Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: Scale of Syria’s Refugees
So that civil war in Syria thing, yeah, it’s still going on, folks. And lots of people—7,000,000 of them—have been forced to flee to either external or internal locations. Al Jazeera has attempted to put that number into context for Americans using US census data and maps. Here is a look at both Philadelphia and Chicago for comparison’s sake. The…
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Virginia Election Results
Read on…: Virginia Election ResultsLast night was election night. Okay, maybe not the big midterm, but there were still a few interesting races. The one I want to look at it, however, is the gubernatorial race in Virginia. Maps are pretty much the default in big, statewide races like these and it is no surprise that the three screenshots here are use a map as…
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LAX Shootings
Read on…: LAX ShootingsI didn’t see a lot of informative graphics regarding the shooting at LAX. But, here are two pieces. The first is from the Los Angeles TImes. Terminal 3 is rendered in three dimensions. Different buttons add views of the remainder of the airport. The Washington Post opted for a flat, two-dimension drawing in one graphic with both all of LAX…
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Visualising the World Series
Read on…: Visualising the World SeriesLast week the Boston Red Sox won the 2013 World Series. I did a wee bit of celebrating and so I did not have the chance to post today’s post until, well, today. A company called Statlas charted each game of the World Series. One of my coworkers pointed me in the direction of these visualisations, unfortuantely I missed out…
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Fixing Fukushima
Read on…: Fixing FukushimaTwo and a half years ago an earthquake and then tsunami devastated Japan. But it was the tsunami that crippled the Fukushima nuclear power station and created the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Unfortunately things are still not working properly and the plant is still leaking radioactive particles into the local environment. This interactive guide from the Guardian illustrates…
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Mapping Public Health Data
Read on…: Mapping Public Health DataToday’s piece maps and charts comes from the Illinois Department of Public Health. The piece combines maps and charting components to detail preventable hospitalisations and emergency room use in the state of Illinois. Ordinarily I would prefer just one map, however, in this case the designers realised that a regional map—with its larger surface area—need not be as large as…
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Looking for my Lego Thomas Malthus Figure
Read on…: Looking for my Lego Thomas Malthus FigureBecause Friday. And because Lego. Here you have xkcd. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.