The Economist often does clear, concise graphics to accompany their articles. And from to time they also do more interactive works that allow a more in-depth exploration of data. And then sometimes they do awesome maps like this. The realms of GAFA.
Credit for the piece goes to David Parkins
California is a big state. That means that any recovery from the recession will be uneven. But as the New York Times showed Wednesday, that unevenness falls upon the divide between coastal and inland areas.
Credit for the piece goes to Kevin Quealy.
On Thanksgiving, the Economist published an interactive map that looked at Mexico across three metrics: murders, murder rates, and population. Mexico is one of the more populated countries in the world, but it is also one of the most dangerous. In the middle of the previous decade, the Mexican government began to crack down on the drug cartels. But the cartels have violently resisted. Very violently.
The map is nothing new. It labels different Mexican states by comparing their statistics to those of countries across the world. For example, the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico, one of the “fronts” of this new drug war, has a population of 3.41 million people. The total number of murders so far this year is 2,350. That is only six murders fewer than in the entire country of the Ukraine. Did I mention the population of the Ukraine is over 45 million. More than ten times the size of Chihuahua. And the comparisons go on, though as the map clearly points out the distribution is not uniform.
In terms of interactivity, a nice little feature is the filtering of the map by the legend at the bottom. Hover over one of the bars and only those areas appear coloured in the map.
The New York Times breaks down the 2012 presidential election results at the precinct level. It shows that despite the city being a bulwark of Democratic support, areas of deep Republican support still exist.
I make a lot of maps in my line of work. Often times, they are not particularly interesting. Mostly because they follow similar patterns to this. More stuff is bought and sold where there are more people. More stuff is bought and sold where more people have more money. Et cetera, et cetera.
Maps are sometimes very useful. But I have a saying when people ask for a map of some kind of data tied to geographies: Maps are not silver bullets. That is to say, just because you throw data about countries, states, or counties onto a map does not mean you are going to see anything worthwhile let alone new or unexpected.
Credit for the XKCD piece goes to Randall Munroe
My colleague Benjamin Byron plays the upright bass in a few bands, one of which is named Viper’s Dream. We were discussing the flexibility of jazz band rosters and I decided to make an infographic about the membership history of Viper’s Dream. Unfortunately, I know of nobody’s name but Benjamin’s, so they are all listed as [instrument] Guy.
Orange County California was the bastion of California Republicans. I remember even hearing about it as such all the way out on the East Coast. But, the times are changing in Orange County. And so are the demographics. The Los Angeles Times released this interactive slider map showing the changes to the Republican landscape from 2004 to 2012. Orange County has gone from blood red to at best a tender pink while Democrats salivate around the table.
Credit for the piece goes to Doug Smith.
We’ve had a lot of the rough and gritty politics of late. So now for some bright and starry-eyed idealism. Well, maybe less idealism and more stars. Lots of them. Courtesy a Google Chrome experiment.
No, Turkey is not having an election this week. Instead, we start to transition out of election coverage. By moving into Thanksgiving. The New York Times created a flow chart that looks at different turkey cooking options.
Credit for the piece goes to Alicia DeSantis and Kevin Quealy.
The United States is not the only country in the world to have an election this November. It isn’t even the only big country. China is/had elections to replace the top leadership in Beijing. That’s right, it’s that about that time once every ten years when the Chinese political leadership is replaced.
The Wall Street Journal had a nice interactive piece introduced with an animated video explaining just how the Chinese political system works. Or at least how we think it works. It’s not an entirely transparent system. Though as Americans have discovered lately, the transparency in seeing how large pieces of legislation are conceived, written, and passed is not necessarily a good thing.
Along with the diagram of the system, the piece offers photos and brief biographies for the presumed front runners. The “winners” of the elections should be announced sometime Thursday. Along with the new leaders, the Communist Party may also reduce the Politburo Standing Committee from nine members to seven members for more efficient governing. But nobody knows. We’ll see Thursday.
