Cartography and mass transit

Cartography is usually off my radar, but there is some really fantastic stuff on this website that will intrigue the data lover: http://www.radicalcartography.net/

Periodic table of visualization

I never thought that the periodic table of elements could be used to illustrate the ways in which one can present data, but here it is.  Lengler and Eppler’s article “Towards a periodic table of visualization methods for managment” is a fascinating attempt at making sense of myriad data visualization methods:

http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.pdf

Check out the interactive table here:

http://www.visual-literacy.org/pages/documents.htm

The latest and greatest in data visualization

The following websites have links to incredible visual displays of data, including the featured picture above, which is a translation of bloggers’ feelings into a visual state of emotion on the web.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/02/data-visualization-modern-approaches/

http://www.kamvar.org/

 

 

Gapminder.org: data-gasm

http://www.gapminder.org/

This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen!  For example: an interactive graph that traces relationships between variables longitudinally, such as countries’ fertility rates and educational attainment, or economic development and infant mortality, which you can play like a video.   In particular, I highly recommend watching Hans Rosling’s TED presentation, “The Seemingly Impossible is Possible.”  This software is just incredible, and makes statistics (and, most important, the implications!) so clear and meaningful.

Amazing quote

“Without data, you are just another person with an opinion.”

Health stats

 This graphic is a great example of thinking creatively when presenting numbers.  While this could have been presented in dry numeric form, this picture provides the viewer with a truly visceral reaction to the statistic.  One of the extra red figures on the right-hand side could be your grandmother!

Paying homage to the classics

In a wonderful article on the three most profound, elegant, and informative charts of all time, The Economist pays tribute to the graphical genius of nurse Florence Nightengale, civil engineer Charles Joseph Minard, and engineer William Playfair.  Check it out at: http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10278643 

Welcome to the Data Nut Blog!

Through this blog, I would like to catalogue and share all of the interesting tidbits of data – and clever presentation of this data – that I come across.