Fair Warning - Counting squirrels, surveilled cities, and toxic tweets
Hello! This week I was invited to speak at Data Science Portugal Day 2019 in Porto about what data scientists can learn from data journalists. It went down well - here's photo proof that I talked for 20 minutes - and I met some really interesting and lovely people! I also had a great time exploring Porto, too.
I'm slowly fulfilling my personal goal of doing more public speaking, so if you want to invite me to talk about anything, please do - just reply to this email.
Some non-data things I've come across this week that I loved:
What became of the Gladiators? (Non-Brits may be confused by this - Gladiators was a popular Saturday night show in the 90s which involved athletes battling people like Susan from HR, and was my favourite show as a kid)
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On the home front
Understanding Brexit: The challenges with customs at the Northern Ireland border — graphics.reuters.com
Lovely illustrated look at exactly why the question of a border with Northern Ireland is hella complicated.
While the number of cases reported to the police in England and Wales has risen, the number of charges given to people involved in these cases is falling. I like the fact that you can select your own area and see the outcomes visualised.
‘Toxic’ tweets aimed at MPs soar after Johnson outburst — www.ft.com
Analysis of 'toxic' tweets aimed at politicians from the FT. People who describe themselves as pro-Brexit tweeted more 'toxic' messages to MPs.
Guardian climate score: how did your MP do?
The Guardian has made an interactive tool to allow users to explore MPs’ records on 16 climate votes.
Over the pond
What’s next in the Trump impeachment inquiry, and will Trump cooperate with it? — www.washingtonpost.com
This is an interactive calendar of the impeachment inquiry so far, featuring scheduled discussions and situations where witnesses have refused to co-operate. If you're watching this, you might want to bookmark...
How Americans Spend Their Money, in One Chart
Alluvial diagram showing where the average Americans' money goes. Most of it is spent on housing, taxes, and then 'other goods and services'.
There is a Squirrel Census in Central Park in New York, and I am here for it. You can buy it in book form and get a "five-foot-long map of Central Park that is one of the most comprehensive surveys of the green space ever created".
Elsewhere
The Bundestag speaks about this — www.zeit.de
Cool analysis of all speeches in parliament in Germany. Super interesting how some phrases and ideas come and go, and others just get more popular - Europe for instance is mentioned far more frequently now than before. Bans - very popular in the 80s, and increasingly so now.
How terrorist attacks influence our travel behaviour — www.nzz.ch
Data analysis and visualisations from NZZ about how terror attacks can affect tourism in those countries, using examples from the 90s to now.
Powerful story of the tragedy of migrants trying to make dangerous crossings to get a better life for their families. What is so powerful about this is that it starts with the story of one person, and beautiful illustrations, and then deep-dives into the data associated with migrant deaths.
Big brother is watching you: the world’s top 100 most surveilled cities — multimedia.scmp.com
Mainland China is home to eight of the world’s 10 most heavily monitored cities. London is the 6th most surveilled city, with 15 CCTV cameras per person.
Odds and ends
Migrating Russian eagles run up huge data roaming charges — www.bbc.co.uk
Includes amazing map of eagles flying from Russia to Pakistan and Iran. Moral of the story? Don't attach SMS transmitters to massive birds that migrate very far away.
Do you feel sad when you hear "Love for both"? Not the only one
This is a piece by Rui Barros, who I met in Porto this week, about Eurovision and how well Portugal has done over the last 20 years. Amusingly, the song that won Portugal first place in 2017 was, according to Spotify, one of the saddest songs in the competition.
We Analyzed 8,000 of Picasso's Works. Here’s What They Reveal About Him — www.nationalgeographic.com
National Geographic analysed Picasso's work and not only made a cool abstract picture out of it that he probably would have approved of, but also painted it. Data visualisation in a painting!
Wedding Data Viz: How We Designed For Feelings
I love this! "For our wedding, we created a network graph of the connections between all of our guests and designed individualized data-driven badges".
The Firebird Suite : Infernal Dance — public.tableau.com
Absolutely *amazing* Tableau-based visualisation of Infernal Dance from The Firebird by Stravinsky. I loved watching the YouTube video where you can hear the song as the different elements of the orchestra play. So. Freaking. Cool.
Disinformation, ‘fake news’ and influence Campaigns on Twitter
The Knight Foundation commissioned a study on fake news and how influence campaigns spread on Twitter. Some really cool graphics in here explain how you can spot bots on Twitter, and how they behave.
Ok, that's everything for this week! Hopefully you liked the slightly different blend of stories - I'm always trying to broaden the sources I use and not just look at the most popular sites - and if there's anything great that I've missed, please let me know!
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