Another weekend, another weekend trip. This time I’m flying to Philadelphia for a quick trip back home. Naturally, I’m going to pack a suitcase so I can bring some things back to Chicago from civilisation. But what happens to my luggage between my checking it and it being loaded onto the aircraft? Thanks to the National Post, we have a graphic to explain just that.
Credit for the piece goes to Bonnie Berkowitz and Alberto Cuadra.
I just returned from my trip to Kansas City last night. Kansas, if you did not know it, exists within what people call Tornado Alley. That means they receive a lot of tornadoes. But what are tornadoes beyond the plot points of mid-90s action films? Basically complicated micro-weather systems. So complicated we still don’t entirely understand them. But the National Post looks at explaining what we do know.
Credit for the piece goes to Andrew Barr and Mike Faille.
I’m off to Kansas City this evening for Memorial Day Weekend. There, I fully intend to at least try some legitimate Kansas City barbecue. But how does this relate to a blog on information design and data visualisation? Well, some folks at Harvard endeavoured to design a better smoker for barbecue. Thanks, science.
Credit for the piece goes to James Abundis.
Let’s face it, lots of people think tables are boring. They convey data very quickly and very efficiently. But they often don’t look “pretty” enough. So, today, I just wanted to show a table from the Washington Post from last week.
It does nothing fancy. Nor do the illustrations actually communicate the information more quickly or more clearly. But, look! Green clocks and charging stations!
Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post’s graphics department.
Let’s aim for something a bit lighter today. Well, lighter in all things but calories, perhaps. Today we have a piece from the Wall Street Journal that looks at the social media presence of several large fast food brands. Overall, it has a few too many gimmicky illustrations for my comfort. But, the strength of the piece is that it does look at some real data, e.g. plotted Twitter response rates, and then contextualises it with appropriate callouts.
The illustrations are killing me, though.
Credit for the piece goes to Marcelo Prince and Carlos A. Tovar.
Tuesday I posted my late-night work on Amtrak No. 188’s derailment, (now with a few minor updates, including the speed information released this afternoon) so you could all get a sense of what happened yesterday. Of course, in the last 24 hours, we have seen a lot of news outlets covering the story.
The New York Times has a nice piece mapping out the details of the accident. Of particular interest, they included a map showing the parts of the Northeast Corridor equipped with positive train control. That is a system designed to prevent trains from exceeding their speed limits.
The Washington Post has two nice pieces. The first, below, incorporates both illustration to simplify the wreck site for the audience and then photographs to provide context of just how destroyed some of the train cars are, the first in particular.
The Post, however, also has a supplemental piece that looks at Amtrak’s accidents over the last ten years. This is the most data-centric piece of all that we are looking at, but that is okay. Most of the story is not reliant on data, but rather illustrations and diagrams trying to piece everything together.
Lastly, the BBC has an article with several small graphics looking at US train risks. Spoiler, American trains, while safe, are far less safe than those in Europe and Asia. Here, though, the map looks at accidents along the Northeast Corridor.
Credit for the New York Times piece goes to Gregor Aisch, Larry Buchanan, Bill Marsh, Haeyoun Park, Sergio Peçanha, Julie Shaver, Joe Ward, and Karen Yourish.
Credit for the Washington Post piece on the derailment goes to Bonnie Berkowitz, Patterson Clark, Alberto Cuadra, Todd Lindeman, Denise Lu, Katie Park, and Gene Thorp.
Credit for the Washington Post piece on Amtrak accidents goes to Dan Keating and Lazaro Gamio.
I am a big fan of trains, rail transit, and Amtrak. I think the rail network connecting the East Coast’s big cities from Boston down to Washington is one of the big draws of the Northeast. Not surprisingly, I have taken that route I don’t know how many times. So, when Amtrak’s Northeast Regional No. 188 derailed in Philadelphia, it ran off rails with which I am familiar.
I made a graphic tonight—so much for all my other plans—charting and mapping out what was announced by Philadelphia’s mayor, Michael Nutter. I am sure that by the time I wake up in the morning, we will know more and some things will have changed. But, let this be a simple guide to the basics as they were Tuesday night.
Frankford Junction is in the Port Richmond area of Philly. And what I can attest is that trains do slow down here, because it is a fairly sharp turn at a fairly flat grade (I think).
Credit for the screenshot map image goes to Google.
I really am only a one sport kind of guy. Basketball is not that sport. However, similar to baseball, it is a sport that plays many games and has many in-game actions, which allows for data collection and analysis. This Washington Post piece looks at the season for some player named Bradley Beal. Ask me to interpret the data, and that’s a different story. But, I am sure it will make sense to you basketball fans out there.
Credit for the piece goes to Todd Lindeman and Lazaro Gamio.
If you missed it this weekend, Nepal suffered both loss of life and significant damage from an earthquake Saturday morning. The Washington Post quickly had a graphic up that explored the story.
Credit for the piece goes to Bonnie Berkowitz, Darla Cameron, Samuel Granados, Richard Johnson, Laris Karklis, and Gene Thorp.
Keeping with the unplanned theme of this week, i.e. things going on in the Middle East and Arab world, let’s take a look at another piece of work from Spiegel. Unfortunately, this one is not so much in English. The graphics, yes, the supporting context, no.
There are seven of them, this looks at what the designers termed Halal Internet. It looks delicious.
And while this looks delicious, it’s white chocolate, unfortunately. But change that bit, and I would be okay eating it.
Check out the article for the rest.
Credit for the piece goes to Klaas Glenewinkel and Jess Smee.
