Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: Finding Home with a Homemade Map
We’re going to start this week out with some good news and for that we turn to China. 30 years ago, child traffickers kidnapped four-year old Li Jingwei from his family and sold him to another family over 1,000 miles away. A BBC article from earlier this month covered Li Jingwei’s reunion with his family. […]
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Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
Read on…: Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.Any science fiction fan—and likely many who are not—can identify the character who utters those words in that order: Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek’s captain of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D. Ask your Amazon Alexa for it. Or your Google Home. Thanks to the work of xkcd, we now know that Jean-Luc—may I call him Jean-Luc?—had a […]
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Even Older Family Trees
Read on…: Even Older Family TreesYesterday we looked at a graphic about an old family tree, revealed by ancient DNA. But at the end of the day it is a family tree of descent for a human male. But mankind itself fits within a kind of family tree, the circle family tree of life. The tree of life continues to […]
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Old Family Trees
Read on…: Old Family TreesAnother quick little post from a little while back, around Christmas news broke about the oldest family tree yet discovered. Researchers used DNA recovered from a 5700-year old tomb in the UK to piece together the relationships between the people interred within the tomb. Graphic wise, we’re not talking about anything crazy or inventive here—it’s […]
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Sunshield
Read on…: SunshieldHappy Friday, everyone. At the beginning of the week, we looked at the launch and deployment of the new James Webb telescope. If you recall, one of the key elements of the satellite’s design is its sunshield. As the name says, it shields the satellite from the sun, thus keeping the equipment super cold, which […]
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Showing All 50
Read on…: Showing All 50Those who know me know one of my pet peeves are when maps of the United States do not display Alaska and Hawaii. I even noted yesterday that those two states were so late of additions to the United States and it made sense as to why they were not included. So when I was […]
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Fire in Fairmount
Read on…: Fire in FairmountPhiladelphia made the national and international news last week, although for once not because we’re all being shot to death. This time because a fire in a rowhome killed 12 people, including nine children. The Philadelphia Inquirer quickly posted a short article explaining what occurred that morning. But the early indication, based upon the confession […]
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Space: The Final Frontier
Read on…: Space: The Final FrontierWe’re back after a nice holiday break. And one of the most fascinating things to happen was the successful—and seemingly easy, more on that in a bit—launch of the James Webb space telescope. The James Webb was developed by NASA with contributions from both the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). […]
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Never Read the Comments Section
Read on…: Never Read the Comments SectionWell, my week is over and whilst I may publish a post here and there the rest of the month, please do not expect it. My holiday time is truly here and I’ll be away for the next two and a half weeks. Fear not, for like McArthur to the Philippines I shall return. But […]