Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: Comparing Economic and Political Freedom
Today’s post is just a little scatter plot today of my own creation. I was interested to see which countries fall outside the mainstream when it comes to economic and political freedom, as measured by the Heritage Foundation and Freedom House, respectively. Those are certainly not the only indices that I could have chosen, however, […]
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Pedro Martinez Was A Great Pitcher
Read on…: Pedro Martinez Was A Great PitcherLast week FiveThirtyEight posted a nice article about the best pitchers in baseball. Turns out Pedro Martinez rates pretty highly among them. The late 90s and early 00s were great for Red Sox pitching. Credit for the piece goes to Neil Paine and Jay Boice.
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Dancing and Boozing
Read on…: Dancing and BoozingIt’s Friday the 13th. So after a look at Holyrood election results, today we have a look at the correlation between how well people (think they) dance and the amount of alcohol they consume. Credit for the piece goes to Jessica Hagy.
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2016 Holyrood Elections
Read on…: 2016 Holyrood ElectionsLast week Scotland voted for its parliament, Holyrood. The Scottish National Party did well enough, the Conservatives picked up quite a few seats, and Labour lost quite a few. The Guardian put together this piece looking at the results and the stories contained therein. But I want to focus on the graphics, the big piece of […]
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Two Tales of One City
Read on…: Two Tales of One CityDickens is not my favourite, but that felt an appropriate title for today’s piece from the Washington Post on Chicago residents’ opinions on, well, Chicago. Turns out there is a notable demographic split on how residents feel about various things in the city. Credit for the piece goes to Emily Badger.
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Trump Electoral University
Read on…: Trump Electoral UniversityOkay, that joke was a stretch. But, this piece from the New York Times’ Upshot takes a look at the early polling in the increasingly likely Clinton–Trump matchup in November. Credit for the piece goes to Wilson Andrews, Josh Katz, and Alicia Parlapiano.
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The T-14 Armata
Read on…: The T-14 ArmataOr the post’s sub-title could be something like, Boys with Toys, because I have long enjoyed diagrams of military hardware, like these examples. Today’s post is about Russia’s new main battle tank, the first new design since the 1970s: the T-14 Armata. It premiered in last year’s parade and is expected to enter service soon. This BBC […]
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Justifying Text
Read on…: Justifying TextI am not a big fan of fully justified text. I get it, in things like newspaper and narrow blocks of copy, it can make sense. Although in those situations, again, personal preference is flush left ragged right. But, for when you do have to fully justify your text, xkcd has a guide to deal […]
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Where is Normal America?
Read on…: Where is Normal America?Not every graphic information graphic is a sexy chart or map. Sometimes tables communicate the story just as well. Maybe even better. Today’s post comes from FiveThirtyEight, which examined a claim about what places represent “Normal America”. Turns out that when one looks at the data, here age, race, ethnicity, and education, Normal America is […]
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Trump Knocks out Cruz
Read on…: Trump Knocks out CruzDonald Trump will be the Republican Party candidate for President of the United States. Last summer I never imagined I would type those words in all seriousness, but after Trump won a majority of the votes in Indiana and likely swept all the delegates there, Ted Cruz suspended his campaign. Two graphics strike my mind […]