Tag: line chart

  • Defence Spending

    As troops and tanks and rumble around the Ukrainian–Russian border, I was left to wonder just how NATO has been doing with defence spending. So I took defence spending as a share of total GDP. In general, NATO countries have been spending less since the end of the Cold War. The Baltic states are a…

  • There’s No Diversity in Baseball!

    Well, okay, actually there is. But the cultural reference would have made even less sense if I omitted the negative. Anyway, in honour of the two baseball games I am seeing this week—last night’s and tonight’s Red Sox games—here comes this piece from Pew Research Center. It’s a simple but fairly clear graphic. We are…

  • Tax Day and Income Inequality

    Tax Day for Americans seems like a great time to talk about income inequality. The article from which this chart comes talks about a recent book exploring the parallels of the 19th century’s inequality—as the article reminds us, the time of “Please, sir, may I have another?”—and the forecast for the 21st. Anyway, the graphic…

  • Allergens of DC

    Good news and bad news, folks. The good news is that this chart does not apply to people living in Chicago, Philadelphia, or elsewhere. Unless—here’s the bad news—you live in Washington, D.C. In that case, well, prepare to die. You know, if you have allergies. The Washington Post has a nice graphic that outlines the…

  • Motorcycle Helmet Laws

    Today’s piece does not involve any particularly crazy graphics or forms of data visualisation. Instead, the piece is a novel way of telling a story. People are increasingly familiar with what we might call here scrolling stories. Scroll down the page and suddenly you have glossy photos or high-definition videos. The New York Times, however,…

  • How to Write a Story

    Today’s post is hosted on Brain Pickings. It’s diagrams made by Kurt Vonnegut that describe how basic plot lines work along two axes. There is a short video you can watch that goes over a few of them. But my favourite is, of course, not there. You have to read a bit further along to…

  • Mobile Data Visualisation

    Today’s post is not news-related for a change. (Don’t worry, I’ll likely get back to that next week.) Instead, we have a new collection of mobile data visualisations curated by Sebastian Sadowski. You can choose to see either smartphone or tablet visualisations and then filter by visual form. Credit for the site goes to Sebastian…

  • Smart Banking Cards

    As I noted in my Friday post, I spent last week in Lithuania for work. That same Friday night, I had a conversation with a few coworkers over dinner and a beer about credit cards. They teased me that for all of America’s technological advances and advantages, even in Lithuania they were using more secure…

  • Ivory Poaching

    The South China Morning Post had a fantastic infographic detailing the hunting of elephants for their ivory. Despite bans to make such hunting illegal, the problem continues and is worsening because of the Asian trade in ivory. Credit for the piece goes to Adolfo Arranz.

  • Television Ownership

    Another from xkcd, this time on television ownership. If you are among those trending towards the embarrassed. Well, it’s Christmas season. So get ready to go buy one. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.