Scatter Plot

Recent posts

Charting Obama’s Path

While in Europe I missed this excellent interactive graphic by Alicia Parlapiano and Amanda Cox of The New York Times. It plots 2008 presidential election results by state with adult residents’ higher education rates: 

Some Democrats believe Ohio may no longer be crucial to a 2012 election victory. Instead, states like Colorado and Virginia, with more highly educated voters, may be the Democrats’ must-win states.

I found the graphic, btw, while reading a post by Matthew Ericson — who works with Parlapiano and Cox — in which he argues that maps aren’t always the most effective method for displaying geographic information.

Filed under: Obama, Politics, Scatter Plot, The New York Times, whydidn'tithinkofthis

Comparing National Obesity

I just noticed this cool tool by Alex Perez on Data.gov that maps and charts American obesity by county. His interactive uses proportional symbols and colors to visualizes differences between, with larger bubble and darker reds representing increased obesity rates. Here’s Louisiana:

 

Selecting a county (or, in this case, a parish) highlights its corresponding distribution on scatter plots that compare the proportion of residents who smoke, or eat few vegetables, or don’t exercise. 

As you can see, Moorehouse Parish has a high obesity rate, in part because its residents aren’t lives that are as healthy as others: 

Data.gov has posted other interactives like this in its developer showcase. 

Made with Tableau Public

Filed under: data.gov, Proportional Symbols, Scatter Plot, Tableau Public

Visualizing 2010 Movie Sales

This scatter plot shows how major Hollywood movies performed in 2010. The x-axis, from left to right, shows more money spent to make each movie. The y-axis, from bottom to top, shows more gross sales for each movie. I’ve filtered out movies that were below the median for budget and sales: about $20 million.

View larger version | View larger version with labels

Source: The-Numbers.com

Filed under: Hollywood, Movies, Scatter Plot

Visualizing Congress

I just discovered the promising Clear Congress Project today, which visualizes legislative data by political party and other other variables in real time. A mission statement from the developer: 

With the expansion of the Internet and computing technologies, the amount of data generated and recorded has increased exponentially. Recently, government initiatives, non-profits, and news organizations have created easily accessible sources for the large amount of data created pertaining to government institutions. However, government organizations too often mistake access for transparency and news organizations have been reluctant to adopt innovative news delivery formats better designed for their new role as producers and distributors of not just stories but also data. Clear Congress Project (CCP) leverages real-time data sources and information visualization techniques to serve as a model that realizes transparency as a process beyond data access and offers a new format for news distribution.

(via Chip Oglesby)

Filed under: Congress, Scatter Plot

World Internet Stats

The U.S. is among the most wired countries in the world, with three out of every four Americans having access to the Internet, according to these stats. Only Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom have higher rates of Internet use. 

This charts shows the top 25 most populous countries in the world, and plots the percentage of Internet users on the x axis (bottom), and the population of total Internet users on the y axis (left).

The U.S. is the orange dot. Notice that China, which has about 450 million users, still lags behind other counties in penetration rate. It’s the large dot at the top middle. So does India, the larger dot at the bottom left. (See an interactive version): 

Here’s the view as a map (see an interactive version): 

BTW: Iceland has the highest Internet penetration (98 percent). East Timor has the lowest rate (.2 percent). 

Source: Internet World Stats | Download data

Filed under: Google Fusion Tables, intensity map, internet, Scatter Plot

Shaq’s Career Stats

Shaquille O’Neal is ending his 19-year NBA career, according to his Twitter feed: 

Shaq ooout. #ShaqRetires http://www.tout.com/9944wo

This scatterplot shows how the 7-foot-1 star’s field goal performance has declined over time, as O’Neal moved from Orlando to LA and, ultimately, Boston. The Y-axis shows the number of field goals made, and the X-axis shows his age (view the interactive version):

Use the drop-down menus to change views. This one shows that Shaq’s field goal percentage improved with age, even as his output declined: 

Filed under: basketball, Many Eyes, NBA, Scatter Plot