Fair Warning - All roads DO lead to Rome
Hi. If you haven't heard of the Strange Planet web comic WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? It is the *cutest* comic, and I very much enjoyed this short write-up/interview with the creator.
This weekend I drove to Sheffield and back, which I found out is the equivalent of driving from New York to Washington DC and back. It's a long way. While I was there I partied like it was 2009, won actual money gambling(!), and came to the crushing realisation that 24 hours is not enough time.
I've had about five personal projects on the go in my head for months but this week I actually completed one - I've wanted to do something similar to the sheep map of Wales for ages but I couldn't find any decent data... There are a few things I want to change about it so I'll make another version eventually and I'll probably write something about it, but consider this a Fair Warning exclusive:
On the home front
Falling through the gap: How the UK's gender pay gap sizes up — www.bbc.co.uk
It's the second year of companies having to report their gender pay gap to the government. I think my favourite thing about this is that it tells users not only to expect animation, but also gives them the option to turn it off.
New ONS analysis: Brits living alone spend 92% of their disposable income, compared with two-adult households who spend only 83%. I live alone and I love it but it is expensive. This premium feels like a worthwhile trade-off for being able to do whatever I like, and (while I am sociable and love people) not having to deal with other humans 24/7.
The race to become Britain’s next PM
Have we really learned nothing in the last two years?
Over the pond
Where in the U.S. Are You Most Likely to Be Audited by the IRS? — projects.propublica.org
This is absolutely maddening but brilliant data work. "The five counties with the highest audit rates are all predominantly African American, rural counties in the Deep South. The audit rate is also very high in South Texas’ largely Hispanic counties and in counties with Native American reservations, such as in South Dakota."
One Way To Spot A Partisan Gerrymander
I like this FiveThirtyEight explanation of what partisan bias looks like, and how you can calculate it. In an earlier edition of Fair Warning we saw that the electoral map in Pennsylvania was redrawn to get rid of what was a heavy Republican bias, and this is mentioned here too.
I've been really struggling to sleep properly lately, so obviously I wanted to find data on it. What I find really striking is the geographical patterns. What the dickens is going on in Georgia?
American academics have combined transcript data and genetic data for US high school students to trace their paths through the maths curriculum. Here's a twitter thread explaining it. Thanks to Grant for sending it to me.
Odds and ends...
Empathy through visualization — www.thefunctionalart.com
Alberto Cairo says he used to believe that visualisation can foster "rational compassion" but never empathy. He was so moved by a visualisation that won Best of Show at Malofiej that he has changed his mind. Here is the PDF of the visualisation by National Geographic.
Probably Overthinking It: Bayesian survival analysis for "Game of Thrones"
This is based on A Wiki of Ice and Fire, so the books and not the TV show, and it's a few years old. I found it from this collection of Game of Thrones related datasets. See also: Machine learning to predict likelihood of death in GoT. I'm not sure that this is how writing fiction works, but ok.
Roads to Rome — roadstorome.moovellab.com
Some people set out to figure out whether all roads really do lead to Rome. As you can see in the preview picture, this piece of work is *so* pretty and lush and I want it on my wall.
I don't think I put this in Fair Warning at the time because I didn't love it as much as I love everything else from The Pudding, but nonetheless this tries to quantify the 'biggest pop star'... I mean, I don't really care, but maybe one of you does.
Multiple Linear Regression in 4 Lines of Code!
I thought I would throw this in here because some of you might be interested in this. I definitely am, but it's in Python and I'm trying to mentally untangle my previous Python experience from learning R.
Bad chart of the week
Huge thanks to Martin Stabe for doing my job for me and pointing out that this pie chart is er, slightly problematic.
That's all this week. If you’re loving reading Fair Warning, forward it to other people who will also like it. Consider buying me a coffee, or supporting Fair Warning on Patreon if that’s more your jam. I tweet @SophieWarnes and accidentally went viral at the weekend; it was an unpleasant experience.