Tag: information design

Boko Haram Attacks

For those of you don’t know, there is an Islamist group operating in northeastern Nigeria. And they have been for a few years now. But recently they devastated a town and killed somewhere between 150 and 2000 people. Now they have taken to kidnapping Cameroonians, who live across the border, but whose government has been taking military action against Boko Haram. In this context, the BBC put together a map that shows the spread and scale of Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria.

The fatal attacks
The fatal attacks

Credit for the piece goes to the BBC graphics department.

All the Goats

Today is Friday. And that means it is time for the seriousness. So here you go, folks. Goats. All the goats. The US Agricultural Census recorded all the goats as of 2012. And so people can map that out. Thankfully the Washington Post did it for me.

Note the exclamation point
Note the exclamation point

Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post graphics department.

The Perception vs Reality of Islam in Europe

Last week’s terror attacks in Paris highlight the tension in Europe between secular Europe and those believing in Islamist values. The Economist looked at some of the available data and noted the gap between Europe’s perception of Islam and its reality. A quick figure called out for France, French respondents thought 31% of the French population to be Muslim. The reality is a mere 8%.

Perception vs reality
Perception vs reality

Credit for the piece goes to the Economist Data Team.

Income Peak Map

Today’s post looks at peak income for the middle class. The Washington Post looked at peak median household income for each county in the United States. And for 81% of counties, that peak was over 15 years ago.

Income map
Income map

The really nice features of this piece are not actually the map, which is a standard choropleth map. Instead small multiples above the map breakdown the appearance of counties in each era bracket. And then to the right the user can compare a selected county against both the state and the United States. Overall, a very nice piece.

Credit for the piece Darla Cameron and Ted Mellnik.

Periodic Table of Non-elements

Science is great. But science is also a process and scientific progress goes boink. Some of the mis-steps in chemistry have been erroneous elements. Thankfully the Boston Globe built a small periodic table of non-elements with short anecdotes about the selected few.

Table of non-elements
Table of non-elements

Credit for the piece goes to Mary Virginia Orna and Marco Fontani.

The Link Between Work and Transit

The Wall Street Journal recently published an interesting article about the link between work and access to transit. They included a graphic that looked at the link between the two.

Linking the two together
Linking the two together

Credit for the piece goes to the Wall Street Journal graphics department.

Board Games

On New Year’s Eve, well technically in the wee hours of New Year’s Day, the group with which I was spending the holiday broke out Settlers of Catan. We played that game—and drank a few bottles of champagne—until 04.00. My experience of playing the game—not necessarily the part about being inebriated on New Year’s Eve—bears out the increasing popularity of board games. This article from FiveThirtyEight seeks to understand what makes particular board games popular. And, because I am mentioning it on this blog, it has a few charts worth noting.

Game ratings organised by year of introduction
Game ratings organised by year of introduction

Credit for the piece goes to Rasmus Greve.

How Different Temperature Profiles Make Different Precipitation Types

I apologise for the lack of posts over the last two weeks, but I was on holiday. Naturally, I have returned just in time for some snowstorms in the Midwest. But today’s piece comes from WGN and it explains how the type of winter precipitation that falls depends not solely on ground temperatures. Rather, temperature profiles in the upper atmosphere can make all the difference between rain, sleet, and snow.

How temperatures create different precipitation types
How temperatures create different precipitation types

Credit for the piece goes to Steve Kahn and Jennifer Kohnke.