Taking the Train

It's not a complicated one, but I like Good Magazine's summary of the biggest train systems in the world (top 5 U.S. cities and top 5 foreign cities).  The silhouettes represent the daily rides in the city, and the length of the train shows how many miles that system covers.  To the right is a quick map of each city's subway system and some statistics about their subway system.

Thanks Li, for sending in the link!

"The Graph" - The Future of Solar Power

Known as "The Graph" in scientific circles, this chart projects the future of solar power.  It was highlighted in a Fast Company article in December 2008.

The Graph was created by a scientific organization that counsels the German government, but it has since become a prized piece of propaganda, embedded in glossy brochures and PowerPoint presentations by solar companies from California to gray-skied Saxony. At the left-hand, present-tense end of the scale, solar power is a microscopic pencil line of gold against the thick, dark bands of oil and natural gas and coal, an accurate representation of the 0.04% of the world's electricity produced by solar power as of 2006. The band grows slowly thicker for 20 years or so, and then around 2040 a dramatic inversion occurs. The mountain-peak lines indicating the various fossil fuels all fall steeply away, leaving a widening maw of golden light as solar power expands to fill the space. By 2060, solar power is the largest single band, and by 2100 it is by far the majority share.

The Best Beer in America

Mike Wirth, The Beer Geek, created this map of award winning beers using 20 years of data of the Great American Beer Festival medal winners from 1987-2007. Originally created for the Lyke 2 Drink blog, it also shows the breweries with the most medals and the specific beers with the most awards.

Great work Mike!

UPDATE: Mike has put up an updated version of the Best Beer in America map.

The Ultimate Mammal Family Tree

This is very cool.  Going back 166 million years to see each of the branches where we share common mammalian ancestors.  The PDF is available for download, and is very detailed.  You need to zoom a long way to even see that there is text naming each of the known mammals in existence today.  It's a radial family tree that also represents a timeline as you move outwards from the center.  Here we are:

 

 

ABC TV in Australia did a short video on the family tree hosted by Dr. Paul Willis, and he literally walks around the infographic describing different parts.  Well done, and seemed very reminiscent of Carl Sagan in some of his shows.  The video credits Robin Beck, a Mammalian Systematist as the University of NSW, of creating the family tree.  Here's the link to the ABC page where you can watch the video, or you can click on the image below.

Thanks for the link Alwyn!  Great find!

This Is Now!

Take a few minutes to enjoy the Sprint website http://now.sprint.com/widget/, a collection of widgets showing seemingly real-time information.

Found on See What You Mean

Long Weekends Calendar

The Long Weekends Calendar was created by thenonhacker (Alwyn Balingit) and posted on DeviantArt.com.  By plotting the holidays in both the U.S. and the Philippines, he has mapped out all the long weekends that need to be considered when creating project timelines involving people in both countries.

It's also good to plan vacation time...

Great job Alwyn!

The Three Laws of Great Graphs

Back in July, Seth Godin posted his"three laws of great graphs" for PowerPoint presentations.  I may not agree with Seth's laws, but I thought it worth sharing for discussion.

1. One Story: While I don't agree for all infographics, I do agree with this specifically for giving PowerPoint presentation.  Steve Jobs is a master at this, or the master is whoever makes his keynote presentations.

2. No Bar Charts: I don't disagree that there are some horrible bar charts out there, but I don't think they should be eliminated altogether.  They have their place, and since they are the default chart in PowerPoint they often get used when another type of chart would be more appropriate.

3. Motion: I'll cautiously agree with this one.  Animation in PowerPoint is often distracting, but can be used as Seth describes.  Don't get caught up in slide transitions, but use animation to highlight the point you are trying to convey to your audience.

How Star Wars Changed the World

The original Star Wars has certainly gone on to produce more than just sequels.  It has created the people and the technologies that are now considered the best in the industry.  Michelle Devereaux created this family tree for Wired magazine back in 2005 and I love how the line colors indicate people, technologies and company connections, but the tree is organized into movies, sound, effects and technologies.

I actually believe the tree is incomplete.  I think Star Wars had far greater reach and influence that what Michelle mapped out here.

It all started with a band of rebels who wanted to help a farmboy follow his dream.  Three decades later, the Star Wars empire has grown into one of the most fertile incubators of talent in the worlds of movies (Lucasfilm), visual effects (Industrial Light & Magic), sound (Skywalker Sound), and videogames (LucasArts).  Along the way, some of the original Lucas crew has gone on to become his biggest competitors.  This chart maps the people, companies and technologies touched by the Force. - Michelle Devereaux

Thanks Alwyn!

Where your Apple Tax goes...

A little humor Monday morning from the brilliant minds behind The Joy of Tech.  Click the link to see the full version.

NEW Death and Taxes 2009 poster

New Death and Taxes infographic for 2009!  Interactive viewer let's you zoom in to see all of the details.

"Death and Taxes:2009" is a representational poster of the federal discretionary budget; the amount of money that is spent at the discretion of your elected representatives in Congress. Basically, your federal income taxes. The data is from the President's budget request for 2009. It will be debated, amended, and approved by Congress by October 1st to begin the fiscal year.

The poster provides a uniquely revealing look at our national priorities, that fluctuate yearly, according to the wishes of the President, the power of Congress, and the will of the people. If you pay taxes, then you have paid for a small part of everything in the poster. 

The Death and Taxes poster from 2007 was my initial post on Cool Infographics, so I'm very excited to see this update.  Now the 2009 version is available to purchase as a poster here.