Mystery graph
I’m working on a longish post for later today (or early tomorrow) about this graph:
More soon.
Update: The long post is done…the above graph is (roughly) the growth of Blogger (in orange) to the growth of Twitter (in blue).
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kottke.org posts about infoviz
Logical, linguistical, and infographical analysis of the #1
Logical, linguistical, and infographical analysis of the #1 single on the Billboard chart, This Is Why I’m Hot by Mims. “Mims is hot because he’s fly. But it raises the question: Does being hot guarantee one’s being fly? […] It would appear that fly and hot are interchangable. If you are one, you are both; if you aren’t at least one, you are neither.” (via khoi)
Rollercoaster version of the graph of US
Rollercoaster version of the graph of US home prices adjusted for inflation…you basically ride the curve of the graph. Brilliant…I want to ride all the graphs I come across! (via is it real or is it magnetbox)
Craig Robinson of Flip Flop Flyin’ presents
Craig Robinson of Flip Flop Flyin’ presents his life so far as a series of pie charts.
Profile of Edward Tufte. “Running his own
Profile of Edward Tufte. “Running his own enterprise, Tufte says, allows him to work ‘elegantly, intensely, gracefully and incredibly efficiently.’”
Universe is another pretty but useless data
Universe is another pretty but useless data visualization of the news. See also: just about every other data visualization of the news.
Neat music video by a band called
Neat music video by a band called The Longcut that uses infographics to tell the story of a boy and girl falling for each other.
Clever demographic data visualizations using faces ripped
Clever demographic data visualizations using faces ripped out of the SkyMall catalog.
Dumb interface, but here are some neat
Dumb interface, but here are some neat maps of global fish catch locations, mostly tuna. For example, on these maps you can see the dramatic increase of purse seine fishing from 1964-1998. (thx, spencer)
A 3-D world map that depicts economic activity. (via mr)
A 3-D world map that depicts economic activity. (via mr)
Social network map of the New Testament.
Social network map of the New Testament. Jesus Christ, supernode. (via waxy)
Diagram that charts instances of the “x
Diagram that charts instances of the “x is the new y” snowclone from 2005. See also: a list I compiled last last year.
Genealogy of Influence: “a graph of biographical
Genealogy of Influence: “a graph of biographical entries at Wikipedia with connections denoting creative influence between philosophers, social scientists, writers, artists, scientists, mathematicians”. Reminds me peripherally of Simon Patterson’s The Great Bear (a print of which is hanging behind me right now).
Netlag: infovisualization of the world made of
Netlag: infovisualization of the world made of exterior web cams over time. So as the day goes on, you can see Europe light up, then the eastern seaboard of the US, then the western US, and so on.
Images of the dashed line in use (
Images of the dashed line in use (as hidden geometry, movement, paths, ephemeral material, etc.). “I’ve had trouble justifying my excitement about this intricate visual detail, so I thought it would be good to collect a bunch of examples from over fifty years of information design history, to show it as a powerful visual element in ubicomp situations.” (via migurski)
Five years since 9/11
Chart by Ben Schott (of Schott’s Original Miscellany) detailing the 5 years since 9/11.
How to do a click heatmap on
How to do a click heatmap on your site with JavaScript and Ruby. Includes source code. Very slick.
Slides for Michal Migurski’s talk on data
Slides for Michal Migurski’s talk on data visualization at UX Week 2006.
Want to draw you some diagrams, charts,
Want to draw you some diagrams, charts, or flowcharts? Try these nifty tools.
Script for producing sparklines (a la Edward Tufte) in Photoshop.
Script for producing sparklines (a la Edward Tufte) in Photoshop.
Independent infographic
The Independent has a great infographic on its cover today depicting which countries support the immediate ceasefire in the Middle East demanded by the UN and which do not:
That message would take up less space as words, but somehow the impact wouldn’t be quite the same. (thx, g)
Beautiful Evidence
Beautiful Evidence is both the title of Edward Tufte’s latest book and an accurate description of the document itself. Like few other mass market publications, BE is lovingly hand-crafted, a physical manifestation of the ideas expressed in its pages; the text and images therein could be about another subject entirely and you might still get the point: “Words, Numbers, Images - Together” (the title of the book’s fourth chapter).
Case in point. Pages 123 and 124 fold out into a spread depicting Charles Joseph Minard’s famous infographic of the disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia by France. But unlike most magazine and book fold-outs, the page that folds out is cut 1/2 inch narrower than the underlying page so that a) a bit of the page underneath peeks out, providing a visual cue for unfoldability, and b) there’s no difficulty when you go to refold the page with getting it caught in the book’s crease or otherwise undesirably bending/creasing it. The fold-out design is a small thing that the casual reader might not even notice, but it demonstrates the care that went into the production of the book (and perhaps the reason why Tufte took so long in writing/designing it).
The gang at 37signals noticed similar craftsmanship in the writing and presentation:
“What struck me is how you almost never have to hold something in your head while turning the page…he usually finishes his thought within the two pages you can see…and when you flip, it’s something new…that’s an excellent self-imposed constraint…’whatever i need to say, i’ll do it here.’” Jason replied, “Yes, I love that. I noticed that more on this book than others. The image and text is in one spread so when you turn you are turning your attention to a new idea. If you have too much to say than the space allowed then you are probably saying too much…it definitely makes it easier to design the book too…you can design each spread as if it was a standalone poster.”
What I’ve also noticed about Beautiful Evidence is the lack of reviews in mainstream publications; I can’t find a single newspaper or magazine that has published a review. Compare that to the releases of Gladwell’s Blink, Remnick’s Reporting, and Anderson’s The Long Tail, for which reviews started appearing almost everywhere before the books were even available. Those books were written for mass audiences and backed by large publishing companies with ample PR resources and plenty of review copies to go around. In contrast, Beautiful Evidence is self-published by Tufte, which means it’s beautiful, personal, and done just right, but also invisible to the mainstream press. Not that Beautiful Evidence is being ignored — the blogosphere is talking about it and the Amazon Sales Rank is currently about 600 (which doesn’t count online sales directly from edwardtufte.com) — but it deserves the consideration of the mainstream press.
This tshirt with infographics on it is
This tshirt with infographics on it is too nerdy even for me. That and I’ve been getting a ton of crap from everyone I know about how many Threadless tshirts I own.
FAS.research has produced a visualization of
FAS.research has produced a visualization of the 2006 World Cup final showing “the passes from every player to those three team-mates he passes to most frequently”. The graphic also shows the “flowbetweenness” of a player.
The proof is in the underpants: global
The proof is in the underpants: global warming is real. (via eyeteeth)
Interesting tour/visualization imagining 10 dimensions. (thx, james)
Interesting tour/visualization imagining 10 dimensions. (thx, james)
Classic Royksopp music video featuring dozens of wonderful infographics.
Classic Royksopp music video featuring dozens of wonderful infographics.
Social, political, economic, cultural, historical, and technological
Social, political, economic, cultural, historical, and technological timelines of the world from 1750 to 2100. Having all the timelines in one view is nice, but the zoomable interface is clunky.
Google Trend graph for “the” and “and”.
Google Trend graph for “the” and “and”. I would have expected them to be flatter.
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