It’s March Madness. And I know not a thing about basketball. But I do know a thing (maybe even two) about infographics and data visualization. I also that Nate Silver pretty much rocks. So when he releases odds for different teams to progress throughout this year’s tournament, you basketball/infographic/data viz-loving folks should pay attention.
The 538 Forecast Bracket
I of course had to go with Villanova. If only because I have to represent the Main Line. I mean really, it was down to Nova or Temple, which do you think I would pick?
Credit for the piece goes to Nate Silver (definitely for the data, not so sure for the design/interaction/build of the piece).
In a truly disturbing article, the New York Times detailed recent research by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to identify all the camps established by Germany in World War II, be them extermination camps, labour camps, ghettos, &c. At one point in the article, one of the principals behind the USHMM work stated he expected to find as many as 7,000 such camps across Europe. They have currently identified 42,500.
Two maps accompany the article. The first details the reach of ghettos for Eastern European Jews.
Map of ghettos across Eastern Europe
This second map plots the locations of the primary and secondary SS concentration camps.
First things first, the verb is to sequester. The noun is sequestration. 1 March is not when the sequester begins. It is when the sequestration begins.
Now that we have the preliminaries out of the way, much is made of high government spending relative to revenue. However, this conversation still misses the point that government spending has fallen significantly. The New York Times charted that recent fall in spending in this graphic. This contraction is the largest drop in over 50 years. Along with the bars indicating recessions, I perhaps would have indicated major US military conflicts given the emphasis the introduction places on those events.
Government spending
The piece also looks at government employment, which has been atypically lower than pre-recessionary figures. Taken in sum, the two sets of data point to an extant condition of austerity that shall only be worsened by…c’mon everyone…that’s right, the sequestration.
It’s Oscar time. And not in the it’s time for grouchy, can-living commentary. It’s as in movie award time.
How are films promoted? Often through trailers and teasers. But how are those made? Well, the New York Times dissected trailers for five of the nine films up for best film. The piece looks at where the films are cut and spliced to create a 120-second-long overview without ruining the plot. And as it turns out, different types of trailers have different systems for cutting up those films.
Argo's Trailer
The piece is made even better through the annotations associated with different segments of the different films. This paired with the introductory text makes the diagram of the film trailers intelligible to the reader. And then of course you can click on the still and see the actual trailer. A solid piece, all around.
Credit for the piece goes to Shan Carter, Amanda Cox, and Mike Bostock.
If you do not live on the East Coast, you may be unaware that there was some minor snowfall in New England over this past weekend. The Weather Channel went ahead and named the storm Nemo. (I’m going to lay off the suspect and fishy jokes.) I wanted to revisit the storm because of two graphics that both mapped snowfall totals.
The first is from the New York Times. As one would expect, a quality graphic with clear colour ranges to show the impact across the wider New England area, western New York and New Jersey.
The New York Times snowfall totals
But from the local radio station WNYC came an interesting map of users’ observations. Because it’s a local radio station, the difference between the two versions is that the breadth of data is not as far-reaching as the Times’ data from the National Weather Service.
The limits of WNYC user-reporting
However, this sort of user-created data allows for more nuanced, locally-specific data visualisations.
User-reported snowfall in the near New York area
Of course, this creates issues with the accuracy of the data. And in the case of this map, whether the amount given was a snapshot of the snowfall at the time the snow was falling or the final tally.
Credit for the pieces go to the New York Times, and to Steven Melendez, Louise Ma and John Keefe for the WNYC piece.
So that fishy little storm the Weather Channel called Nemo—you may have heard of it—put a little snow across New England. Last week the New York Times published an interactive infographic that looked at when and where the snow would be falling, from New Jersey to New York to Maine.
The storm at or near its worst
The times are cut into six-hour blocks and show in the upper left where the snow would be falling by rate per six-hours. To the right of the map is a series of bar charts that show the snowfall pattern in more or less of a wave. Beneath all of it are a comparison of when, over the last several decades, the largest snowstorms hit Boston and New York (and how much snow each city received). A comparison of the map before to the end of the storm, except for parts of Maine.
The forecast for after the worst had passed
Credit for the piece goes to Tom Giratikanon, Matthew Ericson, Xaquin G.V., Archie Tse, and Jeremy White.
This piece from the New York Times is really well done. With simple colours to differentiate three groups, values are charted on a scatter plot to show the distribution of results for an OECD science test in 65 countries. The results clearly show regional differences in the performance of girls in the sciences depending upon the region.
The overall picture
But to make the story clearer for those who may not take the time to really delve into the data, five simple buttons on the upper right take the user through the story by annotating the different highlighted views shown in each step.
Southern and Eastern Europe and the Middle East are Highlighted
Credit for the piece goes to Hannah Fairfield and Alan McLean.
If you didn’t know, the Super Bowl is Sunday. I admit, I forgot it was this Sunday. But you probably know that’s because I’m more of a baseball guy, specifically a RedSox guy. Prior to forgetting I had been looking for a nice infographic on either the 49ers or the Ravens, the two teams involved. I forgot because I didn’t find any. Until this morning.
It’s not very large, nor very detailed, but it’s about football. And it’s about the 49ers. So it meets my requirements.
Frank Gore
Photograph by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images.
Full disclaimer, despite being a Red Sox fan from Philly, I’m an Eagles fan. So I could care less who wins this match on Sunday.
Chicago has crime problems. Specifically homicides and gun-related crimes. This is despite the fact that Chicago has some of the strictest gun regulations in the country. But over the last decade, the Chicago Police Department has collected nearly 50,000 guns (excluding buybacks and turn-ins) of which nearly half originated from outside the state. The map below comes from an infographic by the New York Times that traces the origins of those guns.
Whence the guns came
Particularly useful are the small maps that accompany this larger one. The first looks at the Chicago metropolitan area, the second the country as a whole with counties filled-in if even one gun originated there, and then the third looks at Mississippi.
Credit for the piece goes to Kevin Quealy and Tim Wallace.
Boeing has been having some problems with its new aircraft, the 787 Dreamliner from cracked windshields to oil leaks to perhaps most problematic battery problems. Over the course of the last week, the New York Times has published a series of small graphics to complement stories about the problems and the investigations.
The first graphic looked at the Dreamliner and where its batteries are located. Unfortunately for Boeing, the Dreamliner is critical to its success moving forward and the remainder of the graphic shows just how important.
The importance of the Dreamliner
The next day a graphic about total deaths on US airline flights supported a piece about the Dreamliner.
Fatalities aboard US flights
Then yesterday the NYT published a graphic about the specific battery type (lithium ion) and what role it played in aircraft incidents, be them cargo or passenger related.
