Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: Family Migration Patterns
On Saturday I attended an all-day seminar by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) at the new Museum of the American Revolution here in Philadelphia. Just fantastic. One of the lectures included some maps that looked at the distribution of families over a year span—turns out families did not stand still. Instead, they tended to “fill in” the sparser…
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For Whom to Root
Read on…: For Whom to RootThe World Cup continues. Well for a few teams. Some have already been eliminated from the Round of 16. But for those Americans rooting for Team America, well, if you have not yet figured it out, you got knocked out well before the World Cup even started by…Panama. And so you are stuck in the question of who’s next? Thankfully…
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World Cup Match Probabilities
Read on…: World Cup Match ProbabilitiesThe World Cup has had some impressive matches and some stunners. (And the two are not mutually exclusive.) But if you are like me and have to work during most of the broadcasts, how can you follow along? Well thankfully FiveThirtyEight put together a nice statistical model that provides the probability of a team winning—or drawing—in real time. The design…
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When the Whole Is Less Than the Sum of its Parts
Read on…: When the Whole Is Less Than the Sum of its PartsLast week we talked a lot about trade—and we will get back to it. But the World Cup is now in full swing and I want to take a look at a couple of things this week. But to begin, the Economist published an article about the difficulty of predicting the outcome of World Cups. It looks at the quirks…
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It’s Finally Sunny in Philadelphia (on the Weekend)
Read on…: It’s Finally Sunny in Philadelphia (on the Weekend)Here in Philadelphia, the weekend is forecast to be not rainy, which is a departure from the last several weeks. So this piece from xkcd’s Randall Munroe seemed appropriate. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
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Philly Rules
Read on…: Philly RulesYo. C’mon, bro. This jawn is getting tired. Just stop already. If you did not catch it this week, the most important news was Donald Trump disinviting the Super Bowl champions Eagles to the White House to celebrate their victory over the Patriots. He then lied about Eagles players kneeling during the US anthem—no player did during the 2017 season. He…