Graph Geekery!

Apologies if this is old news to any of you, but a friend of mine told me about some web videos that highlight some incredibly-well put together graphs that convey impressive amounts of information. I saw them in web videos of Hans Rosling: 'Global health expert; data visionary', who is a professor of global health.

You've never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called "developing world" using extraordinary animation software developed by his Gapminder Foundation. The Trendalyzer software (recently acquired by Google) turns complex global trends into lively animations, making decades of data pop.

He was speaking on the topic of misconceptions people have about developing and industrialized countries--the disparity (e.g., in childhood mortality, life expectancy) has been shrinking dramatically since the 1960's--enough such that many of the preconceived notions most of us have are not very accurate. There are two videos--20 minutes each, so a bit of a time committment, but I thought they were quite worthwhile.

The graphs were viscerally satisfying geekery--simultaneous representations of multiple sets of data--country, population, GDP and child mortality all tracked and animated over time.