Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: The Russian Threat
A few days ago a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent, e.g. VX, in Salisbury, England. Over a decade ago, another former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, died in London after being poisoned with polonium, a highly radioactive substance produced inside nuclear reactors, placed inside his tea. Russia’s spies are still a threat in the…
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The Wall Today
Read on…: The Wall TodayThis past Sunday I had a nice treat in the New York Times. They printed a piece looking at the state of the US-Mexican border wall as it is today. And not only was it an article, but it was a full-page article. There isn’t a lot to say about it in particular. But what I really did like was…
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Baseball: The Bouncier Edition
Read on…: Baseball: The Bouncier EditionBaseball is finally back as Spring Training continues to push through March, getting us closer to Opening Day. But one lingering question from last year remains: why the increase in power and home runs? While Major League Baseball (MLB) says there has been no change to the baseball, many think otherwise. FiveThirtyEight published a piece looking at the insides of…
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Italian Election Results
Read on…: Italian Election ResultsEurope enjoyed some significant political news yesterday. First, Angela Merkel will serve a fourth term as chancellor as the SPD members voted to allow their party to enter into a grand coalition with Merkel’s CDU/CSU party. But the more important story is that of the Italian elections, where the centre-left under Matteo Renzi was attempting a comeback against the populist…
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When No Change or Growth Is the Story
Read on…: When No Change or Growth Is the StoryFor many years I would often tell people that sometimes a visualisation can be “boring”, because the data itself is boring—a lack of growth in a market, no real mergers, or even steady and consistent but unspectacular growth. Those can all be stories, even if they likely result in very monotone choropleths or straight line charts or perfect steps of…
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Undersea Mining
Read on…: Undersea MiningToday’s piece isn’t strictly about data visualisation. Instead it’s a nice article from the BBC that explores the nascent industry of undersea mining. What caught my interest was the story of Soviet submarine K-129, which sank mysteriously in the middle of the Pacific. But that isn’t even half the story, so if you are interested go and read the article…
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Changes to Immigration Enforcement
Read on…: Changes to Immigration EnforcementAlmost two weeks ago I read a piece in City Lab that used three maps to look at the changes to immigration enforcement in the first year of the Trump administration. I was taken by this final map in particular. While the map does have some large areas of N/A, it still does show some interesting geographic patterns. I think…
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The 2017–18 Flu Season
Read on…: The 2017–18 Flu SeasonLast week I covered the Pennsylvania congressional district map changes quite a bit. Consequently I was not able to share a few good pieces of work. Let’s hope nothing goes terribly wrong this week and maybe we can catch up. From last Friday we have this nice piece from FiveThirtyEight looking at the spread of influenza this season. The duller blues…
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It’s Friday, Can I Drink Yet?
Read on…: It’s Friday, Can I Drink Yet?Happy Friday, everyone. We made it through to week’s end. And you know what that means. It’s time for a drink. Thanks to one of my best mates for sharing this comic from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. He shared it with the comment: “I now understand your love of gin.” Credit for the piece goes to Zach Weinersmith.