MapHugger

Screenshot from: Youtube - Youtube Trends Map (2013) This came...

Sat, 25 May 2013 12:16:25 -0400

Screenshot from: Youtube - Youtube Trends Map (2013)

This came out a little bit ago, but is still quite awesome.

I’m baffled why Milwaukee is treated as being west of Madison, though.

http://www.youtube.com/trendsmap

time-for-maps: Fifty years ago, Jerry Gretzinger began to draw...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:02:59 -0400

time-for-maps:

Fifty years ago, Jerry Gretzinger began to draw a map. He’s still drawing it, having let it grow in the intervening decades to an astounding 2,600 panels covering 2,000 square feet. Current population of the map: 16,304,885 in 27 parishes and 416 cities.
Gretzinger talks about his work in an excellent short documentary. Source.

Noah Veltman - History of San Francisco Place Names Click around...

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:21:04 -0400

Noah Veltman - History of San Francisco Place Names

Click around and learn a little bit more about The City by The Bay.

http://sfstreets.noahveltman.com/

Reuben Fischer-Baum/Deadspin - Is Your State’s...

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:22:31 -0400

Reuben Fischer-Baum/Deadspin - Is Your State’s Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (2013)

Our highest paid public employees tend to be university athletics coaches, but there’s a bit more to the story than that. Hop over to Deadspin and read the full explanation.

Abigail Reynolds - Mount Fear (2010) One of the coolest concepts...

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:03:02 -0400

Abigail Reynolds - Mount Fear (2010)

One of the coolest concepts in thematic cartography is the statistical surface: the act of representing numerical data as a 3D landscape.

Reynolds’ cardboard sculpture of London obliterates the city’s physical terrain and replaces it with one derived from crime data. The result is a mountainous and desolate landscape, one that offers a potentially more realistic representation of the hostilities of the urban experience.

Dataphilia: Society x Numbers

Sat, 04 May 2013 17:13:00 -0400

Welcome to the first in a two-part essay examining the role of quantitative information and data visualization in modern society. This first part offers a critical investigation of the uniquely politicized and privileged role that quantitative information plays in our everyday lives. The second part will discuss what all of that means for those in the community of information visualization.

In February 2013, famed U2 frontman and activist Bono stood in front of an audience at TED and delivered a most curious manifesto:

“It’s fair to say that I am, by now, sexually aroused by the collating of data.”

Quirky one-liners aside: Bono’s TED talk was essentially about discussing exciting new statistics regarding world poverty. Bono promised to “forget the rock opera, the usual bombast”, instead embracing his “inner nerd” as an “evidence-based activist: a factivist”.

Despite his promise to focus on just the facts, Bono strayed into plenty of appeals to pathos, as well. Pictures of African children saved by antiretroviral drugs, stirring calls to action, quotes from Nelson Mandela. So what is the ‘evidence’ in Bono’s ‘evidence-based activism’? It’s not a call for superior statistical modeling, or enhanced data-rich spatial analysis, or developing empirical-based standards for organizing relief efforts. ‘Factivism’, it seems, is all about having a bunch of cool-looking line graphs to point to. And point to line graphs is exactly what Bono does.

I might sound critical of the talk, but I actually enjoyed it plenty for what it is (and those line graphs really are super-pretty!). The reason I’m so fascinated by it is because of the role that ‘facts’ (that is, quantitative information) plays in his presentation. Why the emphasis on line graphs and numbers? Why factivism instead of activism? It seems that those line graphs are serving a peculiar purpose. They seem to be as much about serving as a rallying point as they are about serving up data. Reversing centuries of sociopolitical oppression, and improving the quality of life for billions of human beings across the entire world, is a daunting-seeming task. But a line graph turns that daunting task into something that feels so much more simple and ownable.

There’s things Bono’s TED talk can teach us about the how our society treats quantitative information and, by extension, data visualization. Data is playing an increasingly large and privileged role in our everyday lives. Our social feeds and news feeds are filling up with infographics, statistics, and news articles founded on data journalism. Blogs and webcomics appropriate the tone and visuals of dataviz for comedic effect. Meanwhile, a dedicated group of ‘quantified self’ enthusiasts are taking the sorts of metrics and analysis normally used for business analytics and science experiments and applying it to their everyday behavior. Speaking of analytics, nothing has put ‘data’ into the cultural spotlight moreso than ‘big data’, a loosely defined field (and/or buzzword) that claims it will revolutionize… basically everything, it seems, by applying advanced statistical analysis to disparate sources of huge and often crowd-provided information.

This newfound infatuation with data sounds like a great thing, at first glance. Who doesn’t love empiricism? Who doesn’t love hard numbers? Who doesn’t love the promise of solving real-world problems and answering real-world questions using the power of statistics? The problem we face, though, is romanticizing data analysis to the point where we cease to think critically about what it can and can’t do. We wind up injecting quantitative analysis into intellectual endeavors where it just isn’t appropriate: data science as the proverbial square peg in a round hole. I would argue we’re already seeing this happen. The past decade has seen the rise of techno-utopianism; and with it, a sort of data-utopianism. A strange and unspoken feeling that if we simply quantify everything: produce enough spreadsheets, make enough bar charts, and crunch enough numbers, all our political and environmental and economic problems will solve themselves. The reality is that data science is a tool; just one of many intellectual tools we have to examine the world, produce knowledge, make predictions, and solve problems. Things like art, or discourse, or journalism, or rhetoric, or even intuition. These can’t replace quantitative analysis, of course, but the reverse is true, as well. Insisting on bandying about numbers at every opportunity is a fine way to lose sight of what’s really important.

The pushback against our society’s data fetish already starting to happen, especially when it comes to big-data hype. It’s a buzzword. It ignores hidden biases. It doesn’t capture the temporal. It isn’t artful. And so on. The same problems exist for, essentially, all other uses of data. We like to think of data as an august distillation of raw truth, but this is never the case, as plenty of people will tell you.

If you’re any sort of data analyst or information designer, this is probably not an earth-shattering argument. Throughout our education and professional training, we’re instructed to be critical of our data and our methods: it’s impressed upon us that all data contains some degree of sampling bias, incompleteness, and uncertainty. Normally our reaction to all this, though, is just to carry on with our usual data analysis or infoviz and simply leave the ethical qualms by the wayside. Instead, as producers and consumers of quantitative information, we should recognize that quantitative analysis and dataviz is only one small part of a broader intellectual effort.

In other words, Bono - and the rest of us,too- can embrace our inner nerds without forgoing the rock opera.

Switzerland: Demographics and the SVP (2013) I’ve updated...

Fri, 03 May 2013 13:53:31 -0400

Switzerland: Demographics and the SVP (2013)

I’ve updated one of my older maps as an excuse to get my hands dirty with D3.js. It’s not outrageously sophisticated or anything, but it turned out relatively (…relatively) glitch-free and hack-free, so I’m decently satisfied.

The map focuses on the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), a right-wing political party that has been a major player in the country’s politics since its rise in the 1990s. It’s a simple li’l interface that lets you cruise around various demographic and social data (college attainment, growth by immigration, foreign nationals, and unemployment), and learn a bit about how it relates to the SVP’s platform.

View it at http://www.resources.maphugger.com/switzerland/index.html

Susie Cagle/Josh Leeman - the Gilded City (2013) I loves me...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:02:40 -0400

Susie Cagle/Josh Leeman - the Gilded City (2013)

I loves me some qualitative mapping, and this map combines the best in sketchy stylings with hard numbers.

Kelsey Dake/New York Times - A World of Secret Watering Holes...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:37:11 -0400

Kelsey Dake/New York Times - A World of Secret Watering Holes (2013)

When life gives you lemons, use them to map the world’s most fascinating bars.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/04/07/magazine/food-global-drinks.html

Ursula Hitz - Swiss Alps in Words (2012) Swiss mountains and...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 10:31:00 -0400

Ursula Hitz - Swiss Alps in Words (2012)

Swiss mountains and their elevations assembled into a charming typographic map.

dethpsun: I finally got this properly documented. It’s a Secret...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:06:38 -0400

dethpsun:

I finally got this properly documented. It’s a Secret Histories Map of San Francisco. It was for a show a few years ago at the San Francisco Arts Commission. You can read more about it here:

http://www.dethpsun.com/otherthings/sfmap/

Read through that entire writeup, because it is fascinating.

goobingdetroit: Northwest, near Grand River This whole blog...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:24:00 -0400

goobingdetroit:

Northwest, near Grand River

This whole blog compares the Detroit-area street imagery from Google (circa 2009) and Bing’s (circa 2012). What a difference three years can make.

From: Jeff Clark - Movement in Manhattan (2012) Using the...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:35:42 -0400

From: Jeff Clark - Movement in Manhattan (2012)

Using the timestamps and geocodes of tweets, Clark investigates the generalized flow of people across Manhattan. Not surprisingly, it’s pretty chaotic. Click through for additional maps, which break things down based on the time of day.

http://neoformix.com/2012/MovementInManhattan.html

Screenshot from: stamen design - here.stamen.com (2013) One...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 18:53:36 -0400

Screenshot from: stamen design - here.stamen.com (2013)

One heckuva different view of the city. Turn on the wireframe or watercolor filters for a real head trip.

http://www.here.stamen.com

Screenshot from: ICIJ - Stash Your Cash (2013) All the fun of...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 13:31:23 -0400

Screenshot from: ICIJ - Stash Your Cash (2013)

All the fun of embezzling money off-shore, without any of the risk! (For real, though: this is a very novel way of explaining a complicated phenomena. Great approach to journalism.)

http://www.icij.org/offshore/interactive-stash-your-cash

Screenshot from: David Paliwoda/Jesse Williams - How Far is it...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 14:26:01 -0400

Screenshot from: David Paliwoda/Jesse Williams - How Far is it to Mars? (2013)

A lot of attempts have been made to give a sense of scale to our solar system, but this one wins my vote for portraying that the most effectively.

http://www.distancetomars.com/

mapswithoutalaska: maphugger: Major Web Companies’ Data...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:38:00 -0400

mapswithoutalaska:

maphugger:

Major Web Companies’ Data Centers (2013)

Click for the fullview.

If you like that linework of the U.S., it’s 100% free to download and use from Project Linework. And, in fact, that was the basic impetus for making this map: just something fun and simple to show off the linework, so it’s not the most earth-shattering in terms of data.

While researching the locations, though, I did come across some neat issues when it comes to the siting of data centers: state governments will give big breaks on property taxes for the luxury of attracting a data center to a rural community, even if the centers themselves produce a noxious amount of noise. Site selectors are also looking for places with lots of cheap, clean electricity, accounting for much of the data centers located in hydropower-rich regions.

Alaska? Yep. Nope.

No data centers in The Last Frontier, I’m afraid: would it be gauche to suggest they might be able to save on cooling costs by siting them there?

(If you think cropping out Alaska is bad, wait’ll you see the linework itself, which doesn’t even include Hawaii in it yet! Alaska is large and in charge, at least.)

Screenshot from: Patrick Jean - Motorville...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 22:56:16 -0400

Screenshot from: Patrick Jean - Motorville (2013)

‘Totally-not-Google-Maps’ stars as the main character in this animated short with a cutting message.

http://vimeo.com/62468031

Screenshot from Google Maps - Treasure Mode (2013) You can...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 15:36:00 -0400

Screenshot from Google Maps - Treasure Mode (2013)

You can always count on Google Maps to do something fun for April Fool’s.

Project Linework

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:13:17 -0400

In my last little map, I mentioned that I made it as a specimen for Project Linework. I figured, though, that I should rewind a bit and explain more about what Project Linework is, and why you should care. The idea behind Project Linework has been well articulated by my colleague Daniel Huffman, the same person who came up with the idea in the first place. But I’ll restate the idea in my own words. In cartography, the data we use to draw our borders and coastlines (in other words, our basemaps) are the result of some pretty hefty technology: satellites, surveying, and gobs of tedious work to trace it all. The result is linework that is highly clean, accurate, and detailed. And that’s awesome if, say, you’re doing a highly technical geologic survey, or making a map people will rely on for navigation. In most other cases, though (… which just might be the majority of the maps we make), all that accuracy and detail is actually a liability, in certain ways. There’s no reason a small choropleth of the U.S. needs to depict all the tiny-scale minutiae of rivers and borders and coastlines. It looks overly-specific and ‘jaggy’, but perhaps worst of all, it looks boring. When we have the opportunity, we want to make maps that are personable and expressive, not boring and same-y. Cartographers have needed to use ‘generalized’ linework for centuries, so why not use the simplification and abstraction process as an excuse to be a li’l artful? There are resources out that provide excellent map linework of the “technical” sort: Natural Earth is the one I recommend most. There weren’t, however, any resources where you could acquire more unique specialty cartographic linework. That’s where Project Linework comes in. It offers a variety of 100% custom-made linework sets for cartographic use. Best of all, they’re all available under public domain, meaning you can use them in any way you’d like. We make and share them solely for the enrichment of the cartographic community. Practically speaking, here’s how you can use the files from Project Linework. Each .zip contains the linework as a shapefile (.shp and whatnot) and as vector art (.ai). The former is openable by pretty much any GIS software, and even hops right into design tools like Tilemill. The .ai file is openable by pretty much any vector graphics software, but if you happen to open it with GIS software, you’ll have the luxury of being able to reproject it, link it to a data table (for chloropleth mapping or whatnot), or whatever else you need to do to build your map. Not all of them will look as nice when reprojected, and they’re not going to line up perfectly with other datasets (like complicated roads or rivers), so use the linework descriptions and your common sense to know if they’re appropriate for your project.
The project has 6 different linework sets so far, and I’ve contributed two of them:
Elmer Casual is named after myself… which was entirely Daniel’s idea. Anyway, this generalization has a loose, sketchy feeling, perfect for maps that don’t want to take themselves too seriously. It was the basis for my Fiction/Reality map, and happens to be the most complete set of the bunch, containing North America, Europe, and Japan.

Twenty Seventy is named after its most handsomest of angles, and has basically the opposite aesthetic to my other linework set: this one is all about being techie and digital. It covers North America right now, but if enough people egg me on, I totally want to expand it to cover the whole world. All of the lineworks we’ve made are, admittedly, a bit Ameri-centric.

Well, that’s Project Linework in a nutshell. I encourage all the mapmakers out there to give them a shot, send any compliments/complaints to Daniel or I, and if you share our passion, consider making a linework set of your own to contribute: we’d love to expand the collection.