Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: Boston Bruins New Breakout Play
If you guys have not yet figured out, I am a baseball guy. But that is pretty much my only sport. And so maybe you can help explain to me just what is going on in today’s piece from the Boston Globe. I think it is attempting to explain hockey formations for the Boston Bruins. […]
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China by the Numbers
Read on…: China by the NumbersWith Xi Jinping visiting the United States the BBC published an article looking at China’s changes over the years. In general, I don’t like the article—why are they using pigs to look at pork consumption? My general dislike aside, they do have a map that plots urban centres with more than one million people and […]
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Spicing It Up (Or Not If You Like Caraway)
Read on…: Spicing It Up (Or Not If You Like Caraway)Here is a post for all you cooks and bakers out there: spices. Over the weekend I came upon a piece FiveThirtyEight ran earlier this year about American spice consumption. They use spice availability as a proxy for consumption, because no such data exists—and unfortunately the standard for reporting changed in 2012 so data is […]
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The Crane Crash in Mecca
Read on…: The Crane Crash in MeccaSometimes when you are reading something, what you really need is context. Personally, I prefer visual context over textual, but not everybody is so thankfully we can do both. Last week a crane collapsed during inclement weather in Mecca and fell upon the Grand Mosque. I knoew that it was a large crane, but it […]
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The EU’s Migrant Problem
Read on…: The EU’s Migrant ProblemLast week we looked at a map produced by the Washington Post, which detailed the routes chosen by migrants and refugees desiring to reach the European Union. This week, I want to compare that to one from the BBC—there are others, even from the BBC, but we will examine them later—that details the differences in […]
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Jesus and the Footprints
Read on…: Jesus and the FootprintsI’m Irish—my ancestors were from the southern part—and so I grew up Catholic and I went to Catholic schools. So I know some of my Jesus stories. There’s that one story about how at the end of some guy’s life he looks back at a beach—I have no idea what life means being on a […]
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Comparing Elizabeth to Victoria
Read on…: Comparing Elizabeth to VictoriaFollowing on from yesterday’s post about Queen Elizabeth’s timeline as she passed Queen Victoria, today we have another selection from the BBC that compares the reigns of the two queens. Unfortunately, while the screenshot below is okay, the overall graphics and illustrations strike me as a bit too simple and not terribly useful in making […]