this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Data Is Beautiful

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A place to share and discuss data visualizations. #dataviz


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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (2 children)

i really do not understand how anyone can be confused by this, obviously it's not a geographical map because new mexico does not contain the sum total of all american railways..

It's a fine graph that gives an intuitive sense for how much area is used for each thing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's really funny to imagine it literally, though.

"We'll I'd heard some bad things about West Texas highways, but this just seems excessive."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

No no, that's the Grand Texan Runway for landing and takeoff of the death star!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah and Michigan doesn't contain all the idle/fallow land in the US but the problem is some people look at this and think that Michigan contains the most idle/fallow land in the US which is why it was used to represent that portion of the data.

I feel like there is a single sentence or phrase that could be written above the or near the graphic which would make it clear but I honestly don't know what it is.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why is some people's inability to use critical thinking anyone else's problem? Like, don't make assumptions then. Or, take a beat to understand what's in front of you. There's nothing wrong with this graph.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes my inability to use critical thinking is obvious because I think this inforgraphic isn't clear enough to everyone. It's not like there are a shit ton of comments where people are obviously confused by this infographic and all of them must lack the critical thinking skills that you must have in spades. You seem like a real swell person. Keep being you and if everyone around thinks your insults make you come off as an asshole ignore them... they probably just lack critical thinking skills.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

"land use amount is to scale, location is not"

Still seems kind of clunky, and given all the misunderstanding ITT it might do more harm than good.