Fair Warning - Supermassive black hole
Well, hello there. It turns out tonsillitis is not fun, and you'll be in quarantine for a week, cancelling all your plans with your friends and generally being miserable. Being ill has, however, enabled me to finally play God Of War and yes it is good, and yes I am now obsessed with Norse mythology. It has also somewhat influenced my choice of links this week.
This week's song: Supermassive Black Hole - Muse. I couldn't resist.
On the home front
We're now running up to local elections. For Reasons, until elections are done, the 'on the home front' section will be on hold. I will try and build up a cache of UK stuff to put in a bumper edition once normal service resumes.
Over the pond
Trump Says the U.S. Is ‘Full.’ Much of the Nation Has the Opposite Problem — www.nytimes.com
While right wing agitators might push for closing borders and resent immigration, the US has a pretty basic demographic problem. There is an ageing population and a declining birthrate, which means that in many areas, there's a shrinking workforce. Wouldn't normally be an issue but for those pesky pensions promised to everyone...
American inequality reflects gross incomes as much as taxes
You ever see a chart and go "oooooh niiiiceee"? Well, I just did. Income inequality may look bad in the US, but "its pre-tax Gini coefficient is high, so that the government has to put in more work to level the playing field". Interesting. Also, Ireland on here is arguably the most interesting data point, cos... Wow.
My understanding of this issue is limited and maybe wrong but here goes: Trump says he is considering forcing illegal immigrants to live in 'sanctuary cities' in the US because that's just the kind of petty idiot he is (notwithstanding that I don't think sanctuary cities are going to worry about having more immigrants?)... Anyway, WaPo obtained some exclusive data from a shelter, and has published this snapshot of where immigrants actually go once released.
Elsewhere...
First Image Of A Black Hole Is Released By Massive Telescope Project — www.npr.org
SURELY YOU MUST HAVE HEARD OF THIS BY NOW. But what's really impressive is the amount of work behind it. And it's relevant because it involves data, and algorithms, and cleaning, and lots of awesome, incredibly dedicated people, including this amazing woman Katie Bouman.
Nerds are my favourite.
I don't know if I love or hate this visualisation, it feels a bit imprecise and I generally favour precision in data vis, but here are some bubble grid maps of European livestock like pigs, cattle, sheep...
How Much 5-Star Hotels Cost in the Top 100 Destinations Around the World
St Moritz is the most expensive place for a luxury holiday, while if you want a bargain five star stay, you may want to go to Manila. I don't know whether the methodology is robust enough, being brutally honest, but I am a big fan of the colour scale used here. God, I'm so easy to please.
Odds and ends
How Algorithms Know What You’ll Type Next — pudding.cool
I recently installed SwiftKey to my phone in the hope that I would get access to more emojis (the one I don't have and apparently never will is this 🥰which is my favourite) but I am really impressed with how well it is predicting my texts to people. Love this from The Pudding, explaining how text prediction works, and once again there's a really cool way of interacting with the models to see how they work.
Soldiers who have come under fire often find God
From last year but still interesting. There is "compelling evidence that those who have served in combat zones and directly engaged the enemy are more likely to attend religious services regularly than are those who have not".
IMF Forecasts Show It’s Hard to Predict the Global Economy
This is an in-depth look at the art of economic forecasting. Bloomberg looked at all IMF forecasts since 1999, and found that on average the difference between forecast and reality was two percentage points. IMF forecasts underestimated GDP growth in 56% of cases and overestimated the rest, which suggests it's not as conservative as I thought it would be. This piece also looks at growth in bailout countries like Greece and Ireland. I won't go on, but this is even interesting to me so it'll be interesting to you.
Data from fiction
The Witcher 3 is a sales revenue monster — www.tweaktown.com
The Witcher 3 is my favourite game ever, and playing God of War has reminded me just how great an experience it was to play Geralt. TW3 was a *massive* hit for CD Projekt Red compared to the other two. But I tried playing the first and it really suffers from a lack of fast travel... Ugh.
Revealed: The most naked and violent Game Of Thrones characters
I like this because it took my friend Al hours to do and he says he now has zero interest in watching Game of Thrones ever again. The sacrifices we make...
One thing I want to point out: The differences between male and female nakedness in the show. Just in case you wondered whether we live in a patriarchal society.
One thing before we end... What do you think of this UK population map, in the style of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures? Wales all but disappears, and I like the quirkiness of it, but... Hmm.
That's everything. Hopefully you didn't miss 'On the home front' too much. If you enjoyed this issue, please forward it to people you think will like it, consider buying me a coffee or supporting Fair Warning on Patreon from as little as $4 a month. I tweet @SophieWarnes but please, call me Soph.