Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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The Bill Barr Bifurcation
Read on…: The Bill Barr BifurcationSo today’s piece is not a revolutionary piece of information design, but it is fascinating. For two or so years now, we have all heard about the Robert Mueller investigation into potential contacts between the Trump campaign, early administration, and the administration of Russian president Vladimir Putin. To be clear, thus far, this has been an incredibly productive special counsel.…
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Are Baseball’s Big Contracts Worth It?
Read on…: Are Baseball’s Big Contracts Worth It?On Tuesday the San Diego Padres signed Manny Machado to a guaranteed contract worth $300 million over the next ten years—though he can opt out after five years. Machado was one of two big free agents on the market, the other being Bryce Harper. One question out there is whether or not these big contracts will be worth it for…
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Trump Keeps Attacking the Special Counsel
Read on…: Trump Keeps Attacking the Special CounselYesterday the New York Times published a fascinating piece looking at the data on how often President Trump has gone after the Special Counsel’s investigation. (Spoiler: over 1100 times.) It makes use of a number of curvy line charts showing the peaks of mentions of topics and people, e.g. Jeff Sessions. But my favourite element was this timeline. It’s nothing…
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Opportunity Lost
Read on…: Opportunity LostLast summer NASA’s Martian exploration rover Opportunity went dark as its solar panels, needed to power the golf-cart sized explorer, were covered in dust from a planet-wide dust storm. Everyone hoped that over the following months the light Martian winds and dust devils would wipe clean the dust from the solar panels and the rover could recharge its batteries, turn…
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Building the Wall
Read on…: Building the WallOr at least a portion that was already funded back in March. If it was, in fact, a wall. This morning it appears as if President Trump will not scupper the funding agreement. It includes far less than the $5.7 billion he demanded, but do not forget back in March, Congress appropriated funds to construct barriers, not walls in Texas.…
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A Macedonia by any Other Name
Read on…: A Macedonia by any Other NameAs someone who loves geography and maps, I have plenty of printed atlases and map books. One year, as a gift, my family gave me an early 20th century atlas. That one in particular is remarkable because of how much the world changed between 1921 and 2019—what was French West Africa is now several independent countries. But our maps may…
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Walnut Pancakes in Space
Read on…: Walnut Pancakes in SpaceOne of the really neat things about space exploration has been the New Horizons probe that raced past Pluto, giving us the image of the now famous heart shape on the dwarf planet. But as it raced past a Kuiper Belt object named Ultima Thule on New Year’s, we received some tantalising first images of a snowman in space. Basically,…