Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: The M87 Black Hole in Context
Last week we looked at the amazing news that astronomers had finally photographed a black hole. Or, technically, the shadow of a black hole since the black hole itself cannot be seen. I want to return to that news, because it’s awesome. And because xkcd published a piece that annotated the image to show the […]
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American Nuclear Generating Stations
Read on…: American Nuclear Generating StationsThose that have followed me for a long time know that I am a big fan of nuclear power. It does have some drawbacks, namely its radioactive waste, but otherwise creates enormous amounts of stable, carbon-free electricity. So when I saw this article from Bloomberg about the impact of climate change on US nuclear powered […]
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The Summary of the Mueller Report
Read on…: The Summary of the Mueller ReportWhen Robert Mueller submitted his report a few weeks ago, some interested parties declared it a witch hunt that had wasted time and money. Except, it had done the opposite of that. It had laid bare Russia’s interference in our elections and the contacts between Russian government and quasi-government officials and Trump campaign officials. Said officials […]
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An Illustrated Guide to the Deaths in Game of Thrones
Read on…: An Illustrated Guide to the Deaths in Game of ThronesDid something important happen yesterday in the news? We’ll get to it. But for now, it’s Friday. You’ve made it to the weekend. So sit back and binge. On gin or Game of Thrones, whatever. Last Sunday the hit HBO show Game of Thrones returned for its final series. I did not have time to […]
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The Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral: Part Trois
Read on…: The Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral: Part TroisOn Tuesday I talked about a small article published by the New York Times that looked at the cathedral fire. I lamented that there were no immediate graphics explaining what happened. Just give me two days. Tuesday we had the BBC piece and then yesterday the New York Times published a more extensive look. As the user […]
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The Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral: Part Deux
Read on…: The Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral: Part DeuxYesterday I mentioned how there were few graphics detailing the fire at Notre Dame de Paris. Just give media organisations a day. The BBC published this piece about the fire. It includes, much like the Times piece from yesterday, an illustrative diagram detailing the key locations of the fire. But the BBC piece goes a […]
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The Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral
Read on…: The Fire at Notre Dame CathedralThis was not what I was going to write about today, but the news of the fire that ravaged Notre Dame yesterday rightly dominated the news yesterday and this morning. However, while I found multiple articles dealing with photographic evidence of the damage, I did not see many that detailed the fire from an illustrative […]
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Israeli Electoral History
Read on…: Israeli Electoral HistoryOne of the important stories of last week that was not black hole related was that of the re-election of the Likud Party in Israel, a party headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. This will be his fourth consecutive time as prime minister plus a fifth back in the late 1990s. Of course, he is facing an […]
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Black Holes and Revelations
Read on…: Black Holes and RevelationsOn Sunday night I went to see the English rock band Muse perform here in Philadelphia. The concert was to support their latest album, but of course they played Starlight, a song which gave us its respective album’s title: Black Holes and Revelations. Then on Wednesday, scientists announced that for the very first time, we […]