Junk Charts

Light entertainment: how social media saves education and education saves us all

Reader Jeannie C. sends us to this infographic purportedly about using social media in education.

 See the rest of it here.

Light entertainment: a self-referencing chart

Reader Jeannie C. succeeded in coaxing me to put up an infographics poster. It's predictable that such a thing would eventually arise: an infographics about infographics...

If you click on Ivan's link, you will find the real "data" behind this infographics.

Let's do spot the "errors".

I'll go for the easy one. 22+24+24+32 = 102. Typically, one could call this rounding error. But it has always mystified me why the designer does not "round" down the individual numbers such that the total adds to 100%. In either case, we have to accept a small amount of imprecision. (For example, 23+23+23+31 = 100).

Your turn next...

 

PS. I'm reading this chart as a parody on the infographics genre.

Ivan pointed out that my contribution above is illegitimate since there weren't any rounding. So, my turn again: the yellow bars are not to scale, China is not 4 times the length of U.S.

Light entertainment: sign language

Reader Chris P. sends us to this poster, with this note:

I swear I will find a chart that is rich in real content and not just humorous.

The original is here.

 

 

Light entertainment: taxing our mental capacity

Reader John M. sent in this brain-teaser of a chart.

(Accompanying article is here.)

The tax on our brain cells may be higher than the tax on our incomes.

Light entertainment: how to compare apples and oranges

According to this infographics, created by Jess B. who submitted it, you can compare apples and oranges.

 

 Fun stuff. The entire chart is here.

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Advice to marketers trying to reach "Edward": You might want to check out Ask ET. Your chance of getting mentioned here drops drastically if you can't figure out who's writing this blog.

Light entertainment: enjoy the shower!

Reader Chris P. sends us to the shower:

I'm not sure who created this chart. But great work! Love it.

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When I first came to the States, it puzzled me that two dimensions (flow, temperature) could be condensed onto one control. I still don't understand why.

Light entertainment: Japan on a chart

A former student and reader sent in the link to this amusement (via Paul Kedrosky):

 
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Or, the Japanese country looks like a commonly occurring curve?

Light entertainment: volume visuals

Frequent contributer Julien D. sent me this link to a video, with the intriguing title "Beer visualization". Since I don't speak French, maybe some of you will tell me what's going on?

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The video immediately reminds me of this visualization of the size of the new Starbucks "trenta" cup. (Health warning: a primary cause of obesity is the portion sizes served to Americans.)

 

 

Living among pie charts

Reader Ced wants you to enhance your life with pie charts. 

You might not want to invite me to your home after you acquire these :)

More here.

Light entertainment: a parade of flags

Haven't seen a chart more jaw-dropping for a while than this one featured in Marginal Revolution: