Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
-
Read on…: Trump Electoral University
Okay, 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.
-
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 article from last year’s parade…
-
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 with those tricky situations where…
-
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 found in the eastern half…
-
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 to best capture the story.…
-
Who Led Ganister’s Orthodox Church
Read on…: Who Led Ganister’s Orthodox ChurchI spent the weekend in Ganister, Pennsylvania (shameless plug, you can learn more about the town on the website I built for it) where my immediate family gathers for Easter. The Orthodox version was obviously far later than the Catholic version this year. When here I try to do research on the town and the families who lived there. One…
-
History of Bikes
Read on…: History of BikesI do not know how to ride a bicycle. Fell off as a kid and never got back on. Now when I need to get places, I drive a car. But, I do know plenty of you folks do ride bicycles. So this one’s for you. Happy Friday, all. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
-
The Quadrants of Trump
Read on…: The Quadrants of TrumpMy apologies to you for the blog being down the last week and a half. This is what happens when I get 33,000 spam comments in the span of 24 hours: the blog crashes. Rest assured, I have lots of things to post. But for today, we are picking up after a yuuugge night for Donald Trump so let’s get…
-
Mapping a New America
Read on…: Mapping a New AmericaThe United States of America consists of 50 states and hundreds of cities. In Sunday’s edition of the New York Times Parag Khanna argued for the switch of priority away from the state-level and to effectively the city-level. We have clusters of cities that dominate and drive the national economy. The classic case-in-point is Bowash, the megapolis of interconnected cities…