Somewhere Edward Tufte is crying.
The worst visualization I've ever seen (CNBC on the oil spill)
11–20 of 50 posts
Re: The worst visualization I've ever seen (CNBC on the oil spill)
#12And it uses Flash for static images. Can't they get anything right?
Re: The worst visualization I've ever seen (CNBC on the oil spill)
#13However, a pool that is 1.36 square miles, 1 milk-jug deep does actually does put it into perspective quite well, especially compared to the volume of the ocean.
Re: The worst visualization I've ever seen (CNBC on the oil spill)
#14On The Bugle (a genuinely funny podcast) they were amused by these ridiculous types of comparisons, so they calculated how far cricket bats made of frozen oil would stretch, placed end-to-end.
Re: The worst visualization I've ever seen (CNBC on the oil spill)
#15I think the progression is interesting.
It starts by visualising what 1 gallon equals using something that people recognise in everyday life ... then shows a lot of 'wow, it really is vast' slides, then moves to 'well, it's pretty small compared to the size of the gulf / how much oil we have in reserve'.
It's not a good example of info-graphics - it's a slide-show with illustrations.
Re: The worst visualization I've ever seen (CNBC on the oil spill)
#16As absurd as these visualizations are, it does raise the bigger point that it is very difficult for our brains to understand large numbers.
It is difficult for most people to really grasp how much 184 million gallons is, or to tell the difference between $1 Trillion in bailout vs $2 trillion in bailout money. After some point, we just give up and call it "a lot". I think this has very real public policy consequences.
But I'd bet, we'd very much understand if your boss said he was cutting your $100k salary to $50k.
Re: The worst visualization I've ever seen (CNBC on the oil spill)
#17Oh, it's not that bad. Some of them are reasonable, some of them not so much. The fact that it was enough to coat San Francisco Bay to a depth of 1/64th of an inch sorta put it into perspective for me. (This did not, I admit, need to be illustrated with a line-art drawing of the Golden Gate Bridge).
Re: The worst visualization I've ever seen (CNBC on the oil spill)
#18The graphic is kind of bad, but their idea is quite sound. If you read the caption, it includes:
> Set side by side, the 184 million oil-filled jugs would cover an area of approximately 1.36 square miles. This amount of 1-gallon containers would be enough for every resident of the 12 most populous US states (2/3 the population of the country) to carry one in their hand simultaneously.
To me, that's powerful imagery. Too bad their infographic doesn't reflect that idea.
Re: The worst visualization I've ever seen (CNBC on the oil spill)
#19Unless my maths is very much off, if you made the oil into one long cuboid 1 atom across, the length would be 88 light years. I was kind of disappointed by this, I was hoping it would be longer than the known universe.
Re: The worst visualization I've ever seen (CNBC on the oil spill)
#20And it uses Flash for static images. Can't they get anything right?
You sure?
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/CNBC/Sections/News_And_Analysis/... width="600" height="400" align="left" border="0">