Tag: information design

  • Ukraine Retreats from Debaltseve

    This is a short piece—it is only really an inline map—but it illustrates fairly well why Ukraine’s loss of Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine last week is kind of a big deal. Basically, the now mostly abandoned city is a transport hub linking the two quasi capitals of the Novorossiya. Credit for the piece goes to…

  • The American Shopping Mall

    This past weekend Al-Shabab, the Al Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia, threatened shopping malls in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This threat carries a certain amount of weight given the deadly attack Al-Shabab launched against the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya a few years ago. So what to look at today?…

  • Lynchings

    Let’s follow up yesterday’s good news story about measles with lynchings. The New York Times mapped and charted historical lynchings from 1877 to 1950 across 12 states in the South. Credit for the piece goes to the New York Times graphics department.

  • The Measles Outbreak

    People, science is your friend. Vaccinations are not only for the benefit of yourself, but for others. Anyway, let us take a look at the measles outbreak through some graphics produced by the New York Times. It started in Disneyland. Because we had eliminated the disease about 15 years ago. Science, people. Credit for the…

  • Presidents Day Popularity Contests

    Yesterday was Presidents Day and I had the day off. So today’s post is a bit late, but it still works. Pew Research Centre pulled together data they had on presidential popularity from Eisenhower to Obama. The data point was job approval. Credit for the piece goes to the graphics department of the Pew Research…

  • Squaring Up London

    Choropleths are not always a good idea. For example, look at election maps. Highly populated but geographically small cities appear as mere drops of ink on paper or pixels on a screen. Meanwhile, vast deserts appear gigantic empires. Nothing new there. But even within cities, these issues exist. London is one such city and one…

  • Income Growth Gap

    The Recession was not great for the 99%. It was, however, good for the 1%. How good? Well as data put together by the Economic Policy Institute indicates—and as reported by the Washington Post—it was very good. In only 1 of 49 states did the 99% fare better than the 1%. One state’s data was…

  • Population Displacement in Ukraine

    Ukraine continues to suffer the effects of a Russian invasion. Though we won’t call it that. This piece from Radio Free Europe looks at the displaced persons in the country. Unfortunately, it is not quite the best example of what to do. The line chart looks at the cumulative number of displaced persons. But, a…

  • Masses and Payloads

    While last week ended with an xkcd post, I want to start this week with an older one I missed about spacecraft. Because spacecraft are awesome every day of the week. In particular it looks at mass and payload capacity of spacecraft and rockets over time. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

  • Hudson River Tunnels

    Readers of this blog know that I am a fan of rail travel. And in particular, how the rail system on the East Coast is brilliant when compared to anywhere else in the States. Unfortunately, the railway system on the East Coast is also old and in need of serious capital investment. The tunnels linking…