Information Is Beautiful

It would have been so nice to have these videos with the original Tetris music and the characteristic sound when the stones set down ;)

It looks like we are all owned by the banking system.

What font is that????
Thanks!!!

Like it a lot! What software did you use to create?

I like your visualizations, but maybe it’s time to work a little harder on your data. For one thing, the “global cost of obesity” that you post in this particular visual is grossly understated, since it happens to equal the on-record cost of obesity to the US health care system earlier in the decade, a figure which was revised upward months ago. So now I have to wonder whether your other costs are factual, too.

Maybe focus a little less on cute but pejorative comparisons and a little more on specific, sourcable, direct comparisons?

I’m sorry, this made no sense, you’re comparing numbers that have no bearing on each other. I’m all for highlighting the contradictions of US/UK government spending, but this graph just reads like a liberal graph-ploitation with cutesy music.

Brilliant! Congratulations.

Interesting demonstration of why pure information is not beautiful, but meaningless when presented out of context. The very fact that some of these facts are presented, and that they are juxtaposed with the natural inference being that we should compare them, is inherently misleading.

Worst example is the comparison of US private charitable donation as compared to US government aid. What has the former to do with debt? Are you implying the latter should be greater, closer to private donation (if so why, and what has that to do with debt?) or that it should be reduced (which I would agree, and would be relevant to debt, but the context of the larger private donation block does not suggest that conclusion).

Then there is the OPEC revenue and climate-change fund being given. That the later is tiny compared to the former is meaningless. That US$3 bn is a staggering amount of money for any project is not presented, let alone a pointless project based on the claims of a small handful of scientists who make millions out of it and a bunch of ex-communist enviro-fascists.

The other good example is presenting African debt to the west. Why is that in the US video? Are we supposed to infer that this debt is some responsibility of the US, or that the US pay down that debt? I can’ see how you get to the former, and the latter is a terrible idea, for the damage it would do to the developing world.

I love the concept, and I was excited when I came across the link, but I must agree with a few others on the haphazard use of data. What exactly are you trying to convey? The nation’s private debt? The public debt? The government debt? It seems as though all you’ve done is cherry-pick data based upon your own spending preferences. For example, how does one highlight the financial impact of the Iraq War on the US national debt, but no so much as mention spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or any other social programs? Also, you toss around examples of government and private spending as if there is no distinction. Why include Walmart’s earnings? What does that have to do with debt? What does the rainforest have to do with any of this? As wonderful as it would be to save the rainforest or give more aid to developing countries would that not put us deeper into debt?

With your knack for visuals I could see you producing some really interesting and useful stuff. However, that is unlikely if can only view data through such an ideological lens.

I would like to also see in this animation the size of the NASA budget.