Photo by horizontal.integration

There’s this one phrase that really bothers me when it comes to data graphics. No doubt you’ve heard it or read it, and maybe it even popped into your head once or twice.

The phrase I’m talking about is: “Edward Tufte is crying.”

People like to say this when they see a graphic that doesn’t fit the ET law of high data/ink ratio. Then after the commenter has declared that ET is in fact a very emotional man, the graphic is classified “chart junk.”

First off, I’m pretty sure ET isn’t that melodramatic. He doesn’t cry over a bad graph nor does he die a little inside or roll over in his grave if he were dead. I don’t think an angel get its wings every time he rings a bell either. Although I could be wrong about the latter.

Second, not everything that fails to fit the mold of a traditional graph, visualization, or whatever you want to call it, is chart junk. One person’s chart junk is another person’s eye candy. What you see just depends on what angle you’re looking at it from.
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Online dating can be tricky. What do you say? How do you reply to people? What should you put in your profile? Should you use that profile picture from 15 years ago?

Well, fret no more, because OkCupid, an online dating service, analyzed over 500,000 introduction messages and whether or not they got a response from the message receiver. For example, the above graphs shows reply rates for intro messages that used netspeak. Here’s a tip: don’t use it, probably because it makes you sound like an idiot or you take writing advice from the comments on YouTube.

Other fine tips include: avoid compliments on physical appearance (because it’s the inside that counts) and don’t try to bring the conversation outside the service (because that’s creepy).

[via Waxy]

Apparently the average television size is going to be 60 inches by 2015. Do we really need that much television? I mean, come on.

I used to watch my mom’s old 9-inch black-and-white television in my room, and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. PacMan on my cousin’s hand-me-down Atari couldn’t look any better. Things are a little different now, yeah? I wonder what my Xbox games would look like on that old TV.

Anyways, I scraped television size data from CNET reviews, representing the past eight years or so, and actually, growth isn’t as dramatic as you might think.

I’d like to take a quick moment to thank our FlowingData sponsors. They help keep FlowingData online and running smoothly. Without them, things around here would be painfully slow.

Check out the data visualization solutions they have to offer:

Xcelsius Present — Transform spreadsheets into professional, interactive presentations.

NetCharts — Build business dashboards that turn data into actionable information with dynamic charts and graphs.

Tableau Software — Data exploration and visual analytics for understanding databases and spreadsheets that makes data analysis easy and fun.

IDV Solutions — Create interactive, map-based, enterprise mashups in SharePoint.

InstantAtlas — Enables information analysts to create interactive maps to improve data visualization and enhance communication.

Want to sponsor FlowingData, your most favorite blog in the whole wide world? Email me, and I’ll get back to you with the details.

From Karl Russel and Shan Carter of The New York Times is this animated tree map to show the shrinking, and eventual partial regrowth, in market value of this country’s largest financial groups.

The market peak was in October 9, 2007. With the exception of a few months since then, most companies decreased in market capitalization. They then hit a low in March 9, 2009, and have slowly regaining what they lost.

At the peak, the value of the 29 firms was $1.87 trillion. As of September 11 of this year, their total value was at $947 billion. Clearly, there is still quite a way to go before they’re back to where they began.

[via infosthetics]

Data graphics that aren’t interactive are better in print, no doubt about it.

I realized this a few years ago while interning for a popular graphics department. It was one thing to see my graphics online, but it was always so much cooler to see them in the paper.

Online stuff is great, but it’s fleeting. You glance, scan, and browse when you’re online. You look, examine, and read when it’s in print.

Plus, paper provides more space. Data needs room to breathe.

Enter FlowingPrints.

Data + Design Posters

Simply put, FlowingPrints is a project to get data in print. It’s like FlowingData’s better looking cousin.

I mentioned the project a while ago, and I’m happy to say that the first series will be available in less than a week.

I collaborated with two designers – Atley G. Kasky and Robert Di Ieso, Jr. – to create a three-poster series around a single theme: the state of education. We looked at several decades of data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

Each poster gives you a different point of view, and each tells a different story.

The Authors

Atley is a graphic designer at GOOD and co-curates But Does it Float; Robert is a designer and illustrator who has done work for The New York Times, Time Inc., and Fast Company Magazine; and me, well, you already know what I do.

That should give you a hint as to what type of design you’re going to see in these posters. Needless to say, it’ll be a healthy mix of traditional statistical graphics and tasty eye candy, informative and fun to examine.

Be First to Know + Special Offer

This week, I’m putting in the finishing touches, and we’ll be ready to go. If you haven’t already, you can sign up on this page to be first to know when the series is available; I’ll email you the minute FlowingPrints goes live. It’ll be first-come, first-served.

There will also be a promotion code in the announcement email, so make sure you take advantage of that too.

More soon…

It’s not often you get a Grammy-winning band to play a song for a children’s album with an infographic music video on the scientific elements, but that’s what you get from They Might Be Giants.
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Hilarious as always, Christoph Niemann illustrates in his graphical New York Times op-ed how getting a good night’s sleep is easier said than done, especially when you have a small bladder, mosquitoes that won’t go away, and a kid with nightmares. Enjoy.
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GOOD magazine, in collaboration with Gavin Potenza, takes a look at food assistance over the past several months.

Since November 2008, there’s been an increase in the number of people who receive food assistance every month. Every month there has been more people receiving food assistance than there has ever been in the history of the program.

The graphic reads:

While some economists are declaring the recession over, and although the stock market continues to rise, those on the bottom of the economic ladder are seeing fewer improvements to their day-to-day lives. The number of Americans who receive assistance from the government in the form of food stamps continues to rise—the total number of food stamp recipients is now up to more than 10 percent of the total population. Here is how many people have been using food stamps for the nine months from September, 2008, to last May.

With that in mind, what can we do about it?

Picking a cell phone plan is confusing, but it doesn’t have to be.

Providers purposely make it that way, so you don’t see all that you’re forking over per month until you’re locked into a horrible 2-year plan. It doesn’t have to be like this though. Let’s look at the data to find what cell phone provider has the best price.
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Bella Gaia, or Beautiful Earth, is a unique view of earth through the eye’s of astronauts in an effort to provide some sentiment to our home planet.
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The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards are on right now (and I’m sure all of you are watching). Check out the live VMA Twitter tracker by Stamen and Radian6. It’s kind of fun to watch, even if you aren’t tuned into MTV. Celebrity profile pictures are dynamically sized by how much people are talking about them on Twitter. Apparently Kanye is performing right now… or he did something stupid.

Someone needs to get me a paper copy of Willard Cope Brinton’s Graphic Presentation (1939), because it is awesome.
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Have you ever rushed to the airport only to find that your flight was delayed or canceled?

In the most recent Data Expo at the annual Joint Statistical Meetings, data heads explored 120 million departures and arrivals in the United States, with the goal of finding “important features” such as:

• When is the best time of day/day of week/time of year to fly to minimise delays?
• Do older planes suffer more delays?
• How does the number of people flying between different locations change over time?
• How well does weather predict plane delays?

While there were several interesting entries, here are the first, second, and third place winners. Read More

As you know, states have received billions of dollars of federal stimulus funding. But do you know where all the money goes?

Stamen Design, in its most recent project with the State of California, lets you explore the money breakdown. Like most of Stamen’s work, at the base is an interactive map, but it is of course much more than that.

Roll over for breakdowns, search for your city or county, select sectors of interest, and take a look at project-specific information. The color-coded bars change depend on what’s geographically in view, and the map zooms in on points of interest on the fly.

In Eric’s words, “It’s just slick as hell.”

In this day and age, we should all be thinking about how we can better conserve the environment, because if we don’t, well you know, the planet will die. In a follow-up to my previous eco-friendly list, here are 10 more infographics and visualizations on going green.
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Ben Fry, well-known for Processing and plenty of other data goodness, announced his most recent piece, On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured Traces, made possible by The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online.

The visualization explores the evolution of Charles Darwin’s theory of, uh, evolution. It began as a less-defined 150,000-word text in the first edition and grew and developed to a 190,000-word theory in the sixth edition.

Watch where the updates in the text occur over time. Chunks are removed, chunks are added, and words are changed. Blocks are color-coded by edition. Roll over blocks to see the text underneath.

As usual, excellent work, Mr. Fry.

Happy labor day!

May you make it to the top of the mountain of success. I think I’m somewhere around the mountain of lack of preparation. Where are you?

[via Strange Maps]

UPDATE: Here’s the full-sized version, originally from The Etude in 1913. [Thanks, @idefine]

We passed the 20k-subscriber mark last week. Very cool, and a tiny bit scary at the same time. Thank you everyone for reading and spreading the word about FlowingData. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m looking forward to what the next few months brings.

Anyways, I’ve found that the best way to celebrate these types of milestones is with some free stuff :). Plus it’s Friday.

Applied Security Visualization

I have five free copies of Applied Security Visualization to give away. While the book is geared towards network security, the principles behind each chapter can certainly be applied to other types of visualization. The book also includes free software for visualizing networks and assessing security.

How to Win

Super easy. Just leave a comment below that says what you’re thankful for. You are not allowed to say you are thankful for free stuff, wise guy. Do this by Sunday, September 6, 2009, 8pm EST. Comments will then close, and I will randomly select five winners. One entry per person please. Good luck!

Update: I forgot about Labor Day. Extending the entry deadline to Monday, Sept. 7, 8pm EST.

i-am-bored graphs the horrible to awesome of becoming a man. Growing up ain’t easy. So who’s going to do the highs and lows of being a young woman?

Have a nice weekend all.