Projects

Graphics by Nathan Yau, borne out of everyday curiosities, learning experiments, and mild insomnia.

Data Points: What it’s like to write a book

As the publication of Data Points nears, I’m excited to hold it in…

Data Points: First look

For the past year, I’ve been working on Data Points: Visualization that Means…

The real A/C repair schedule

My central air conditioner started to suck about a month ago, so I…

Show Me Something Good

Visualization is a great way to explain and describe data to people who…

What 3-D pie charts are good for

3-D pie charts are never a good idea? Ha. You just got served.…

Resources for Getting Started with R

R, the open source statistical software environment, is powerful but can be a…

Girls expected to live shorter lives in some counties?

We've seen life expectancy at the country and state levels, but the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation recently released life expectancy data at the county level.

Gender wage gap, how much less women make than men

Three or four articles on the gender wage gap popped up on my radar last week, some focusing on the rise of women as the lead household earner and others on how much less women make. I took a look.

Changing face of plastic surgery

Many people aren’t happy with their face or body, and a proportion of…

Why I Want to Quit Cable

There are good reasons to cancel cable, but there were a few channels and programs that kept me on. When you look at it in dollars though, it's hard to justify the value for the cost.

Where are the biggest box office movies (not) streaming?

After seeing Tristan Louis' list that tallied the streaming availability of 2011's top 100 box office hits, I was curious what it looked like graphically.

Vehicles involved in fatal crashes

After seeing a map in The Guardian, I was curious about what other data was available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Association. It turns out there's a lot.

On low-quality infographics

This has been sitting in my drafts folder for a few months. Figured…

The Don’ts of Infographic Design

Smashing Magazine offers advice on the dos and don'ts of infographic design, but they forgot to include the former. It's as if I wrote a fake post and someone mistook it for a serious guide.

Life expectancy changes

The data goes back to 1960 and up to the most current estimates for 2009. Each line represents a country.