Voyager 1 Has Left the Solar System

Last week NASA announced that last year, Voyager 1 left the Solar System about 25 August 2012. A lot of the graphics that were published to support that story chronicled the distance travelled by that probe. However, this excellent graphic by the Los Angeles Times instead looks at how NASA determined through the data returned that Voyager had left the Solar System.

Voyager 1 departs the Solar System
Voyager 1 departs the Solar System

The piece does a really good job of setting up the story in illustrating the instrument packaged used to collect the data. Moving down the piece, it shows locations and the different environments and then how those environments differ in electron density. Lastly it looks at how NASA interpolated the date from the data collected. A really solid piece.

Credit for the piece goes to Monte Morin, Doug Stevens, and Anthony Pesce.

#GetBeard

Normally this would be a Friday post. But, for those of you fellow Red Sox fans who happen to live near enough to Fenway to go catch a game, Wednesday night is Dollar Beard Night. This graphic by the Red Sox details the different types of beards worn by Red Sox players this year. It’s like the bunch of idiots of 2004.

The Red Sox beards
The Red Sox beards

Wednesday night if you show up to Fenway with a beard, you can get a $1 ticket for Dollar Beard Night. Hence why posting this Friday would do you fellow Red Sox fans no good.

Credit for the piece goes to the Red Sox.

Rebuilding Chicago’s Red Line

For those of you who read this blog in Chicago know very well that the Red Line, Chicago’s busiest subway line, is undergoing major construction as the transit authority rebuilds much of the line. But what exactly does that entail?

Earlier this year the Chicago Tribune looked at that and with a series of illustrations, explained the different steps of the process. This first section details the steps taken to rip up the rails.

Dismantling the existing rail lines
Dismantling the existing rail lines

Credit for the piece goes to Jemal R. Brinson and Kyle Bentle.

Covering the New York Mayoral Primaries

Tuesday was election day in New York (among other places) where voters went to the polls for the mayoral primary (among other positions). For those living underneath what I can only presume was a very comfortable rock, this is the whole Anthony Weiner comeback election. Anyway, a bunch of different websites, most tied to the New York area, were covering the election results. So I wanted to share just a few.

First we have the Huffington Post with the most straightforward presentation. Their table covers the main candidates and their results at a borough level and at a city-wide level.

The Huffington Post's tabular results
The Huffington Post’s tabular results

The second is from the Wall Street Journal. This uses a choropleth map with different colours assigned to a select few persons running—also the only ones with a real chance of winning. Tints of these colours in each district indicate how much of the district has voted.

The Wall Street Journal reports at the district level
The Wall Street Journal reports at the district level

From WNYC we have our third example—another choropleth where different colours represent different candidates. However, unlike the Wall Street Journal, the colours here have only one tint. And instead of showing assembly districts, WNYC provides a further level of data and looks at precinct results. It does not represent the amount of the precinct that has voted, but rather whether the candidate is winning by a plurality or by a majority. Beneath the legend a second charting element is used; this details the breakdown of the vote by districts as separated into racial majority. This is an interesting addition that hints at filtering results by related data.

WNYC looks at who's winning and how
WNYC looks at who’s winning and how

And that filtering brings us to the New York Times’ piece, which does offer filtering. It highlights districts on its maps—also precinct-level and not district aggregates—based upon the metric and the specific properties of said metric. In this case, I have chosen income. And the story of different voting patterns (at this particular point in the evening) based on income is quite clear. Look at Christine Quinn’s support.

Results from people earning more than $100k
Results from people earning more than $100k
Votes from people earning less than $100k
Votes from people earning less than $100k

 

Credit for these:

Huffington Post: Aaron Bycoffe, Jay Boice, Andrei Scheinkman, and Shane Shifflett

Wall Street Journal: the Wall Street Journal’s graphics team

WNYC: Steven Melendez, Louise Ma, Jenny Ye, Marine Boudeau, Schuyler Duveen, Elizabeth Zagroba, and John Keefe

New York Times: New York Times’ graphics department

It’s a Zepplin! It’s a Plane! It’s a Chopper! Nope…

…it’s an Aeroscraft! This interactive, diagrammatic infographic from the Los Angeles Times explains just how the aeroscraft is part zeppelin, part plane, and part chopper.

Internal frame of an aeroscraft
Internal frame of an aeroscraft

Credit for the piece goes to Raoul Ranoa and Anthony Pesce.

Mapping the Stars

Of the acting and directing world over time. This interactive piece from the New York Times charts the networks between actors and directors. The networks on the right while examples and stories are located to the left. When you scroll to an example, the network to the right is highlighted in yellow. If you click a link, you are taken to the IMDb page for that particular film. A really nice piece.

Networks of actors and directors
Networks of actors and directors

Credit for the piece goes to Mike Bostock, Jennifer Daniel, Alicia DeSantis, and Nicolas Rapold.

But Can You Do the Gerrymander?

It’s Friday. And that means you will likely be contorting on the dance floor this weekend. But if you tried to bend to conform to any of these congressional districts, you would likely break your back. Gerrymandering is an old practice that basically allows state governments to decide what area (and therefore populations) belong to which congressional district. If you carve up your opposition well enough, you can consolidate them into far fewer districts than they might otherwise win. Pennsylvania is just one such example of an unbalanced state. This interactive infographic game from Slate forces you to solve the jigsaw puzzle of congressional districts.

My PA 6th isn't even the worst…
My PA 6th isn't even the worst…

Credit for the piece goes to Chris Kirk.

Women Bankers

…and not just any bankers but central bankers (the ones who establish policies at a national level), are rather under represented as this graphic from the Economist details. It is a nice use of small multiples with bar charts over time. Each bar is a 0–50% of the total membership of a central bank board and the share that is dark represents the number of women. Clearly for the countries selected not a single one has had a board of more than 50% women. Sweden and South Africa are the only two countries shown that have had 50% participation from women central bankers—though Norway and Denmark (for a period of time) have been consistently close.

Women central bankers
Women central bankers

Credit for the piece goes to C.W., P.A.W., L.P., and P.K.

Riding the Rails

A little while ago the Washington Post published this graphic on Metro ridership. But not just anybody’s ridership, that of the individuals who sit on the DC transit agency’s board. After all, should not those overseeing Washington’s transit agency be intimately familiar with the conditions faced by DC commuters?

How agency board members ride their transit agency…
How agency board members ride their transit agency…

The graphic is a really nice use of small multiples and shading and tinting to indicate which lines are travelled by specific persons. An icon of a bus denotes bus ridership. This is a very good piece.

Credit for the piece goes to Wilson Andrews, Dana Hedgpeth, Mark Berman, and Luz Lazo.

Whip Counts to Authorise Force in Syria

I was catching up on some news tonight and I came upon an unhelpful graphic that was supposed to be helping me understand the whip count (who is voting yes or no) for authorising the use of force in Syria. Below is the original graphic from Think Progress.

The whip count as of 15.30 on 3 September
The whip count as of 15.30 on 3 September

I struggled, however, to directly compare the yes and no votes. While I certainly understand that the splits within both parties are a fascinating subplot to the greater issue of will we bomb Syria, the traditional congressional arc visualisation is not helpful here. So using the same numbers, I simply plotted what is essentially a stacked bar chart. In truly heretical, i.e. independent, fashion I mixed the two parties together and placed them at either ends of the chart. The first to reach 50% wins. (If I were updating this live of course.)

My visualisation of the whip count…
My visualisation of the whip count…

Credit for the original goes to Igor Volsky and Judd Legum.