Examining How We Measure Our Lives
Commentary, critiques, and observations on information design and data visualisation
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Read on…: Italian Election Results
Europe 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.
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Gerrymandering Pennsylvania Part V
Read on…: Gerrymandering Pennsylvania Part VYesterday we looked at the new congressional district map here in Pennsylvania, drawn up by the state supreme court after the Republican legislature and Democratic governor could not come to agreement. Also yesterday, FiveThirtyEight explored the redrawn map in more detail to see if, as I’ve read in a few places, the new map is a Democratic gerrymander. In short,…
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Gerrymandering Pennsylvania Part IV
Read on…: Gerrymandering Pennsylvania Part IVYesterday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court published the new congressional district map of Pennsylvania, the latest chapter in this tale. Republicans in the state legislature have already said they will take this to the federal courts, but they tried that just a few weeks ago and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. So the Washington Post put together a…
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More Murder in Merica
Read on…: More Murder in MericaToday’s post was going to be something not this. But it is remarkable how many people die in the United States in mass shootings. It is, generally speaking, not a problem experienced in the rest of the developed world. The question is do we want gun violence to really define American exceptionalism? Anyways, the Washington Post has a frightening piece…