We made it to Friday, everyone. And not just any Friday, but for the Americans reading this, a three-day weekend. (You Brits had a bank holiday last week, so whatever.)
While Harvey has been in the news a lot, did you miss that North Korea shot a missile over Japan? Well it did. So this older piece from Indexed came out a few weeks ago and seemed appropriate.
Credit for the piece goes to Jessica Hagy.
As my last two posts pointed out, yesterday was the Solar Eclipse. It certainly garnered media attention as a news helicopter hovered over my building during the height of the eclipse. Very peaceful indeed. But, knowing that my smartphone would not be able to take the best photos of the eclipse, even with a solar filter, I decided to do what any good designer might do. I sketched out the eclipse.
The task of sketching an eclipse is not easy. You cannot, or at least should not, look directly at the sun. (You’ll burn your eyes out, kid.) But the solar filters make seeing anything but the most intense light sources near impossible and so you have to remove them in order to doodle in a sketchbook. Eventually I found a solution and was able to quickly move from filtered glimpses of the Sun to the sketchbook. (At least when the clouds would permit.)
Last night I digitised those sketches into this simple graphic. The sketches are not entirely accurate as the position of the Moon jumps in a few spots. But it does give you the impression of peak eclipse about 14.45 with just a sliver, or 25% of the Sun remaining visible. And indeed the neighbourhood was visibly darker.
If you have not heard, the entire continental United States will, weather cooperating, be able to see at least a partial solar eclipse on Monday, 21 August. It is still too far away for an accurate weather forecast, but I am hoping that we have good weather in Philadelphia that day. Or else why bother working from home that day?
In the meantime, enjoy this eclipse-related piece from xkcd that ties together my love for astronomy things with my love for political things.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
Today’s post is not a particular great graphic in that it is far from revolutionary. Instead, you could say it far more evolutionary. A new finding by Matthew Baron posits a rather unusual dinosaur named Chilesaurus, discovered in Chile as its name suggests, is actually a cousin to both the tyrannosaurs and raptors as well as to triceratops. (Get the joke now?)
After I read the story I had to dig around for a graphic that made more sense than this BBC graphic. Why? Well, the way the article was written, it read more that the Chilesaurus actually falls after the theropods, but before the ornithischians as a cousin-like species. This BBC graphic makes it appear as a third sibling.
So in the Daily Mail, we have this graphic, credit given to Matthew Baron, that shows how the theropods branched out, but that Chilesaurus branched out after them and yet still provided ancestral traits to the ornithischians.
As both articles point out, this is not settled science and many disagree with the new arrangement. But as a person who grew up fascinated by dinosaurs, these kinds of stories are just fantastic.
Credit for the piece goes to Matt Baron.
We made it to Friday, everyone. So let us end the week with an examination of the different type of geographic faults, as explained by xkcd.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
This weekend, the New York Times published an online piece explaining the spread of the Grenfell Tower fire in London. The story uses small animated graphics and videos to show the origin and progression of the fire from an exploding refrigerator on the fourth floor to its trapping of residents on the 23rd and final floor.
Credit for the piece goes to Troy Griggs, Mika Gröndahl, Josh Keller, Jamine C. Lee, Anjali Singhvi, Megan Specia, Derek Watkins, and Jeremy White.
As you know, I am a sucker for military-related things. So here we have a piece from the Wall Street Journal on the leading fighter jets of the world. If you have a bone to pick on which jets were included, please take that up with them and not me.
The screenshot is from the end of an animation where they depict the maximum range and the relative speed of each aircraft against each other.
Credit for the piece goes to Andrew Barnett, Jason French, and Robert Wall.
Well yesterday sucked.
But at least today is Friday. Also Cinco de Mayo. And so in addition to trying to find some mezcal tomorrow—anybody know a good spot in Philly?—we can wrap this week up with something on the humourous side.
My mobile is a few years old now and I’ve been taking lots of the photos the last few years. Last weekend I reached a point where I could no longer take photos. Consequently I have been going back through all my old photos. And so this piece from xkcd seemed rather appropriate.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
The skies have lots of birds. Here’s a graphic from xkcd to help you identify them all. Because it’s Friday.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
Yesterday the United States dropped a GBU.43 on a cave complex in eastern Afghanistan. The bomb is better known by its nickname MOAB, Mother Of All Bombs. But just how does the GBU.43 compare to some of the more common—and not so common—weapons in the US arsenal?
What we do know is that yesterday was the detonation of the largest non-nuclear bomb in warfare. We do have an even larger conventional weapon called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator—phrasing?—but its size and warhead are not as large as the MOAB. MOP is instead intended to be used as a super bunker buster.
Credit for the piece is mine.
