
The Weight of Rain - ams1
http://style.org/visualized/
======
mutagen
_If the only thing you’re doing is coming up with a single number, then you’re
doing arithmetic, not visualization._ ... _And I think that the goal of
visualization is not finding elaborate ways to encode information. I try to
encode as little as possible._ ... _But to me this feels like imposing a
design on the data, and drawing attention to the design more than the data._

The whole thing is great, I'm glad I stuck with it past the first few images
to see where he's going. These bits stuck out though and his work is so often
things I wish I had thought of.

~~~
ohashi
It really is hard dealing with data and the amount of thought this guy has put
into it and his approach is really excellent.

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tptacek
Everything else at style.org is equally amazing. Corum was, IIRC, a student of
Tufte's.

Here's an especially great pair:

[http://style.org/unladenswallow/](http://style.org/unladenswallow/)

[http://style.org/strouhalflight/](http://style.org/strouhalflight/)

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mdda
One thing that surprised me was the statement about a sun that would soon
engulf the nearby planet - and being so relatively large that the planet was
'more than half' in sunlight (~ the sun's disc shines 'around the corners').

But isn't that true on earth too (to a much smaller degree)? As long as the
sun's radius is larger than the earth, then sunlight will fall simultaneously
on more than a half of the earth's surface, no?

~~~
dredmorbius
It is true for the Earth and Sun, yes, but the amount of overfill is small.

I don't know the apparent size of the star in question here -- ah, the paper
([http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.3943v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.3943v1.pdf))
gives it: 46.5%. Compare that with the apparent size, or angular diameter, of
the Sun as viewed from Earth: 2 degrees. About the size of your thumb at arm's
length.

Your mileage may vary, but if I extend both my hands out, touch the thumbs
together, and spread my thumbs and pinkies as wide as I can, that's roughly
20x wider than my thumb. Imagine _that_ as the Sun looming in your sky.

~~~
SiVal
I believe the angular diameter of both sun and moon are roughly half a degree,
not two degrees. You remembered the two correctly, but put two degrees in one
sun instead of two suns in one degree. That's how our brains work, isn't it?

~~~
dredmorbius
Thanks for that.

I managed to mis-read from Wikipedia: "The angular diameter of Earth's orbit
around the Sun, from a distance of one parsec, is 2″ (two arcseconds)."
Somewhat lower on the page we find: "The table shows that the angular diameter
of Sun, when seen from Earth is approximately 32 arcminutes (1920 arcseconds
or 0.53 degrees), as illustrated above."

So, if my initial estimate of "thumb at arm's length is the size of the Sun",
then my "two hands spanned" is about 4x too small ... woah. Hold your arms out
at a 45° angle. That's about the size of it.

That would be ... a _lot_ of star in the sky ...

I also should've trusted my first impression on the 0.5 degree as well. I
believe I knew that. Hasty verification fouls memory.

~~~
Dylan16807
Interesting that your first comment explicitly stated 46 degrees but then you
somehow logiced yourself out of that.

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martindale
Every so often, you follow a link that you'd thought not worth the click.
Therein you discover just how wrong one can be.

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wmeredith
I wish I had more than one upvote to give to this talk. I was giddy half way
through it and my jaw was hanging open by the end of it. What an inspiring
look at the design process. I'm an interaction designer and this REALLY spoke
to me.

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K2h
This is a great presentation on how to effectively communicate data and it is
not just putting raw data on a slide. it takes time and major creativity to
communicate. Read the presentation for another reason, a good example of a
catchy, relevant intro tied to a closing.... something that makes us all
better communicators.

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reneherse
Process and presentation at the level of... poetry.

~~~
ableal
Yes, it also struck me that way.

As an offtopic aside, the Mars day/year slide (
[http://style.org/visualized/images/weightofrain_34.jpg](http://style.org/visualized/images/weightofrain_34.jpg)
) made me think we should really build a "second home" (or vacation house, or
mountain cabin).

Perhaps mountain cabin is the appropriate metaphor. It's another 70 million km
up the Sun's gravity well. If we take solar energy supply as a feasibility
criterion, it's 43% of what we get on Earth. (Data courtesy of
[http://idahoptv.org/ntti/nttilessons/lessons2000/lau1.html](http://idahoptv.org/ntti/nttilessons/lessons2000/lau1.html)
)

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rwhitman
I don't have a comment smart enough for HN to express how cool I think this
is. I want to print it out and thumbtack it to my wall like I'm 14

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Gracana
Fantastically interesting.

~~~
carrotsarm
The best way to say that is by simply up-voting.

HN would become a much better place if the comments are more insightful and
represent the perspective of the person commenting :)

~~~
Gracana
Good grief. I'm at a loss for words. You have the audacity to call me out for
failing to meet your expectation of _praise_!? Is the simple expression of my
feelings not even worth _skimming over at the bottom of a page_?

If you want to make HN a better place, why not try to lead discussions?
Certainly that would be a better technique than going around telling people
that their silence would improve the community.

People have said a lot of things to me online, but I don't think I've ever
felt as insulted as I do right now.

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ToastyMallows
I really like the layout of this talk. I hate when people just link to the
powerpoint of a talk and expect everyone to follow along like they were there,
with no narration.

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nitrogen
Although the graphics are excellent, the site's hijacking of the left and
right arrow keys is not appreciated.

