Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: Small Dog Days of Summer
For my readers in the northern hemisphere, which is the vast majority of you, we are in the middle of meteorological summer, the dog days. And whilst my UK and Europe readers continue to bake under temperatures greater than 40ºC (104ºF), the northeast United States and Philadelphia in particular is looking at a heatwave starting […]
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Legendary Adjustments
Read on…: Legendary AdjustmentsThe other day I was reading an article about the coming property tax rises in Philadelphia. After three years—has anything happened in those three years?—the city has reassessed properties and rates are scheduled to go up. In some neighbourhoods by significant amounts. I went down the related story link rabbit hole and wound up on […]
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Warming Towards Women Leaders
Read on…: Warming Towards Women LeadersWe are going to start this week off with a nice small multiple graphic that explores the reducing resistance to women in positions of leadership in Arab countries. The graphic comes from a BBC article published last week. These kinds of graphics allow a reader to quickly compare the trajectory of a thing between a […]
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James Webb
Read on…: James WebbIt’s cool. In the darkness of space. We made it to the end of the week, a big week for space news. So with that, enjoy this illustration from xkcd about the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
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It’s a Little Steamy Out There
Read on…: It’s a Little Steamy Out ThereAnd by out there I mean 1150 light years away. One of the five amazing images out of the first day’s announcement by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team was not a sexy photo of a nebula or a look back 13.5 billion years in time. Instead it was a plot of the amount […]
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L2 Halo for JWST
Read on…: L2 Halo for JWSTYesterday I received a question about where the new James Webb Space Telescope is located. Is it in orbit of the Earth, like Hubble? Is it out in deep space? The answer is no, not really. Now I spent this morning trying to illustrate the answer to that question myself. However, it’s taking me too […]
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Those Quirky Quarks
Read on…: Those Quirky QuarksLast week scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland announced the discovery of new sub-atomic particles: a pentaquark and tetraquarks. This BBC article does a really good job of explaining the role of quarks in the composition of our universe, so I encourage you to read the article. But they also included a […]
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Choo Choo
Read on…: Choo ChooI took two weeks off as work was pretty crazy, but we’re back to covering data visualisation and design with a graphic about trains. And anybody who knows me knows how I love trains. One of the early acts of the Biden administration was funding a proper expansion of rail service in the United States. […]
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Turn Down the Heat
Read on…: Turn Down the HeatFirst, as we all should know, climate change is real. Now that does not mean that the temperature will always be warmer, it just means more extreme. So in winter we could have more severe cold temperatures and in hurricane season more powerful storms. But it does mean that in the summer we could have […]
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New Mexico Burns
Read on…: New Mexico BurnsEditor’s note: I was having some technical issues last week. This was supposed to post last week. Editor’s note two: This was supposed to go up on Monday. Still didn’t. Third time’s the charm? Yesterday I wrote about a piece from the New York Times that arrived on my doorstep Saturday morning. Well a few […]