All the building footprints in the United States

Microsoft released a comprehensive dataset for computer-generated building footprints in the United States. The method: We developed a method that approximates the prediction pixels into polygons m… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

LeBron James legacy versus championship-winning

LeBron James decides where he takes his talents this summer, and the sports news outlets continue to review every scenario as rumors trickle in. Neil Paine and Gus Wezerek for FiveThirtyEight prese… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Why People Make Bad Charts (and What to Do When it Happens)

It’s important to consider the reasons so that we don’t overreact. Otherwise, we’re just berating, pointing, and laughing all of the time, and that’s not good for anyone. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

$16.1m in political and taxpayer spending at Trump properties

ProPublica compiled spending data from a wide range of sources to calculate the total, which is still an undercount: The vast majority of the money — at least $13.5 million, or more than 84 percent… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Kepler.gl, an open source tool for mapping large-scale data

Kepler.gl, a collaboration between Uber and Mapbox, allows for easier mapping of large-scale data. From Shan He for Uber: Showing geospatial data in a single web interface, kepler.gl helps users qu… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Check if your school district or college was investigated for civil rights violations

The U.S. Department of Education constantly investigates school districts and colleges for civil rights violations. Lena Groeger and Annie Waldman for ProPublica made the data more accessible, prov… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Same money, different counting strategies

Condé Nast Traveler got 70 people from 70 different countries to count money on camera. Many times I found myself wondering, “Why would you ever do it like that?” There’s a metaph… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

What Makes People the Most Happy

It’s in the details of 100,000 moments. I analyzed the crowd-sourced corpus to see what brought the most smiles. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

History of the word ‘data’

Sandra Rendgen describes the history of “data” the word and where it stands in present day. All through the evolution of statistics through the 19th century, data was generated by human… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Finding the best Mario Kart character, statistical speaking

Henry Hinnefeld answers the age-old debate of which Mario Kart character is best, using data as his guide. Some people swore by zippy Yoshi, others argued that big, heavy Bowser was the best option… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Visual introduction to bias in machine learning

A few years ago, Stephanie Yee and Tony Chu explained the introductory facets of machine learning. The piece stood out because it was such a good use of the scrollytelling format. Yee and Chu just … | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Blockchain visually explained

I feel like I was supposed to know what blockchain is a while ago, but I’ve only had a hand-wavy explanation on hand. And it wasn’t a very good one. Reuters provides a clear and concise… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Little League baseball analytics that would change the game forever

Oh. So that’s why I was always placed in right field that one year. Little League Analytics ⚾️ pic.twitter.com/THf5FyqRF7— PetrosAndMoneyShow (@PetrosAndMoney) June 14, 2018 | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Vector paths of meaning between words and phrases

Benjamin Schmidt, an assistant professor of history at Northeastern University, explored the space between words and drew the paths to get from one word to another. The above, for example, is the p… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Math gender gap bigger in richer school districts

This is quite the scatterplot from Claire Cain Miller and Kevin Quealy for The Upshot. The vertical axis represents by how much girls or boys are better in standardized tests; the horizontal axis r… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Ancient Earth globe shows where you were located 750 million years ago

In a spin on the view of ancient Earth and the shift of the continents, Ian Webster made a globe where you can enter a location and see what was in that spot millions of years ago. Not all addresse… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

[Members Only] How I Made That: Nationwide Dot Density Map

I used a combination of existing tutorials and a bunch of shapefiles to map one dot per person. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Convert an image to LEGO brick shopping list in R

Every day you wish you could convert a picture of your family or a group of friends into a LEGO palette. Well wish no more. Ryan Timpe wrote a package that lets you input an image in R and get back… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

History of the health meter in video games

The health meter in video games wasn’t always so commonplace. It took time, iterations, and various incarnations before it converged to what we know now. Ahoy describes the history: | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Working Remotely and Where the Time Goes

How the schedules between remote and non-remote workers differ during workdays. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Unsolved killings mapped

Thousands of homicides. Some cases result in an arrest. Many end up unsolved. The Washington Post mapped areas in major cities to show the contrast between the two types of homicide cases. The data… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Shifted Social Media Usage, Among Teens

Facebook took the biggest hit in the past three years. Snapchat and Instagram got more likes. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Working Remotely and Where the Time Goes

How the schedules between remote and non-remote workers differ during workdays. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

xkcd: LeBron James and Stephen Curry pseudo-greatness

xkcd. Sometimes sports statistics are far-fetched. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

All the volcano eruptions

Slowly becoming the person who charts the past century of natural disaster events, Lazaro Gamio for Axios uses a pictogram to depict all known volcano eruptions since 1883. The vertical position re… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Original map of Winnie-the-Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood

The ink-drawn map of Hundred Acre Wood by Winnie-the-Pooh illustrator E. H. Shepard dates back to 1929. I’m headed straight for Eeyore’s gloomy place, which is rather boggy and sad. The… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Imagining gigantic places with satellite imagery

Artist Marcus Lyon imagines worlds where there are so many people that the only thing left to do is to make gigantic places to fit everyone. The patterns repeat themselves over and over, and itR… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Vintage chart shows the evolution in design of everyday objects

By Raymond Loewy, this chart from 1934 shows the shifts in design of the car, telephone, and clock, among other things. I assume someone is already working on updating this one to the present. [via… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Counting the times Kevin Durant’s shoe came off during games

This is what happens when there is a lull during the basketball playoff season. Chris Herring, for FiveThirtyEight, goes into full detail of the relatively high number of times Kevin Durant’s… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

A guide for applying to data science jobs

Emily Robinson gives advice on applying for a data science job (that you can likely generalize for most tech jobs). For example: If you have a GitHub, pin the repos you want people to see and add R… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Increasing similarity of Billboard songs

Popular songs on the Billboard charts always tended to sound similar, but these days they’re sounding even more similar. Andrew Thompson and Matt Daniels for The Pudding make the case: From 2… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Fast and slow visualization

Visualization is often described in the context of speed and efficiency. Get the most insight for the least amount of ink or pixels. Elijah Meeks argues that visualization goes far beyond this poin… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

When surveillance turns into stalking

Many surveillance apps cater to parents who want to keep tabs on their children who have mobile phones. Many of these apps are used for less parental purposes. Jennifer Valentino-DeVries for The Ne… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Basketball Stat Cherry Picking

Wow your friends during the game with random win percentages, based on various player stats. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Amazon Rekognition for government surveillance

Amazon’s Rekognition is a video analysis system that promises to identify individuals in real-time. Amazon wants to sell the systems to governments for surveillance. From the ACLU: Amazon is … | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Basketball Stat Cherry Picking

Wow your friends during the game with random win percentages, based on various player stats. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Data scientists as the new Mad Men

Ken Auletta for The New Yorker looks at “math men” replacing the Mad Men: Engineers and data scientists vacuum data. They see data as virtuous, yielding clues to the mysteries of human … | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Nigel Holmes new illustrated book on Crazy Competitions

Nigel Holmes, the graphic designer known for his playful illustrated graphics, has a new book: Crazy Competitions. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Whether it’s flinging frozen rats or parad… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

If We All Left to “Go Back Where We Came From”

Imagine that those with immigrants in their family tree left the country. Almost everyone, basically. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

What’s in a food truck

Food trucks are the real deal these days. The best ones serve a specialized menu really well, in a small, focused space. The Washington Post delves into the insides of several of these trucks and h… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

A visualization game to understand education and school segregation

Educate Your Child by Gabrielle LaMarr LeMee uses census data and the school selection process to simulate the steps you you might take in choosing your kid’s first school in Chicago. The Chi… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Go Back Where You Came From

For a second, let’s imagine that everyone with a immigrants in their family tree left the country. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Subway delays visually explained

Adam Pearce for The New York Times describes the sad state of affairs that is the delayed subway trains in New York. One delay causes a ripple effect down the line, leaving little chance to get bac… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Data is, sometimes

Financial Times recently updated their style guide: data — the rule for always using data as plural has been relaxed. If you read data as singular then write it as such. For example, we alrea… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Making useless things

Simone Giertz, bringer of joy and self-described expert in shitty robots, makes machines that succeed in failing. In her TED talk, Giertz talks about her path from “useless” things to e… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

What data visualization is for

Eric Rodenbeck from Stamen Design discusses visualization the medium over visualization the tool or the insight-providing image: Dataviz! Data visualization! I don’t think it’s for anything! I don’… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Visualizing Differences

Focus on finding or displaying contrasting points, and some visual methods are more helpful than others. A guide. | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago

Challenges ahead for the Census count

The 2020 Census is coming up quick, but there’s still a lot up in the air. There’s no director, the bureau has to adjust to budget cuts, and a new digital system that promises to save m… | Continue reading


@flowingdata.com | 6 years ago