My Love Affair with Graphs

For whatever reason, I've always loved a good chart or graph.

I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's because they can convey so much information with only a quick glace.

What I do know is that there are few things better than a humorous chart or graph. And while all types can be used humorously, there is a special place in my heart reserved for the unique kind of humor that is made possible only with Venn diagrams and flow charts (and I wish I could post a link to my favorite flow chart of all time on here, but it exists only on a crumpled sheet of loose leaf)

So why the overload on XKCD comics? Well, for a comical graph lover like myself, today has been a very good day, and it caused me to reflect back on some of my favorite graphs of the past.

And as a side note, I've always thought that baseball standings should include a graph like this, because the season is so long that a won-loss record just doesn't tell the whole story.

But as for today:

First, you can imagine my excitement when I came upon this, a Venn diagram of potential cross-over varieties of silverware. After all, if we can have a Spork, why not a Spife? Or, dare we think it, a Splayd (though I'm not sure how they came up with the name for that one). In this economy, we could all save money (and time doing dishes) but making the switch to more evolved cutlery.

Then, I came across this post from The Atlantic that shows nothing less than the entire economic history of the world, in a graph. Maybe it's because of my love of graphs (or maybe it's part of the cause) but the idea of the Malthusian Crisis has always fascinated me since I first learn about the term in Dr. Rosenfeld's History 30 class sophomore year. Breaking out of the "Malthusian trap" is probably the greatest accomplishment of modern man (even if it did screw over a few people, as the graph also shows).

Next, Megan McArdle (read her blog, she's awesome!) posted this interesting graph from the Bernstein-Romer analysis of the of the Obama stimulas plan. The graph shows that they expected the stimulas money to have made an instant impact on the unemployment situation. In fact, we should already have seen about 1/3 of the intended impact of the stimulas package, according to the original plan. Curiously, this hasn't happened.

I'm not about to theorize why that might be the case, because this is a post on graphs, not on politics.

Do you bruise easily?