This piece has been sitting for a month, but I still enjoy it. The Washing Post maps out Russian air activity around NATO airspace over a two-day period.
Credit for the piece goes to Gene Thorp.
Russians in the Sky
Tag: illustration
Thanksgiving Recipes by State
Today is an American holiday: Thanksgiving. We give thanks that European diseases and military technology allowed us to remove the native population for colonisation of the continent. We do that by watching American football and eating lots and lots of food. For dessert, well, we have dessert. But also gluttonous amounts of shopping. So in that spirit, here is the New York Times’ presentation of Thanksgiving recipes per state. The description is followed by an expandable recipe.
To be fair, I really am a fan of shoofly pie. But that’s just me.
Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times.
The 76ers Are a Terrible Basketball Team
The Philadelphia 76ers are a terrible basketball team. FiveThirtyEight details the deficiencies of the team in this small table. Icons represent characteristics that can be either positive or negative. They are then placed within the table to quickly show how awful the team is. My favourite is the icon for poor player.
Credit for the piece goes to the FiveThirtyEight graphics department.
We All Have to Die…But How?
As the title says, we are all going to die one of these days. But what are the odds that Ebola will kill you? Turns out it is fairly small. Smaller than your pyjamas catching on fire and killing you. Or even your regular clothes catching fire. How did I know that? Well, the Washington Post put together a nice interactive piece to do just that. It starts you out at Ebola and works up to the most likely causes of death. If you are looking for your morning pick-me-up, this might not be it. Fair warning.
Credit for the piece goes to Richard Johnson and Lazaro Gamio.
Looking at Languages
Languages can be fascinating things. And not necessarily just in Klingon. Vox has a post using 23 maps and graphics to look at language. As usual with these sorts of things, some are good. Others not so much.
Credit for the highlighted piece goes to Minna Sundberg via Dylan Matthews.
Can You Land Philae
Today is Friday, so let’s take it a bit easy. You have heard of Philae and the comet landing. But we also know now that it bounced upon landing. But could you do any better? The BBC produced this game to let you try to do just that.
Credit for the piece goes to the BBC graphics department.
Philae on 67P
In a few hours—not long after this blog post is published—we should know whether or not the washing-maching sized probe Philae has successfully landed on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The operation is very complicated, this is a moving and spinning comet with a boulder-strewn surface dotted with ice spires. And as of a few hours the lander was having problems with the gas thrusters designed to slow the lander to a hover above the comet surface. Space is hard. So to explain what is happening and the scale of the things involved, we have an illustration from the Washington Post.
Credit for the piece goes to Bonnie Berkowitz, Patterson Clark, and Richard Johnson.
An Ebola Treatment Centre
Last week we looked at the BBC and its rendition of an Ebola treatment centre. This week we are looking at the Washington Post and how they treated the same material. As you can imagine, with the same source material, the treatment is fairly similar. I do appreciate the colour applied to the various elements called out in the illustration. Though, to be super nitpick-y, I could probably do less orange with the fence. It becomes a bit distracting from some of the other details.
Credit for the piece goes to Patterson Clark.
How Ebola Works/Kills
To continue with this week’s theme of Ebola, we are looking at another Washington Post article. Online the Post presents it as an interactive, guided explanation of how Ebola basically kills people. Spoiler, it is not pretty. But what I do really like about this online presentation is how the Post has a downloadable .pdf version of the piece available.
Credit for the piece goes to Patterson Clark, Darla Cameron, and Sohail Al-Jamea.
The Swedish Submarine Hunt
Today you are going to get two posts. The first is this, which is a break from the week’s theme. But news stories happen. The second will be back to regular programming at the regular time. Basically, the Swedish government is reporting that a foreign submarine is operating within its waters and the available evidence points to Russia. I have seen some ridiculous claims that one of Russia’s largest submarines is in trouble there. But I highly doubt that. And here is why.
