From reddit user shoru_lannister, here is a pie chart of their living room corner.

Do we have another contender for best pie chart? I think the pyramid pie chart still has an edge.

While working on maps inspired by USGS maps from the 1800s, Sarah Bell made a typeface to match:

While making my own USGS-inspired maps, my search never returned the exact type of font I was looking for. The fruitless search was serendipitous however, because it provided the push to make my own. It was designed for map labels that are no larger than 80-100pt, but usually much smaller. I decided to name it BellTopo Sans with the plan to create a serif version.

She made it available here.

[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO9-dyYK3qQ” loop=”no” muted=”no” /]

We can download data as a single snapshot in a single file, but oftentimes that data is generated piece-by-piece. In the map above, NASA shows how they piece together rain data with a network of satellites:

The ten currently-flying satellites in the Global Precipitation Measurement Constellation provide unprecedented information about the rain and snow across the entire Earth. This visualization shows the constellation in action, taking precipitation measurements underneath the satellite orbits. As time progresses and the Earth’s surface is covered with measurements, the structure of the Earth’s preciptation becomes clearer, from the constant rainfall patterns along the Equator to the storm fronts in the mid-latitudes.

[via kottke]

xkcd crossed a rough age distribution of people becoming grandparents with people named “Chad” and “Jason” to highlight the dawn of a new era. The time is now.

With an animated side-by-side map, The New York Times shows canceled flights in efforts to slow down the spread of the coronavirus. The left map represents 12,814 flights within China on January 23. The right map shows 1,662 on February 13. Keep scrolling to see changes for flights leaving China to other countries.

The Map of Mathematics from Quanta Magazine explains key concepts with animated visualizations:

From simple starting points — Numbers, Shapes, Change — the map branches out into interwoven tendrils of thought. Follow it, and you’ll understand how prime numbers connect to geometry, how symmetries give a handle on questions of infinity.

And although the map is necessarily incomplete — mathematics is too grand to fit into any single map — we hope to give you a flavor for the major questions and controversies that animate the field, as well as the conceptual tools needed to dive in.

While we’re on the topic of Mike Bloomberg’s money, here’s another view from Mother Jones:

I guess he’s rich.

Welcome to a new segment where I try to put myself in the shoes of someone who made a bad chart and try to make it better.

Mike Bloomberg’s ad spending might not be that much relative to his own net worth, but compared to other candidates’ spending, it’s a whole lot of money. The Washington Post puts the spending into perspective with a long scroller. Each rectangle represents $100k, and there are “mile markers” along the way to keep you anchored on the scale.

Geographer Tim Wallace likes to look at old maps, and is particularly fond of the weird and forgotten types:

So, I slowly amassed a more complete list. And here it is. Most of these map types are silly or unusual, not forgotten. Many of them are even deliberately taken out of context to highlight their wackiness and how easily maps can be misread (I sure misread them all the time!).

It’s fun poking around the Internet Archive and HathiTrust, blowing the digital dust off of a volume with 0 views and having a look. You never know what you’ll find. Maybe a forgotten map type?

The above is the long forgotten but everlasting Gobstopper zone map.

Adobe Illustrator has charting functions that can be useful if you’re on a deadline. Make a quick chart, design, and publish. However, if you want to reuse the chart with new data or need to use a more complex chart type, it’s usually been better to use different software and then come back to Illustrator to adjust.

Datylon Graph is an extension that aims to make it easier to stay in Illustrator for your full workflow. It promises reusable charts, collaborative tools, and a growing visualization library.

It currently starts at €7.50 per month with a 14-day free trial. I’m skeptical about working completely in Illustrator, but I’ll have to kick the tires on this soon.

This graphic from WakeMed shows the areas most often missed while washing hands. It’s based on an old-ish study from 1978 by Taylor LJ that evaluated handwashing techniques by health professionals. I’m guessing (hoping) that technique has improved since then.

Also, if there were a diagram based on data collected from the men’s room, the hands would just be completely colored red. Wash your hands, please. It’s kind of important right now.

Botnet is a social media app where you’re the only human among a million bots trained on social media activity. Post pictures, status updates, or whatever else you want. Then let the likes and weird comments roll in.

You can even purchase troll bots, bots that tell dad jokes, and more bots.

Social media is on its way to mostly being bots anyways. Might as well jumpstart the future. Artificial intelligence for the win.

This week, a few projects went up on the internets about money and spending, each with different goals and approaches. In this issue of The Process, we look at each more closely.

Neal Agarwal used a money printing metaphor to depict differences in various wages. The higher the wage, the faster the money prints. Keep scrolling and you also see big company revenues, finished with a frantic U.S. deficit increase.

So good. [Thanks, Neal]

For The Upshot, Alicia Parlapiano and Quoctrung Bui scaled down the federal budget to something more relatable:

To better understand how federal spending has changed since Mr. Trump has taken office, we looked at the actual budget amounts for the 2020 fiscal year. We divided them by the U.S. population and sized the numbers proportionally to make their scale easier to visualize. Then we compared the numbers to the actual budget for the 2016 fiscal year, adjusting for inflation and population changes.

Federal budget visualizations usually aim to show big dollar values going to many different departments. You look at the breakdowns, and you can’t help but think, “That’s a lot of money.” For most of us, it’s hard to imagine billions of dollars, because the scale is so far beyond our own experiences.

So it’s interesting that this piece goes the other direction and scales everything down to match the values to something more familiar. The font size of each value also scales accordingly, which I think in the end is what you end up focusing on.

Reddit user quantum-kate used daily high and low temperatures in Denver in 1992 as the basis of this blanket. I feel like I should learn to knit crochet.

DR used a 3-D model to recreate King Frederick the 9th’s ink:

King Frederick the 9th was famous for his tattoos. But until recently — noone knew much about them. By examining hundreds of old photographs and films we have recreated the Kings’ ink in order to get a sence of who he was — both on the inside and the outside.

The scrolly touring works really well here. I went in knowing nothing about the king and came out more educated on the other side.

We hear about billionaires spending millions of dollars on ads, acquisitions, etc. It seems like a ridiculous amount of money, but that’s partially because us common folk think of the millions of dollars in the context of our own net worth. When Jeff Bezos spends a few multiples of what we will never make in a lifetime, it seems like a lot.

For The Washington Post, Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Youjin Shin made an interactive that instead looks at the spending as a percentage of net worth. The purchases suddenly seem less crazy (sort of).

It’s simple math but a nice way to make the spending scales more relatable.

From @haru_cchii on the Twitter:

Local German Gets Bored And Tries To Name All American States
i think i did pretty well

Seems right to me.