Fair Warning - Laughing online, the London underground, and maps
Heeeeey! This week was a week of firsts which is partly why there was no Fair Warning last week - first week back at work for a while, first time talking at a university, and first race (no personal best but I blame that on the moustache I was wearing). Happy to say all three were a success! By my reckoning, anyway.
NICAR people over the pond - I have booked everything (apart from one night where I'll presumably be sleeping on a bench or something) for New Orleans next year, so if you're going to be there please do say hi. Both years I've gone, I've made new friends, learned loads, and really enjoyed it. I'm also really looking forward to going back to New Orleans (and I signed up for a race, too!) So thats exciting!
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On the home front
Last Orderrrrs! Speaker John Bercow's career in numbers — www.bbc.co.uk
Love this analysis of Hansard - the official parliamentary record - which shows how much Bercow spoke, the types of words he used, the topics he spoke about, and how often members of parliament clapped.
Data sonification! This time, the Institute for Government (a fab bunch of people) have made one about the number of staff in the civil service. I can't say that I think any examples of sonification I've seen to date have quite hit the mark for me, but I would be interested to know if they're helpful for people with sight issues.
London Underground: the dirtiest place in the city
You may find you can't read this because of the paywall, but this piece from the FT about how UTTERLY DISGUSTING AND POLLUTED the underground is, is very good. I'd have put money on the Central and Northern Lines being the worst. Also the Northern Line spawned the single worst boyband in history, so, you know.
I thought that this tweet/graphic from Alasdair Rae about deprivation and English constituencies was really interesting.
Over the pond
California’s Affordable Housing Crisis: Why Prices Are So High and How to Solve It — www.bloomberg.com
In-depth data analysis (and visualisations and maps!) about California's housing crisis and where it's bad and why.
Electoral college reform (fifty states with equal population) — fakeisthenewreal.org
I feel like I have seen this (or something similar) before but I like it a lot. In a US with states of equal population, Texas becomes Chinati, Big Thicket, Trinity, and Houston.
It’s Scarily Easy To Track Someone Around A City Via Their Instagram Stories
This is pretty creepy but one of those things where I think people just don't really care until it matters.
Who are the people involved in the Trump impeachment inquiry? — www.washingtonpost.com
The House’s impeachment inquiry broken down into witnesses and other people involved. It's one of those things that even I'm a bit tired of now, but good for keeping up to date with who's who!
Odds and ends
Laughing OnLine — pudding.cool
This is a really nice explorer from The Pudding looking at how we laugh online - how funny is 'lol' compared to 'lmao' for instance? I find myself using some of these terms when I don't have much else to say but the thing I'm responding to is mildly amusing.
A nice visualisation/interactive looking at how people use Google to find out stuff about cats and dogs, for instance, "why do cats like boxes?" or "why does my dog nibble on my kitten?" [Because they are tasty, that's why]
Mini Tokyo 3D — nagix.github.io
Real-time 3D map of Tokyo's public transport system, by Akihiko Kusanagi. Really, you need to look at this. It's mad (in a good way).
I love this round-up of the first year of Graphic Detail, a data-specific section of The Economist. I think it shows that dedicating a section to data really paid off for the team.
Women's Pockets are Inferior. — pudding.cool
Long-time readers will remember this from a while ago but I realised this week that I have ONE dress which has pockets and so is suitable for talking at conferences (I put the battery pack in the pocket). I do actually have more clothes but none of them have USABLE POCKETS. Data backs me up here!
Maps, maps, maps
This month there's a #30daymapchallenge on Twitter and of course, I am super interested and excited to see what people are making every day! Keep an eye on the hashtag, but I've found some really lovely and interesting maps from it so far:
Bad charts of the week
There are so many awful, awful graphics and attempts at charts in a presentation(?) about WeWork's future. Tweet thread here; everything in it is bad.
That's all I have for ya! Thank you for reading - if you like reading Fair Warning, consider forwarding to a friend who also likes maps and charts and innovative journalism. :) See you next week (barring unavoidable Life Stuff).
If you enjoyed this issue, you can ’buy a coffee’ for me, tip me via Paypal, or you can become a Patron of Fair Warning.