Sunlight's GoViz Blog

The Most Popular Month for Birthdays

Amitabh Chandra, a professor of public policy at the Harvard University, earlier published a data table detailing how many babies were born in the United States on each date between 1973 and 1999. September 16th happens to be the most common birthday while December 25th is the least popular birthday
Matt Stiles, data journalist at NPR, converted this NYT table into a static heatmap for easy visualization (the darker the color, the higher the probability of births happening on that date) and Andy Kriebel made an interactive heatmap of the same data using Tableau – this version lets you hover over any cell and you can see the underlying data.

Amitabh Chandra, a professor of public policy at the Harvard University, earlier published a data table detailing how many babies were born in the United States on each date between 1973 and 1999. September 16th happens to be the most common birthday while December 25th is the least popular birthday

Matt Stiles, data journalist at NPR, converted this NYT table into a static heatmap for easy visualization (the darker the color, the higher the probability of births happening on that date) and Andy Kriebel made an interactive heatmap of the same data using Tableau – this version lets you hover over any cell and you can see the underlying data.

50 Years of Government Spending, In 1 Graph

Of each dollar the federal government spends, how much goes to defense? How much goes to Social Security? How much goes to interest on the debt? And how has this sort of thing changed over time?

appsandstacks:

Interesting presentation on how people discover books on Goodreads.

nprfreshair:

a map of people in chicago going to work and then going home via their geotagged tweets (via gapersblock)

Is this the structure of Chicago? (by Eric Fischer)

In the age of tight budgets and rallying cries for fiscal conservatism, public media has not fared well. During the spring and summer budget debates, one program facing the chopping block was the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity which supports National Public Radio and PBS. While federal funds for public media remain safe for the time being, the truth is that public media have already seen large cuts in government spending. In the past four years, 24 states have either significantly decreased or zeroed-out contributions to local media. Read more.

In the age of tight budgets and rallying cries for fiscal conservatism, public media has not fared well. During the spring and summer budget debates, one program facing the chopping block was the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity which supports National Public Radio and PBS. While federal funds for public media remain safe for the time being, the truth is that public media have already seen large cuts in government spending. In the past four years, 24 states have either significantly decreased or zeroed-out contributions to local media. Read more.

npr:

To begin exploring how air pollution may affect your community, use our snazzy interactive map of more than 17,000 facilities that have emitted hazardous chemicals into the air. Color-coded dots and scores of one to five smoke stacks are based on an EPA method of assessing potential health risk in airborne toxins from a given facility. More smoke stack icons signify higher potential risks to human health. Zoom in to your neighborhood by clicking on the map or use the search box to find the area you’re looking for.
Want to know more? Check out our series, “Poisoned Places.”

npr:

To begin exploring how air pollution may affect your community, use our snazzy interactive map of more than 17,000 facilities that have emitted hazardous chemicals into the air. Color-coded dots and scores of one to five smoke stacks are based on an EPA method of assessing potential health risk in airborne toxins from a given facility. More smoke stack icons signify higher potential risks to human health. Zoom in to your neighborhood by clicking on the map or use the search box to find the area you’re looking for.

Want to know more? Check out our series, “Poisoned Places.”

7 Billion: How Did We Get So Big So Fast?

It was just over two centuries ago that the global population was 1 billion — in 1804. But better medicine and improved agriculture resulted in higher life expectancy for children, dramatically increasing the world population, especially in the West.

As higher standards of living and better health care are reaching more parts of the world, the rates of fertility — and population growth — have started to slow down, though the population will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.

U.N. forecasts suggest the world population could hit a peak of 10.1 billion by 2100 before beginning to decline. But exact numbers are hard to come by — just small variations in fertility rates could mean a population of 15 billion by the end of the century.

Mapping Latinos in the United States with NPR

The Hispanic population in the United States has grown significantly in the past decade, with Latinos now making up every 1 in 6 residents. Much of the rapid growth - 118 counties have experienced a population change of more than 250%, four have experienced change of more than 1000% - is in the South and Midwest, areas that previously had low Hispanic populations. This morning NPR kicked off a series chronicling this population change and how its changing our overall makeup as a country and impacting towns across the United States. As part of its coverage, NPR is using an interactive map of Census data to show the story of population change.

Describing Sept. 11 In A Word: Then And Now

designalenz:

Be a part of NPR’s 9/11 user-generated data visualization! Word submissions are now open.

Sizing Up Space: A Visual History

In the three decades of NASA’s space shuttle program, hundreds of astronauts flew aboard the five spaceships. Find out about the missions, astronauts and vehicles and life in space.

lookhigh:

China’s Global Reach

China has been steadily increasing its foreign investments outside of bonds in recent years. Between 2005 and 2010, it made more than $224 billion in overseas investments and also entered into engineering and construction contracts of more than $94 billion, according to data compiled by The Heritage Foundation.

(NPR Series: China: Beyond Borders)

I Heart NPR Facebook App Maps Fans

With an office full of regular NPR listeners, it’s awesome to see NPR Digital Media launch the new I Heart NPR Facebook app with a listener map prepared using TileMill, our open source map design studio. The app asks users to choose their favorite station, and their entry is indicated on the map. Each point represents an NPR member station and the size of the point indicates how many people selected the station as their favorite.