Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
-
Read on…: Arctic Chill
The Arctic air mass that has frozen the Midwest continues to spread and so today will be a tad chilly in Philadelphia. Yesterday, however, the Guardian had a piece that used data from NASA to show how the air masses over the Northern Hemisphere have been disturbed by unusually warm air. One theory to how this […]
-
Cold, Dangerous Cold
Read on…: Cold, Dangerous ColdIt’s cold out in Chicago. And not just the usual winter cold, but record-setting cold. And when the temperature gets that low, when you mix in a little bit of wind, it can become dangerous very quickly. In an article about the weather conditions in the Midwest, the BBC included this graphic at the end. […]
-
Another Week, Another Brexit Day
Read on…: Another Week, Another Brexit DayWell we have another week and so we have another fraught day of House of Commons votes on Brexit. Once again, it looks like HM Government will lose all the votes, but the question is by how much? Significant defeats means there will be little support, but smaller defeats might show the European Union that […]
-
The Intersection of Geography and Politics
Read on…: The Intersection of Geography and PoliticsWe made it to the end of the week, everybody. And to help celebrate, xkcd posted a little comic that contains two of my favourite subjects: geography and politics. In particular, the piece looks at the 2020 election and plate tectonics. One doesn’t often hear of the Midcontinent Rift System. Credit for the piece goes […]
-
The Changing Shape of Anak Krakatau
Read on…: The Changing Shape of Anak KrakatauA few weeks ago we took a look at an interactive piece from the BBC that used a slider to show before and after photos of Anak Krakatau. For those that forget, that was the volcano that exploded and created a tsunami in Indonesia, which killed over 400 people. Well, geography is always changing and […]
-
Asteroids on the Moon
Read on…: Asteroids on the MoonI hope everybody enjoyed their holiday. But, before we dive back into the meatier topics of the news, I wanted to share this serpentine graphic from the Guardian I discovered last week. Functionally it is a timeline charting the size of 96 known large asteroid impact craters on the Moon, between 80ºS and 80ºN. The […]
-
The Atom
Read on…: The AtomWe made it to the end of the week, everyone. And that is worth celebrating. Today’s post is for all the scientists out there and anyone who has ever been interested in the atom. You know, the little things that make up matter. xkcd put together a chronological history of several different models of the […]
-
What’s Next, Brexit?
Read on…: What’s Next, Brexit?A no confidence vote on Theresa May’s government, that’s what. For those not familiar with parliamentary democracies, basically a no confidence vote is held when a substantial number of members of parliament have just that, no confidence, in the government of the day. The legislative body then votes and if the government wins, the government […]
-
The Brexit Deal Vote
Read on…: The Brexit Deal VoteToday’s (one of) the day(s). For those of you who haven’t followed Brexit, the British Parliament will vote this evening on whether to accept the deal Prime Minister Theresa May negotiated with the European Union…or not. And if not, well, the government now only has three—instead of the original 21—days to figure out a Plan […]