Fair Warning - Elderly drivers, football managers, and the river Ganges
Hello! It is actually Sunday today!
I neglected to mention last week that as well as going to NICAR I am also spending some time in New York at the beginning of March before the conference in LA. I love New York, and the Met is one of my favourite museums in the world, so I will of course be spending an afternoon there at least. I have a few friends to meet but am open to recommendations of how to spend my time (three days? Four days? I should check my flights..) or offers of lunch/dinner/chats.
On the home front
Older drivers: Is age a factor behind the wheel? — www.bbc.co.uk
Quite wonderful that the BBC's response to the Duke of Edinburgh (you know, the impatient man who married the Queen and hates his life because he isn't the centre of attention - that guy) crashing his car is to flat-out ask if elderly drivers are a safety risk. [The answer is no, but it made me chuckle.]
Are UK house prices heading for a post-Brexit meltdown?
You'll need to be able to see around the paywall for this - the FT looked at previous economic crises to try to understand what might happen to house prices post-Brexit. It's an interesting one that reassures me; I bought a flat last year and I wasn't sure whether to fix my mortgage for 2 years or 5 years. I think I did the right thing...
The Economic Damage of Brexit, in Charts
I don't want to comment too much on this but the lede says: "Slowly and surely, the uncertainty over Brexit is taking a toll."
Over the pond
U.S.-Mexico border: An interactive look at the barriers that divide these two countries — www.washingtonpost.com
What WaPo does really well is these huge, detailed flyovers and beautifully conceived maps, and I am here for it.
'I'm Falling Apart': Shutdown Squeeze Tightens For Low-Wage Workers
If you wanted to know what impact the government shutdown has had on federal workers, you need look no further. This piece combines data analysis with real, human stories to pack a powerful punch.
Federal Minimum Wage in the US
I quite enjoy reading about people taking visualisations and then thinking about how to improve them - it's interesting to see how different people conceive of visualising information. I liked that this illustrates quite neatly the impact of the recession on workers in the US.
Elsewhere
It’s Not Easy to Map the 100 Largest Islands in the World — www.atlasobscura.com
My friend Luke sent me this, because he knows maps and pictures of maps make me happy! Thanks Luke. I love these images!
The race to save the river Ganges
Everything about this is simply astonishing. The river Ganges is horrifically polluted; 6 billion litres of wastewater flows right into it every day. People drink it and bathe in it. And the government is struggling to clean it. I spent a long time reading it (and haven't finished!) but I think what may be left unexplored here, is striking the balance between enabling people to practise their faith (/tradition/culture, I guess?) and preventing public health issues.
For reasons unknown, this entire website is run using javascript so I cannot actually link you to the right page [Click on the link where it says 'Welzel-Inglehart's Cultural Map' on the right hand side]... The video is quite interesting, showing how values in different countries have changed over time. H/T @JohnBurnMurdoch for the original tweet
Odds and ends...
Managers in football matter much less than most fans think — www.economist.com
Sports is not my favourite topic, and much of this means absolutely nothing to me, so I'm just putting this here for those of you who love stats and football. Don't say I never do anything for you.
Finally, A Personality Quiz Backed By Science
Yay, more radar charts! This quiz from Fivethirtyeight gives you little radar charts to tell you about different aspects of your personality.
Fundamentals of Data Visualization
This appears to be an entire book about data visualisation, free, on the internet. I just clicked through a few pages to see what was in it, stared contemptuously at the boxplots and then was delighted that joyplots (or ridgeline plots, if you're no fun) made it in. So have at it, it looks like a useful resource. H/T again to John whose tweet I saw.
This is the repo for #TidyTuesday which is a project started to try and help people practice using RStudio with real-life datasets. I only found out about it fairly recently, and I feel like since I'm learning/using R and ggplot it'll be right up my street, but I haven't yet found the time. Putting it here in case other R students might want to use it.
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U.S.-Mexico border: An interactive look at the barriers that divide these two countries - Washington Post — www.washingtonpost.com What is along the nearly 2,000 miles of border that divides the U.S. from Mexico?