romney’s nomination is all but official. So what to do over the next six months? Lots of television adverts—thankfully I’m thinking of cutting my cable—and random events that shape public opinion. And, thanks to the New York Times, you can now play politics by dragging states into either the Obama camp or the Romney camp or you can read through the Times’ take on different scenarios.

Split Electoral College, my own scenario
Split Electoral College, my own scenario

Personally, I am going for the politically fascinating split electoral college route. Bonus points if you know what happens in this scenario—no cheating. And extra bonus points to the Times for splitting up the electoral votes of both Maine and Nebraska, look up what Obama did in 2008 to see how this can happen.

The Greeks Voted Sunday Too

Over at the Guardian, I was using this interactive piece from igraphics to follow the election results there. (It was a slight bit more interesting than following the French presidential election, because everybody knew Sarkozy was going to lose.)

Greek election results
Greek election results

Credit for the piece goes to igraphics, a Greek data visualisation outfit.