What is the Minimum Wage Worth

The minimum wage of $15 per hour does not necessarily mean the same thing to everyone all across the country. Based on where one lives, the purchasing power of a dollar might make minimum wage worth more or less than $15. The Pew Research Centre put together a map showing where $15 is worth more or less.

The purchasing power of minimum wage
The purchasing power of minimum wage

Credit for the piece goes to the Pew Research Centre.

Where’s Your Power Coming From?

A few weeks back the White House announced some new plans for clean electricity. The Washington Post put together an interactive graphic looking at the sources for American power.

America's power sources
America’s power sources

Credit for the piece goes to John Muyskens, Dan Keating, and Samuel Granados.

What Time Is It?

North Korea Time!

But no, seriously, North Korea announced this past Friday that it is placing itself inside a new time zone. This Washington Post piece has a graphic that looks at just how weird the new time zone is in relation to the rest of the region.

North Korea time
North Korea time

Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post graphics department.

The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

On 6 August 1945, the United States dropped one of the only two nuclear weapons used in combat on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. 70 years later, the city has been rebuilt and the war is long since done and over—the atomic bombings playing no small part in changing the Japanese calculus of surrender. But, what happened on 6 August and then 9 August (when we used the second of two nuclear weapons on Nagasaki)? The Washington Post has this nice piece with illustrations and maps and diagrams to explain it all.

The damage in Hiroshima
The damage in Hiroshima

Credit for the piece goes to RIchard Johnson and Bonnie Berkowitz.

New Population Estimates

The UN released some new population estimates. And no surprise here, the world is still getting larger and a lot of that growth will be in Africa. But the Economist put together a graphic looking at some of the forecasts, including the ever popular bragging rights of “Who is the Largest Country?”

Population growth forecasts
Population growth forecasts

Credit for the piece goes to the Economist Data Team.

Journalists and Deaths

Journalism is not always a safe profession. Indeed, many journalists risk their lives to bring us news from conflict zones or otherwise dangerous places. This piece from the Washington Post supplements an article about a particular Pakistani journalist, but looks at a broader set of journalist deaths over the last 20+ years.

Mountains of conflict
Mountains of conflict

That said, unless you are a fan of the Mountain of Conflict, this graphic does nothing for me. Because of the way the points form mountains, it begins to emphasise the area of the triangle, not the height of the point. Secondly, the mountains overlap and then because of the way the colours interact, give increased emphasis where there should not be any. After all, the overlap does not signify anything of itself.

Credit for the piece goes to John Muyskens and Samuel Granados.

Kepler 452b

So this is sort of a recycled post, in the sense that I talked about it back in April of 2013. But it’s worth revisiting in light of last month’s announcement of Kepler 452b. For those unaware, the planet is a little bit larger than Earth, but is believed to be a potentially rocky planet like Earth that orbits a star very similar to our Sun in a very similar orbit.

Kepler 452b
Kepler 452b

Credit for the piece still goes to Jonathan Corum.

MH370 Found?

Last night (Central Daylight time), news broke that what might be part of the wing of a Boeing 777, which is the same type of aircraft as the missing Malaysian Flight 370, washed up on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean. The Guardian was following the story last night and one of their reporters used a ocean currents simulator to see if wreckage from a crash off the coast of Perth (western Australia) could make it to Réunion.

Possible debris currents
Possible debris currents

Yep, it can.

Credit for the piece goes to adrift.org.au.

Your Average Daily Sunshine

(Hint, it’s not me.)

I was talking with someone the other day about how I dislike warm weather. Give me nice, cool, crisp weather any day of the week. And also how I am okay without sunshine—a cool, misty, grey day is lovely. Much of weather, of course, is determined by sunlight, energy, hitting the Earth. Well, just a few weeks ago the Washington Post published a piece looking at daily sunlight. At the end of the piece it has a nice small multiple graphic too.

Average daily sunlight
Average daily sunlight

Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post graphics department.