Shangr-AI La
Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: Shangr-AI La
Last week Google announced its newest feature for Google Earth: the ability to use AI to create layers of images atop actual satellite images of Earth. Less than 24 hours later, Google abandoned those plans. We already have enough problems with the written word and the spoken word and the broadcast word, did we really need problems with maps? The…
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But What About Nambia?
Read on…: But What About Nambia?I was going to post about this Friday, but left it for today. We need to talk about this map. First, why so many colours? Each country is clearly separated from the other, and the best rationale for so many colours here would have been if the countries shared a border and you ran the risk of confusing two adjacent…
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Global Integration. The Bad Kind.
Read on…: Global Integration. The Bad Kind.I was hoping to post this yesterday, but as you will see momentarily, it is very much still a work-in-progress. Earlier this week, Ukraine sank an Iranian freighter in the Caspian Sea—a pugnacious though innocuous sounding sentence. Of course, Ukraine battles Russia in its eastern oblasts whilst Iran battles the United States and Israel in and around the Persian Gulf…
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Judging a Magazine by Its Cover
Read on…: Judging a Magazine by Its CoverTechnically a newspaper, the Economist has been part of my weekly read since the early- to mid-2000s—my late high school and early university days. (It helped I worked in book shops through those years so could read it gently and replace it on the shelf.) This blog focuses mostly on information design, although I always leave myself the space to…
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Rook(ie) Goal?
Read on…: Rook(ie) Goal?The World Cup ended last weekend and I will likely be taking a look at some World Cup related graphics in the coming weeks. But before we do, we can start with this one from xkcd. Happy weekend, all. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
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Smoke Here, Smoke There, Smoke Was (Almost) Everywhere
Read on…: Smoke Here, Smoke There, Smoke Was (Almost) EverywhereFriday I wrote about an interactive air quality web application I designed for my website after seeing a similar type of dynamically generated graphic in my local rag, the Philadelphia Inquirer. I did not have a lot of time to finish the project, and so it lacked the planned overview page, where I intended to show the air quality conditions…
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Is It Always Smoky in Philadelphia?
Read on…: Is It Always Smoky in Philadelphia?Yesterday I wrote about a Philadelphia Inquirer article, which included an interactive display showing different monitoring stations around the Philadelphia area cataloguing just how bad the Minnesota/Canadian wildfire smoke is in the region. I noted during my piece that it was unclear if the little bars were actually recording the AQI values or just a generic bar indicating the category…
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I Prefer My Smoke in My Scotch
Read on…: I Prefer My Smoke in My ScotchAnother July day, another heatwave in Philadelphia. But this time we have the added bonus of Canadian wildfire smoke—apparently we call them wildfires and not forest fires now? Just last summer the US administration pointed the finger at Canada for not doing more to prevent and contain these wildfires, but I would humbly suggest that perhaps our efforts to reopen…
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My First Half of Music (Streams)
Read on…: My First Half of Music (Streams)Because I am headed out of town for several days, today is basically this week’s Friday post—just for fun. Last week I looked at my musical tastes via the vinyl. Today I look at the digital streams of music. This is far less surprising and arguably more representative of my tastes more broadly. Unlike records, which I need to physically…