Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Your State’s Power Sources
Read on…: Your State’s Power SourcesBy now you should all know that I am a sucker for small multiples. They are a great way of separating out noise and letting each object be seen for its own. You should also know that I am a sucker for things industrial, e.g. nuclear power. So when you put the two together like NPR did earlier this month,…
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Boston Bruins New Breakout Play
Read on…: Boston Bruins New Breakout PlayIf 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. Credit for the piece goes…
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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 how that map has changed…
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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 only available until then. But…
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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 was not until I saw…
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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 countries along the route. The…