Tag: just for fun

The Best and Worst States for [Insert Topic]

It’s Friday, and mercifully this is a Friday before a three-day weekend. (For all of those who, like me, have a day off coming up on Monday.) So before everyone starts travelling to places here and there and everywhere in between, you best check this series of maps. Why? Because Business Insider has polled us, well 1600 of us, to find the best and worst states for a number of metrics. My personal favourite:

“Most likely due to the fact that most Americans have never been to Philadelphia, the rest of the country believes New York also has the worst sports fans. I blame John Rocker.”

Worst sports fans
Worst sports fans

Credit for the piece goes to Walter Hickey.

Chicago Covered in Ice

I should be returning to Chicago this weekend. And if I were returning 21,000 years ago, that would be I would have been returning to a massive ice sheet covering the city. Would have been way worse in Montreal, though.

Ice Sheets
Ice Sheets

Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

Nice Work, Bro

Bro. You have surely heard the term exchanged by young men to each other as a sign of friendship, greeting, &c. If you are like me, you are probably confused as to just what constitutes a bro. Thankfully the folks over an NPR analysed broness and compiled their findings into a Venn diagram that maps out the different types of bros. You should definitely head over to the piece and read up on the methodology, it’s worth the read. (And check out the video that epitomises the essence of bro-ness if for nothing else than a Philly news crew’s reaction to an interview with said essence.)

Bro-ness
Bro-ness

Credit for the piece goes to Alyson Hurt.

What to Eat at a Ball Game

Today’s Friday. So maybe at this point, after a week of baseball-related posts, you are ready to go see a game yourself. If you go, here is a flow chart from SB Nation to help you choose your foods and drinks for the game.

Flow chart for concession stand purchases
Flow chart for concession stand purchases

Credit for the piece goes to Eric Wayne.

Your State’s Highest Paid Public Employee

This choropleth map comes from Deadspin and it looks at each state’s highest paid public employee. As you can probably imagine since the graphic comes from Deadspin, most states pay their highest wages to sports coaches. Ten states pay somebody other than a sports coach. And five of those are in the Mid-Atlantic/New England area.

Highest Paid Public Employees
Highest Paid Public Employees

Credit for the piece goes to Reuben Fischer-Baum.

North American Transit Map

Wrapping up this week of map-themed work, we have xkcd. He created an integrated map of North America’s subway systems from Vancouver to Chicago to Philadelphia to Washington to Mexico City.

I only wish I could take the Red Line from Belmont and transfer to the Market–Frankford near West Trenton. Because I could then take the (Frankford) El out to 69th Street and catch the 104 to West Chester.

Subways of North America
Subways of North America

Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

New Data Visualisation Forms

Monday was an odd day, both 1 April and the start of baseball. I had a tough decision to make: Do I post a serious baseball-related piece or a humourous April Fool’s Day one instead? If you recall, I went for the serious baseball option. But that leaves me with Friday, where I try to post work that is a bit on the lighter side of life.

So here is EagerPies, published by EagerEyes on 1 April. It’s in the style of the EagerEyes site, a blog with posts about data visualisation. This selection is EagerPies work to improve upon Minard and the layering of data sets. But if you worry about complexity, fret not for they realised that encoding data in transparency would be a step too far.

Stacked scatter column pies
Stacked scatter column pies

Credit for the piece goes to EagerPies.