Posts tagged visualization

Made in New York City A map of NYC start-ups, incubators and investors. Also includes information about companies that are hiring if you’re in the market.

Made in New York City

A map of NYC start-ups, incubators and investors. Also includes information about companies that are hiring if you’re in the market.

A Finely Curated List of Data Tools A fantastic resource for getting started in — and advancing — your work with data from some of the best in the business. Via Datavisualization.ch: Datavisualization.ch Selected Tools is a collection of tools that we, the people behind Datavisualization.ch, work with on a daily basis and recommend warmly. This is not a list of everything out there, but instead a thoughtfully curated selection of our favourite tools that will make your life easier creating meaningful and beautiful data visualizations. As Benjamin Wiederkehr writes on their blog, “It includes libraries for plotting data on maps, frameworks for creating charts, graphs and diagrams and tools to simplify the handling of data. Even if you’re not into programming, you’ll find applications that can be used without writing one single line of code.” FJP Pro Tip: Jump in and start playing. If you’re just getting started, check out our short videos with Bitly data chief Hilary Mason for her advice on working with data.

A Finely Curated List of Data Tools

A fantastic resource for getting started in — and advancing — your work with data from some of the best in the business.

Via Datavisualization.ch:

Datavisualization.ch Selected Tools is a collection of tools that we, the people behind Datavisualization.ch, work with on a daily basis and recommend warmly. This is not a list of everything out there, but instead a thoughtfully curated selection of our favourite tools that will make your life easier creating meaningful and beautiful data visualizations.

As Benjamin Wiederkehr writes on their blog, “It includes libraries for plotting data on maps, frameworks for creating charts, graphs and diagrams and tools to simplify the handling of data. Even if you’re not into programming, you’ll find applications that can be used without writing one single line of code.”

FJP Pro Tip: Jump in and start playing. If you’re just getting started, check out our short videos with Bitly data chief Hilary Mason for her advice on working with data.

US Life Expectancy by County, 1989 and 2009

Via the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation:

IHME analyzed new mortality data by age, sex, and county for the US from 1989 to 2009. Across US counties, life expectancy in 2009 ranged from 66.1 to 81.6 years for men and 73.5 to 86.0 years for women. From 1989 to 2009, life expectancy for men improved by 4.6 years on average but only by 2.7 years for women. And throughout the country, women were more likely than men to have no progress in life expectancy or to have their lifespans get shorter over time.

In 661 counties, life expectancy stopped dead or went backwards for women since 1999. By comparison, life expectancy for men stopped or reversed in 166 counties. This troubling trend is occurring in 84% of Oklahoma counties, 58% of Tennessee counties, and 33% of Georgia counties.

The gap between women living the longest lives and those living the shortest lives is growing, too. In Collier, Florida, women live 85.8 years on average. In McDowell, West Virginia, they live to be 74.1. That’s an 11.7-year gap. In 1989, the gap was 8.7 years. For men, the gap is larger – 15.5 years – but it has grown by less than a year since 1989. Men live the longest in Marin, California, at 81.6 years. They live the shortest lives on average in Quitman and Tunica, Mississippi, at 66.1.

The range of life expectancies is so broad that in some counties, such as Stearns, Minnesota, lifespans rival some of the places where people live the longest – Japan, Hong Kong, and France – while in other counties, life expectancies are lower than places that spend far less on health care – Egypt, Indonesia, and Colombia. Even within states, there are large disparities. Women in Fairfax, Virginia, have among the best life expectancies in the world at 84.1 years, while in Sussex, Virginia, they have among the worst at 75.9 years.

At the same time, the life expectancy gap between black Americans and white Americans is closing. In 1989, black men could expect to live to be 63.8 on average, while white men had an average lifespan of 72.5, a difference of 8.7 years. In 2009, black male life expectancy improved by nearly a decade to 71.2 years, and white male life expectancy improved at a slower rate to 76.7 years, a 5.5-year gap. The gap between black women and white women is even narrower: 3.6 years. Black women on average in 2009 had a life expectancy of 77.9 years, compared to 81.5 years for white women.

Images: Screenshots, Life expectancy by county and sex (US), 1989-2009. Top, 1989. Bottom, 2009. Via IHME.

Visualizing Global Migration Flows via Infosthetics: Global Migration Patterns [mpg.de] by the German Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity contains a set of interactive instruments that visualize the latest global migration data. The International Migration Flows shows the different flows to - and from - selected OECD-countries between the years 1970-2007. It illustrates the concept of “Superdiversity”, or how during the last 2 decades more people than ever have moved between different locations worldwide. The outer circle shows the number of emigrants, with each bar represents a country of origin and each color conveying a unique continent. The inner circle shows the number of immigrants. One can “zoom” into the data by choosing a specific threshold, which truncates the bars to a maximum value. The Global Migration By Originvisualization conveys the societal diversity in about 225 countries according to their historical census results. For each country in the list, a population is grouped by origin or citizenship. Again, an emergent pattern of increasing diversity of societies can be observed. A specific country can be selected in a world map, which also reveals a bar charts that conveys the different countries of origin, with each color representing a continent. Global Migration By Destination uses the same concept, but from an inverse perspective. It thus shows where people tend to leaving their country of birth to move to somewhere else. Image: Visualized societal diversity in 225 countries using census data from 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000. FJP: Play with the interactive. It’s really quite cool. They even have a video tutorial to help you.

Visualizing Global Migration Flows

via Infosthetics:

Global Migration Patterns [mpg.de] by the German Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity contains a set of interactive instruments that visualize the latest global migration data.

The International Migration Flows shows the different flows to - and from - selected OECD-countries between the years 1970-2007. It illustrates the concept of “Superdiversity”, or how during the last 2 decades more people than ever have moved between different locations worldwide.

The outer circle shows the number of emigrants, with each bar represents a country of origin and each color conveying a unique continent. The inner circle shows the number of immigrants. One can “zoom” into the data by choosing a specific threshold, which truncates the bars to a maximum value.

The Global Migration By Originvisualization conveys the societal diversity in about 225 countries according to their historical census results. For each country in the list, a population is grouped by origin or citizenship. Again, an emergent pattern of increasing diversity of societies can be observed. A specific country can be selected in a world map, which also reveals a bar charts that conveys the different countries of origin, with each color representing a continent.

Global Migration By Destination uses the same concept, but from an inverse perspective. It thus shows where people tend to leaving their country of birth to move to somewhere else.

Image: Visualized societal diversity in 225 countries using census data from 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000.

FJP: Play with the interactive. It’s really quite cool. They even have a video tutorial to help you.

Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies The Internet: where arguments know no bounds. As technology writer Mike Elgan writes: Most people who argue and debate online… commit standard, well-understood logical fallacies. The problem with this is that debates never go anywhere, and they take forever to get there. By calling people on their logical fallacies, you can shorten arguments, and everyone can learn from debate. So enter Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies, a site that teaches us about flaws in reasoning. In particular, the logical fallacy: A logical fallacy is usually what has happened when someone is wrong about something. It’s a flaw in reasoning. They’re like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people. In an argument? Simply hit the site and mouse over an icon to see what logical fallacy you’re butting up against. They range from the Slippery Slope to the Texas Sharp Shooter. Pro Tip: Works for offline arguments as well. Just download the free poster from the site. Image: Screenshot of a Slippery Slope. Via Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies

Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies

The Internet: where arguments know no bounds.

As technology writer Mike Elgan writes:

Most people who argue and debate online… commit standard, well-understood logical fallacies.

The problem with this is that debates never go anywhere, and they take forever to get there.

By calling people on their logical fallacies, you can shorten arguments, and everyone can learn from debate.

So enter Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies, a site that teaches us about flaws in reasoning. In particular, the logical fallacy:

A logical fallacy is usually what has happened when someone is wrong about something. It’s a flaw in reasoning. They’re like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people.

In an argument? Simply hit the site and mouse over an icon to see what logical fallacy you’re butting up against. They range from the Slippery Slope to the Texas Sharp Shooter.

Pro Tip: Works for offline arguments as well. Just download the free poster from the site.

Image: Screenshot of a Slippery Slope. Via Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies

Perpetual Ocean

via NASA:

This visualization shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through December 2007. The visualization does not include a narration or annotations; the goal was to use ocean flow data to create a simple, visceral experience.

This visualization was produced using model output from the joint MIT/JPL project: Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II orECCO2. ECCO2 uses the MIT general circulation model (MITgcm) to synthesize satellite and in-situ data of the global ocean and sea-ice at resolutions that begin to resolve ocean eddies and other narrow current systems, which transport heat and carbon in the oceans. ECCO2 provides ocean flows at all depths, but only surface flows are used in this visualization. The dark patterns under the ocean represent the undersea bathymetry. Topographic land exaggeration is 20x and bathymetric exaggeration is 40x.

This visualization was submitted to the SIGGRAPH 2011 Computer Animation Festival, but it wasn’t selected by the jury.

H/T: OWNI.eu

iPads and a paperless world from the past Reminiscing over Encyclopedia Britannica’s just retired print edition, Bob Stein of if:book has posted a few drawings he and then-Atari Chief Scientist Alan Kay made 30 years ago, imagining a future similar to today, with people using what they called the Intelligent Encyclopedia. The most interesting thing for me today about these images is that although we foresaw that people would be accessing information wirelessly (notice the little antenna on the device in the “tide pool” image, we completely missed the most important aspect of the network — that it was going to connect people to other people.

iPads and a paperless world from the past

Reminiscing over Encyclopedia Britannica’s just retired print edition, Bob Stein of if:book has posted a few drawings he and then-Atari Chief Scientist Alan Kay made 30 years ago, imagining a future similar to today, with people using what they called the Intelligent Encyclopedia.

The most interesting thing for me today about these images is that although we foresaw that people would be accessing information wirelessly (notice the little antenna on the device in the “tide pool” image, we completely missed the most important aspect of the network — that it was going to connect people to other people.

The Center for Investigative Reporting makes color book journalism for kids There’s been a lot of talk lately about making journalism for different groups of people. Or at least that’s what I overhear. And that’s just what California Watch, a project of CIR, is doing: It all started with an off-the-wall idea in an editorial meeting. While California Watch articles are written for adults, we recognize that oftentimes children are those most affected by the stories we report. That’s exactly the case when it comes to our series on seismic safety oversight in the state’s K–12 schools. Thousands of children attend class each day in buildings or schools that have not received final safety certifications from the state’s chief building regulator. Some schools are located close to fault lines or within liquefaction zones. The article talks a lot about the need for peripheral-reporting, or aiming stories at groups who aren’t, for whatever reason, reading or listening: One Chinese school director called the books “urgently needed”; a Vietnamese reader said this would be the first time her mother had access to preparedness materials in a language she could understand. The coloring book is the furthest along of a few ideas that CIR is working on. Another, due to launch this summer, is a YouTube channel that will curate investigative reporting video from the professional journalism world and, very importantly, the unnoticed-but-deserving clan of people who do it but aren’t “professional” yet.

The Center for Investigative Reporting makes color book journalism for kids

There’s been a lot of talk lately about making journalism for different groups of people. Or at least that’s what I overhear. And that’s just what California Watch, a project of CIR, is doing:

It all started with an off-the-wall idea in an editorial meeting. While California Watch articles are written for adults, we recognize that oftentimes children are those most affected by the stories we report.

That’s exactly the case when it comes to our series on seismic safety oversight in the state’s K–12 schools. Thousands of children attend class each day in buildings or schools that have not received final safety certifications from the state’s chief building regulator. Some schools are located close to fault lines or within liquefaction zones.

The article talks a lot about the need for peripheral-reporting, or aiming stories at groups who aren’t, for whatever reason, reading or listening:

One Chinese school director called the books “urgently needed”; a Vietnamese reader said this would be the first time her mother had access to preparedness materials in a language she could understand.

The coloring book is the furthest along of a few ideas that CIR is working on. Another, due to launch this summer, is a YouTube channel that will curate investigative reporting video from the professional journalism world and, very importantly, the unnoticed-but-deserving clan of people who do it but aren’t “professional” yet.

What Happens in an Internet Minute Via Intel: In just one minute, more than 204 million emails are sent. Amazon rings up about $83,000 in sales. Around 20 million photos are viewed and 3,000 uploaded on Flickr. At least 6 million Facebook pages are viewed around the world. And more than 61,000 hours of music are played on Pandora while more than 1.3 million video clips are watched on YouTube. All in all, that’s 625 terabytes of information sloshing about the tubes each minute. If we do some math that’s 878.9 petabytes per day which is a bit difficult to wrap our mind around. But if we convert that to the universal measurement of the MP3, we get the equivalent of about 235.9 billion songs passing through the internet and mobile networks each day.

What Happens in an Internet Minute

Via Intel:

In just one minute, more than 204 million emails are sent. Amazon rings up about $83,000 in sales. Around 20 million photos are viewed and 3,000 uploaded on Flickr. At least 6 million Facebook pages are viewed around the world. And more than 61,000 hours of music are played on Pandora while more than 1.3 million video clips are watched on YouTube.

All in all, that’s 625 terabytes of information sloshing about the tubes each minute.

If we do some math that’s 878.9 petabytes per day which is a bit difficult to wrap our mind around.

But if we convert that to the universal measurement of the MP3, we get the equivalent of about 235.9 billion songs passing through the internet and mobile networks each day.

Fans of the husband and wife designer team Charles and Ray Eames who were or were not around to see their original 50 foot long, 1961 infographic chronicling the history of mathematics can now download an app version of the huge idea. Very mathy!

What Americans buy, by NPR NPR’s Planet Money blog published this graph today showing the biggest expenditures for Americans, and also some interesting, though sort of unnecessary, things they like to buy.

What Americans buy, by NPR

NPR’s Planet Money blog published this graph today showing the biggest expenditures for Americans, and also some interesting, though sort of unnecessary, things they like to buy.

A better map of New York Street photographer Brandon Stanton originally thought to create his own photographic map of New York City by walking it, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, taking spontaneous portrait shots wherever he could. He has since photographed thousands of people in all five boroughs, and has written some of his subjects’ stories in what is his own photographic census of the city. Here are some of our favorites with Stanton’s explanations of the neighborhood in which he found himself that day: “Oh, the Heights. Perhaps the most photographically rich neighborhood in Manhattan, not only because of its sweet hills, but because it’s the kind of place where everybody hangs out on the street.” “Hell’s kitchen is a rapidly changing neighborhood. It used to be a poor neighborhood full of immigrants – West Side Story was supposedly set there.” “SoHo is arguably the trendiest neighborhood in the world. It’s the place to go if you want to feel like your clothes suck. The street vendors sell fine art. The women are beautiful, expensively clothed, and walk with their chins in the air.” “People always seem to be in a hurry in the Financial District, so I always try to emphasize that ‘this will only take a second.’ There are tall buildings, dark shadows, and narrow streets. There are men and women, wearing suits, walking fast, drinking coffee, and talking on phones. If you want a break, you can sit by the waterfront, watch the helicopters flying into the city, and marvel at the different types of lives being lived in this city.”

A better map of New York

Street photographer Brandon Stanton originally thought to create his own photographic map of New York City by walking it, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, taking spontaneous portrait shots wherever he could. He has since photographed thousands of people in all five boroughs, and has written some of his subjects’ stories in what is his own photographic census of the city. Here are some of our favorites with Stanton’s explanations of the neighborhood in which he found himself that day:

“Oh, the Heights. Perhaps the most photographically rich neighborhood in Manhattan, not only because of its sweet hills, but because it’s the kind of place where everybody hangs out on the street.”

“Hell’s kitchen is a rapidly changing neighborhood. It used to be a poor neighborhood full of immigrants – West Side Story was supposedly set there.”

“SoHo is arguably the trendiest neighborhood in the world. It’s the place to go if you want to feel like your clothes suck. The street vendors sell fine art. The women are beautiful, expensively clothed, and walk with their chins in the air.”

“People always seem to be in a hurry in the Financial District, so I always try to emphasize that ‘this will only take a second.’ There are tall buildings, dark shadows, and narrow streets. There are men and women, wearing suits, walking fast, drinking coffee, and talking on phones. If you want a break, you can sit by the waterfront, watch the helicopters flying into the city, and marvel at the different types of lives being lived in this city.”

Figuring out the future from (not Tarot) cards via a pretty interesting paper by Nicholas Diakopoulos: Data are numerical entities or veridical facts. Information is about adding relationships between these elements of data, or creating groupings and categorizations of data. Knowledge emerges when humans interpret, analyze, and judge information as a mechanism for driving decision making. In his most recent writing, Dr. Diakopoulos does a lot of terminological house keeping — determining the difference between the mathematics of computing and the interactive, humanistic side of it, and so on. He also decides what a journalist’s 10 goals are. Here’s three that look really simple before he tosses in 7 lesser, or complementary, ones: (1) striving for truth, (2) acting in the public interest, and (3) generally providing information about contemporary affairs of public interest. These can in-turn be conceived of as being reinforced by other values, goals, or activities. The final result of all this categorizing is four giant categories — Computing, Consumer needs, Journalistic goals, and Information processes — and the 55 terms that make them up. Combining terms from different categories will, Diakopoulos hopes, create a systematic way to come up with innovative ideas. And to do that, Diakopoulos employs a card game. Each term gets its own card, and each card is color-coded depending on its category. Here’s how to play: place the Computing cards in one pile, and all cards from the other three categories in a separate pile. Play with three people. One person takes a card from Computing and the others each take a card from the Consumer-Journalists-Information pile, and, taking what they’ve picked, brainstorm: Combining   the   concepts   shown   on   the drawn  cards,  the  group  is  instructed  to  “generate  as  many  different  ideas  as  possible  in  five   minutes”.  Brainstorming can  happen  in  many  different  ways,  though  we  stress  quantity  of  ideas   since   research   has   shown   that   stressing   quantity   over   quality   tends   to   ultimately   yield   more   high-quality   ideas. How did it go? Well, Dr. Diakopoulos goes into detail about how he tried the game with different people, and how the groups compared. They were actually quite similar, and came up with some somewhat interesting ideas — like recreating dangerous intersections online, or examining audience reactions to real-time, unorganized events. FJP: It sounds pretty Dada. Buy the construction paper, write the terms out in permanent marker and go find the scissors, or order readymade cards here. Or you can go take a long walk and think of your next big idea in the shower. We’re dealing with mysterious stuff here. Your call. H/T: Nieman Lab

Figuring out the future from (not Tarot) cards

via a pretty interesting paper by Nicholas Diakopoulos:

Data are numerical entities or veridical facts. Information is about adding relationships between these elements of data, or creating groupings and categorizations of data. Knowledge emerges when humans interpret, analyze, and judge information as a mechanism for driving decision making.

In his most recent writing, Dr. Diakopoulos does a lot of terminological house keeping — determining the difference between the mathematics of computing and the interactive, humanistic side of it, and so on. He also decides what a journalist’s 10 goals are. Here’s three that look really simple before he tosses in 7 lesser, or complementary, ones:

(1) striving for truth, (2) acting in the public interest, and (3) generally providing information about contemporary affairs of public interest. These can in-turn be conceived of as being reinforced by other values, goals, or activities.

The final result of all this categorizing is four giant categories — Computing, Consumer needs, Journalistic goals, and Information processes — and the 55 terms that make them up. Combining terms from different categories will, Diakopoulos hopes, create a systematic way to come up with innovative ideas. And to do that, Diakopoulos employs a card game. Each term gets its own card, and each card is color-coded depending on its category.

Here’s how to play: place the Computing cards in one pile, and all cards from the other three categories in a separate pile. Play with three people. One person takes a card from Computing and the others each take a card from the Consumer-Journalists-Information pile, and, taking what they’ve picked, brainstorm:

Combining   the   concepts   shown   on   the drawn  cards,  the  group  is  instructed  to  “generate  as  many  different  ideas  as  possible  in  five   minutes”.  Brainstorming can  happen  in  many  different  ways,  though  we  stress  quantity  of  ideas   since   research   has   shown   that   stressing   quantity   over   quality   tends   to   ultimately   yield   more   high-quality   ideas.

How did it go? Well, Dr. Diakopoulos goes into detail about how he tried the game with different people, and how the groups compared. They were actually quite similar, and came up with some somewhat interesting ideas — like recreating dangerous intersections online, or examining audience reactions to real-time, unorganized events.

FJP: It sounds pretty Dada. Buy the construction paper, write the terms out in permanent marker and go find the scissors, or order readymade cards here. Or you can go take a long walk and think of your next big idea in the shower. We’re dealing with mysterious stuff here. Your call.

H/T: Nieman Lab

Mapping Wikipedia Via Tracemedia: Mapping Wikipedia is a groundbreaking visualisation of the world mapped according to articles in 7 different languages. The map displays both the global patterns and the vast number of geo-located items. The dataset was produced by the Oxford Internet Institute as part of a project that examines Wikipedia in the Middle East and North Africa… …The project was developed using the excellent Open Layers. To display the large number of articles we wrote a subclass of the Open Layers Canvas renderer, and optimised for point plotting. As a fallback for browsers that don’t support canvas we included the FlashCanvas shim.  The Google basemap was produced using the Styled Map Wizard To glue everything together we used jQuery. Image: English, by Wordcount in Europe. Via Tracemedia. H/T: Flowing Data

Mapping Wikipedia

Via Tracemedia:

Mapping Wikipedia is a groundbreaking visualisation of the world mapped according to articles in 7 different languages. The map displays both the global patterns and the vast number of geo-located items. The dataset was produced by the Oxford Internet Institute as part of a project that examines Wikipedia in the Middle East and North Africa…

…The project was developed using the excellent Open Layers. To display the large number of articles we wrote a subclass of the Open Layers Canvas renderer, and optimised for point plotting. As a fallback for browsers that don’t support canvas we included the FlashCanvas shim. 

The Google basemap was produced using the Styled Map Wizard

To glue everything together we used jQuery.

Image: English, by Wordcount in Europe. Via Tracemedia.

H/T: Flowing Data