Tag: visualization

Infrastructure and Flow

Maps of infrastructure visualize what it’s possible for people to do. Maps of flow show what they actually do. The 2 may diverge sharply. The distinction between maps of infrastructure and maps of flow matters to me because I think it can help explain certain misconceptions and misunderstandings about our connected world. My contention is that we tend to assume more connections than actually exist. We see a map of infrastructure that shows it’s possible to fly from Antananarivo to Albania and assume, on an unconscious level, that the connection is routine, frequent, common.

2015-08-27: Interactive globe with trade as little dots of light.

Circos

Circos is flexible. Although originally designed for visualizing genomic data, it can create figures from data in any field—from genomics to visualizing migration to mathematical art. If you have data that describes relationships or multi-layered annotations of one or more scales, Circos is for you.

Deficit Heatmap

unsurprisingly the same states where the real estate cancer was metastasizing especially rapidly

Scientific Google Earth

those guys have far too much fun

Belle Mellor

the artist behind the awesome economist illustrations

OSM History

nicely done. osm seems to be making good progress

Google Chrome Comic

an awesome way to explain subtle issues. well done whoever came up with this idea.

Disagreement Hierarchy

For the reasoning behind this, read How to Disagree.

All streets

No other features (such as outlines or geographic features) have been added to this image, however they emerge as roads avoid mountains, and sparse areas convey low population. The pace of progress is seen in the midwest where suburban areas are punctuated by square blocks of area that are still farm land.

Cognitive Surplus

people waste 200b hours with tv per year. 1 wikipedia = 100m hours. shirky claims that this surplus will flow into more useful directions in the future.