Growth of the Common Core Standard

Today’s piece is a timeline-driven piece from the Washington Post. It looks at the success the Gates Foundation has had in pushing its Common Core standards as an educational standard across the country.

Common Core's Growth
Common Core’s Growth

Credit for the piece goes to Darla Cameron, Ted Mellnik, and Cristina Rivero.

Viewing the Economy All at Once

Normally I try to reserve Fridays for the lighter stuff. But yesterday, the New York Times published a really fantastic piece about how the Great Recession changed the American economy through job growth or loss in each sector of the economy. Naturally this sounds very difficult because the American economy is both very large and very diverse.

Job growth in the American economy
Job growth in the American economy

If you check the piece out, however, you will find that you are offered a guided tour with analysis to provide context to an otherwise jumble of coloured lines. As a bonus, highlighted words in the text bring up small charts showing the actual job growth history for the particular sector. The jumble, however, is also organised along the x and y axes by two important metrics: wages and jobs since the Great Recession. This allows you to see whether low wage jobs have performed better than higher paying and whether either has created more jobs than the other. Line colouration denotes whether a particular sector has grown and recovered, recovered, not recovered, or recession accelerated a previous decline.

Then at the very end is another really great part of the piece. This is a collection of all the small charts arranged by areas of the economy.

View sectors individually as small multiples
View sectors individually as small multiples

Lastly, for those of you who have to work on smaller screens, don’t worry, they made it responsive. Overall, a great piece.

Credit for the piece goes to Jeremy Ashkenas and Alicia Parlapiano.

More World Cup Predictions

Earlier this week we looked at how Bloomberg was doing predictions and odds for the World Cup. Today we look at the Economist’s go. It uses something called the probability circle. It lacks the depth of Bloomberg’s piece, but from a design angle does play off the shape of the soccer ball and not in the cheesiest of fashions. Here it actually begins to work in lieu of our familiar bracket system (see every other sports final tournament series I have ever seen). To be fair, the Economist does not actually make any predictions in this, rather, it provides the odds that different teams will make different stages.

Economist's odds on each team
Economist’s odds on each team

Credit for the piece goes to A.Y., P.K., D.D.M., J.M.F., and K.N.C.

Carbon Emissions

President Obama announced new regulations to be enforced by the EPA that aim to reduce carbon emissions. Principally, the expected reduction will come through state-by-state measures to meet new federally mandated targets. Each state will have the ability to find different means of achieving the cuts, e.g. building more solar plants or nuclear plants or implementing cap-and-trade schemes.

Consequently, the New York Times published this interactive graphic that examines the carbon emissions and energy prices of states. The charts default to a highlight of several Northeast states already participating in a cap-and-trade scheme. The top component charts emissions on a per unit of energy over time while the bottom charts the price of energy.

Carbon emissions over time
Carbon emissions over time

Credit for the piece goes to Hannah Fairfield and Derek Watkins.

Predicting the World Cup Winners

The World Cup is starting soon and that means predictions are also on their way. And snazzy graphics. Today’s snazzy graphic with predictions comes from Bloomberg. They have host Brazil winning the overall tournament. And if you want to investigate the matches further, you can do that by clicking on the match.

Brazil wins
Brazil wins

Credit for the piece goes to the Bloomberg graphics department.

Which Countries Do You Drink Like?

Happy Friday. Happy Memorial Day Weekend. Happy Summer. Just about all of those things mean a drink of some kind. And thanks to Time, we can look at ourselves and find out what drinking culture each of us best reflects. The data comes from the WHO and looks at both total consumption and then share of consumption.

The countries which I drink like
The countries which I drink like

So last week I drank like a Moldovan and most nearly like an Antiniguan. Of course, they meant Antiguan. It just so happens I caught the spelling error. But since most of last week can be chalked up to a house party, I did the week before too. Then I drank like a Belarusian in the style of Guyanese person.

And for those of you who know me, yes, things like this are exactly why I record all the drinks I consumer in my little black book.

Credit for the piece goes to Pratheek Rebala.

Home Ownership

I am pretty much a sucker for small multiples. And so today I present a good one from the Washington Post. The story starts looking at the broad, national scope of the issue. And from there it breaks home ownership down by state.

Home ownership by state
Home ownership by state

Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post’s graphics department.

Linguistic Empires

One of the main arguments used by Vladimir Putin to support any possible intervention in Ukraine is the suppression of the rights of Russian language speakers. The Economist wisely decided to wholeheartedly endorse the underlying principle of Putin’s logic and redrew the world map accordingly. You should read the article.

Linguistic empires of the world
Linguistic empires of the world

Credit for the piece goes to the Economist’s graphics department.

Mapping Your LinkedIn Connections

Today’s post comes via a co-worker. LinkedIn’s R&D lab published a tool to map your LinkedIn connections. You login to your account and then receive a social network of map. Mine, seen below, clearly shows three different and generally not inter-connected networks. The orange represents my current employer; the blue is my university network; the green and pink are high school and my employer while in university (they were in the same town).

My LinkedIn network map
My LinkedIn network map

To be fair, I’m not a frequent user of LinkedIn. So for those of who you use it more regularly to make connections, contacts, and acquaintances will find yourselves with more complex networks.

Credit for the piece goes to LinkedIn.