The debate was Sunday and here we are on Wednesday. The infamous video is, well, still infamous, but not garnering as much attention half-a-week later. On Monday, the Economist published this piece taking a look at how Trump’s support shifted in the hours and days following the video’s release.
Credit for the piece goes to the Economist’s Data Team.
Yes, ISIS does receive a lot of attention in the media and during the presidential debates. But you might be surprised to learn that actually the organisation has lost a significant amount of territory lately. This BBC article details the territorial changes through a nice interactive map slider.
You could create a single map showing the losses/gains instead of using this light-duty interactive piece. And to the BBC’s credit they did. However, between the image quality and territorial changes, I think in this instance the interactive piece does add clarity to the story.
Credit for the piece goes to the BBC graphics department.
Well last night was the debate and it was a doozy. But while I was looking for some graphics capturing the debate itself, I came upon an article over on the Washington Post about gerrymandering. For those that do not know, gerrymandering is when state-level politicians draw the maps for congressional districts to preserve or diminish support for various representatives. And Pennsylvania is one of those states with a lot of oddly shaped districts.
Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post graphics department.
Happy Friday, everyone. Especially all of you up our Gingrich Moon Base.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
At least politically.
According to this piece from FiveThirtyEight, maybe not as much as they used to be. From a data visualisation standpoint, what stuck out at me was this plot of correlations of how similar various states are. Basically, the closer to the number 1, the more similar, the closer to 0, the less.
I might question the value of placing the numbers within the squares—see what I did there?—because the colours could be used with a legend to indicate the range of similarity. But if this were an interactive piece, it certainly could be done to reveal the number on tap or mouseover.
Anyway, it was interesting to see that among swing states, Pennsylvania is least like Georgia but most like Minnesota. The former, certainly. The latter, who would have guessed, don’t ya know.
Credit for the piece goes to the FiveThirtyEight graphics department.
In moving back to Philadelphia from Chicago, I have forsaken polar vortices for hurricanes and nor’easters. And this current weekend, it appears increasingly likely that the weather will be impacted by Hurricane Matthew, presently tearing its way through the Caribbean. So of course I am following projections and forecasts of just where this storm will be headed.
Thankfully Mashable has an article that attempts to explain just what the National Hurricane Center (NHC) means when it publishes its cone of uncertainty charts. Because, according to the article, it turns out most people do not entirely understand just what it means.
Credit for the piece goes to the National Hurricane Center.
Among my recent life changes, I have moved back to Philadelphia from Chicago. That means Sundays the bars and streets are full of people wearing the jerseys of their favourite Eagles (American) football players. And apparently this year, they are off to a good start. FiveThirtyEight took a look at other 3-0 teams to compare the 2016 Eagles and examine their chances for the playoffs.
Credit for the piece goes to Chase Stuart.
Apologies for the long layoff, but life threw me a curveball or two. But in that time I did manage to go out to Boston and catch some of Big Papi’s last regular season games with the Red Sox at Fenway Park. Whilst there, I caught an advert for Boston’s new City Score, which updates the public on how city services are performing. Below is a screenshot from the site.
Not every datapoint needs to be visualised—sometimes a table does just fine. But, admittedly, what really drew me to the table was its design. For those of you unfamiliar with Fenway and the Red Sox, this table could fit in on the Green Monster with the same colours and type.
Credit for the piece goes to Boston’s design team.
Yesterday scientists announced the discovery of a likely rocky planet within the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, Sol’s (the Sun’s) nearest star. The New York Times covered the discovery with a piece full of nice explanatory graphics.
Now if we can only get onto the whole matter–anti-matter warp engine thing we could go explore the place.
Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times graphics department.
Today’s post is about religion. One of the two things you are never supposed to talk about in good company. And since the other is politics and since I cover that here frequently, let’s just go all in, shall we?
FiveThirtyEight has an interesting piece about religious diversity and a corresponding lack of religiousness. From a graphics standpoint, the central piece is this chart below.
What I would love, however, is for the plot to be interactive. It would be great to let people check out their own individual home states and see how they compare to the everyone else.
Credit for the piece goes to the FiveThirtyEight graphics department.
