Watching Weekday Football (of the American Variety)

Admittedly I am a one-sport kind of guy; baseball is my thing. But I am at least aware that as Labour Day demarcates the border between summer and fall, it simultaneously signifies the beginning of the seasonal transition from baseball to football. (Though I am still pulling to see the Red Sox in October.)

This graphic comes from the New York Times from an article looking at the sports network ESPN. Specifically, the article focuses on the network’s strategy of working with smaller schools desiring national attention to fill in open spaces on their weekly broadcast calendar. In short, weekday nights are not big nights for college football; usually people watch their alma maters on Saturday. But, if your school is willing to make schedule adjustments, ESPN is apparently willing to throw you some money. This interactive bar chart looks at whether your alma mater (or in my case the only university I attended that had sports—yay art school) has begun to play weekday games.

Weekday football by conference and compared to Penn State
Weekday football by conference and compared to Penn State

Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times graphics department.

When it Rains…

Today’s interactive piece comes from Axis Philly and it looks at the total amount of rainfall in Philadelphia (1990–2013) to find both which months and what time of day receive the most rainfall.

When it rains…
When it rains…

As it turns out, evenings in the summer months receive the most rainfall. And since 1990, the most rain has fallen between 19.00 and 20.00 in July. A nice complementary piece would have been a small graphic showing total distribution of rain over the months, without segregating the data into hourly chunks. But again, that would have been a nice complement to the piece as it is far from necessary.

Credit for the piece goes to Jeff Frankl, Casey Thomas, and Julia Bergman.

All in the Family (and the Friends and the Neighbours)

Recently my hobby of my family’s history has focused on my Rusyn (or Ruthenian) roots. However, this recent work out of Stanford University piques my interest in my English heritage, even though much of it is very far back in time. Using my 23 × great-grandfather Reynold de Mohun you can begin to see how it links persons within families, how those lives intersected over time, and the geographical areas where that person lived. In Reynold’s case, it was the 12th–13th centuries in Somerset, England.

Reynold de Mohun
Reynold de Mohun

But as the title kindred implies, this piece is not just about direct family connections, but also the marriages and close cultural links between certainly the elite of British society. Below is how Reynold is connected to King William I, better known as William the Conqueror.

Connecting Reynold de Mohun to William I
Connecting Reynold de Mohun to William I

Family history or genealogy is a topic ripe for data visualisation and information design because it is all about connections. But I have found beyond the common family tree diagram little interesting has been created. This work is a solid start in the right direction.

Credit for the piece goes to Nicholas Jenkins, Elijah Meeks, and Scott Murray.

Cutting the Cable

We have all heard talk about cutting cable, i.e. unsubscribing from cable television. But the question is what is replacing it if anything? Fortunately, this really nice graphic produced by Quartz shows the market over the course of the last five years.

Cutting the cable
Cutting the cable

It is a really nice use of small multiples and the power of not overlapping size and growth charts, or combo-charts, just because you can. Different metrics deserve different charts. The important part is placement, and that’s where a good designer can make sure to place relevant data near its partner.

Credit for the piece goes to Ritchie King.

Mars or Bust…Wait a Minute…

We already got to Mars. At the end of a week of maps and map-related things. Here’s a map of Mars. Well, sort of. It’s more of a map of Mars as explored by Curiosity. (Remember that guy?)

It’s an interactive piece from the New York Times that charts out just where the rover has driven and photographs of the stops along the way. There’s also a nice little chart that shows just how much of the trip has consisted of driving.

A day in the life…on Mars…
A day in the life…on Mars…

Credit for the piece goes to Jonathan Corum and Jeremy White.

More Internet, More Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg wants to get more people on the internet. And why not, it’s not like his company, a small entity you may not have heard of called Facebook, has anything to do with the internet. So this map by the Washington Post looks at what proportions of the world’s countries are using the internet.

Internet users
Internet users

Credit for the piece goes to Darla Cameron.

Is it Getting Warmer in Here?

Yes, yes it is. This map from the Washington Post looks at global temperature change since 1901. The article it supports is about how scientists are now all but certain mankind is responsible for global warming. Personally I prefer the term climate change because global warming sounds as if everything warms and as this map shows, clearly that is not the case.

Global temperature change
Global temperature change

Credit for the piece goes to Patterson Clark.

Say What?

This map comes from the Washington Post and it uses the American Community Survey to explore languages spoken by Americans at home other than English.

Who speaks what?
Who speaks what?

I got stuck (in a good way) on the seemingly random counties of German speakers. After I poked around a bit, I found one where almost 50% of the county speaks German. After some quick investigation, it turns out that Holmes County, Ohio is a centre for the Amish population. The Amish, of course, will often speak German or Pennsylvania Dutch, thus accounting for the abnormally high percentage of German speakers.

Credit for the piece goes to Dan Keating and Darla Cameron.

Bloomberg’s New York

For those of you who read this blog and are not from New York, Mayor Bloomberg is done later this year; he is not running for reelection. So now is the time for retrospective and plaudits for the long-serving mayor. The New York Times published a piece this weekend examining how all of Bloomberg’s changes for redevelopment have reshaped the city of New York.

Rezoned areas of the city
Rezoned areas of the city

Credit for the piece goes to Ford Fessenden, Tom Giratikanon, Josh Keller, Archie Tse, Tim Wallace, Derek Watkins, Jeremy White, and Karen Yourish