One Year in Iraq

New infographic from nytimes.com depicting the 2,592 deaths in Iraq over the course of the entire year of 2007. The graphic is credited to Alicia Cheng, a graphic designer at mgmt. design in Brooklyn.

The chart below — compiled from data provided by the American and Iraqi governments and news media organizations (the independent Coalition Casualty Count in particular) — gives information on the type and location of each attack responsible for the 2,592 recorded deaths among American and other coalition troops, Iraqi security forces and members of the peshmerga militias controlled by the Kurdish government.

I think this is an improvement over the "31 Days in Iraq" graphic because the new graphic identifies every death as a separate figure instead of grouping some together. There are also some differences in data, as the new graph doesn't include the Iraqi civilian deaths. So the "31 Days in Iraq" graphic showed over 1,900 deaths in January 2007, this new graphic only shows 163 deaths in January.

And, sadly, civilian fatalities in Iraq last year were simply too numerous to represent on a single newspaper page.

I'll keep an eye out in early February to see if they publish one for the month of January as they have the last couple of years.

Smoking Kills 200,000 Every 6 Months

Skull With Cigarette, 2007 [based on a painting by Van Gogh]
72x98"

Depicts 200,000 packs of cigarettes, equal to the number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking every six months.

I've become a big fan of Chris Jordan's work, especially the Running The Numbers series. I just noticed that he has added to the collection on his website with some new pieces! A friend of mine quit smoking this week, so in her honor I want to share one of the new artwork pieces.

Miraculous Logistics Behind Operation Christmas

Holiday Infoporn from Wired.com.

Here's our theory: There is, in fact, a nonsupernatural Santa. It's a transnational corporation with one mission-critical fulfillment goal: Every kid who celebrates the holiday gets a toy on Christmas eve.

Check out the side-scrolling timeline at the bottom. I think they should have included Chinese New Year.

The President's Entourage

Found on Digg, a quick graphic showing the massive entourage that travels with the President.

Lotteries Profit, but Do Students?

Interactive graphic, from the NYTimes:

Lotteries in 42 states and the District of Columbia rake in billions of dollars, but much of the cash from ticket sales gets channeled back into prizes and lottery administration. States earmark the profits for programs like education, but the lottery dollars contribute only a small percentage of the total education funding.

Map of the Internet (blacklisted)

Found on Information Aesthetics, this is a map of all 4,294,967,296 IP addresses in the world. Blocks of addresses are shown grouped together in squares based on the owner (ISP, corporation, goverment, university, etc.), and individual addresses are shown as grey dots. The IP addresses that are listed on the Spamhaus XBL blacklist are shown as red dots, representing suspect addresses.

Plastic Bags

Here's another one from Chris Jordan. Is it art, or is it infographic?

The image shows 60,000 plastic bags, which is how many bags are used in the U.S. every 5 seconds! The picture currently on display at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles is 5ft x 6ft large so viewers can step up close to see all of the details.

Shanghai Urban Planning

Last year I was in Shanghai, China on business. A friend suggested we visit the Shanghai Urban Planning building, and the first thing I thought was "ohhh, I bet that's exciting...not". But, he convinced us to give it a try, and here are a few photos I took.

On the top floor of this building is the largest model of urban planning in the world. For an American, seeing Shanghai is a shock at how large the city is, and how many skyscrapers there are. For reference, Shanghai's population is about 22 million people, compared to about 8 million in New York. Most U.S. cities have a "downtown" type area where the most skyscrapers are clustered, but Shanghai is a city of skyscrapers everywhere.

The World Population Map is one way to understand the scale difference between the U.S. and China, but this model city is astounding. Even better than riding around town (you definitely don't want to be the one driving), the model city really drives home the scale of Shanghai, and what has been accomplished in urban development. The model is built at 1:2000 scale.

Those are the building support columns in the middle of the model, NOT some new super skyscraper!

Bed Sheets for Couples

My wife got the biggest laugh out of these. Found on Information Aesthetics, these double bed sheets are printed with a ruler starting at the center and measuring outward. You can always tell whose side you're on because the ruler is printed to be read when you are in the bed.

The sheets are from DesignWise, a store chain with designer products in Portugal, Spain and France. DESIGNWISE is a brand that edits original products and objects created by Portuguese designers.

The Elegant Universe

Following my earlier post on Imagining the Tenth Dimension, I found that NOVA has put the entire 3-hour show The Elegant Universe on their website.

The show is full of different visual methods to visual strings, gravity, the scale of particles and multiple dimensions. Brian Greene really did a fantastic job with this show based on his book on the same name.