- Chart Porn

Congressional Conversation Index

16 Jul 2010

The Congressional Conversation Index tracks what topics people are contacting their Representatives about, produced by a joint effort between Fireside21 and the Adfero Group. (thanks to Brad Johnson for the link)

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50 Ways to Visualize the Oil Spill

In: Environment/weather Science

15 Jul 2010

I’ve posted some of these before, but Inspired Mag has come up with a pretty definitive list.

(1) Comment

Data Visualization Timeline

In: Graphic Design (general) History

15 Jul 2010

An interactive timeline of innovations and milestones, from the 1600s-today. Note: click on any item for more details.

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A Brief History of Visualization

In: Graphic Design (general)

15 Jul 2010

This is the first part of a course from the School of Visual Arts. Its a very good introductory read. (via)

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The War on Drugs

In: Culture Politics

15 Jul 2010

A little history.

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Quality of Death

In: Culture

15 Jul 2010

CUSTOMER-satisfaction surveys are, alas, unsuitable for rating the quality of death. So the Economist Intelligence Unit […] has devised a ranking of end-of-life care.

Vacuous Supreme Court Nomination Hearings

In: Culture Politics

15 Jul 2010

Civil rights questions in hearings since 1939.

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Global Tidal Wave of Debt

In: Finance Global Economy Source: Washington Post

14 Jul 2010

Creationism vs Darwinism in Education

In: Culture Maps Science

14 Jul 2010

Scary. (via)

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Online Dating Lies

In: Culture

13 Jul 2010

Another fascinating data analysis from Okcupid’s online dating blog “Oktrends“. Christian Rudder compares users self-identified characteristics to population norms for height and income, looks at photo EXIF information to see how many people are posting dated pictures of themselves, and examines how many bisexuals actually contact both sexes.

These bold colors (below) contain a subtle message: if you’re a young guy and don’t make much money, cool. If you’re 23 or older and don’t make much money, go die in a fire. It’s not hard to see where the incentive to exaggerate comes from.

The upshot here is, if you see a good-looking picture of a man over 30, that photo is very likely to be out-of-date.

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Map: Amtrak Routes in Subway Style

In: Maps

13 Jul 2010

For comparison, the official Amtrak national map is the second one below. It’s interesting to see how much additional clarity comes from breaking state geography just a little. Designer’s blog post.

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8-bit Washington DC

In: Graphic Design (general) Maps

13 Jul 2010

These maps are very odd. At first, I thought, why bother? Is there really a need for low-res maps based on 1980s video game graphic style? Then I typed in my address and realized how much was really going on. It’s still pretty silly, but it’s an impressive silly – and not everything has to be utilitarian. Available for 10 different cities.

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Update: Moody’s Global Recovery Map

In: Global Economy Maps

12 Jul 2010

I gave this map a bit of grief when I first posted about it, so it’s only fair that I point out that they now appear to be keeping it up to date, and annotating the analysis better.