1801 newsletter: The millennial fightback, a hating app, and what feta cheese tells us about Brexit
The festive season is truly upon us. Christmas jumpers, messy work parties, and Journocode’s advent calendar. Just one more 1801 left this year, as I’ll be off gorging myself on nut roast and then disappearing to west Africa over the coming weeks. Still, there’s plenty of digital goodies to feast on in the meantime. The FT’s eloquent John Burn-Murdoch speaks to the now regular Datawrapper blog and it’s a great read. The NYT released their most read stories of 2017. And I recently discovered the blog Spreadsheet Journalism, which tackles some very interesting topics using Excel analysis.
MILLENNIAL MISSION — link
“Millennials are facing the scariest financial future of any generation since the Great Depression,” writes Michael Hobb for the Huffington Post. What a hugely ambitious, creative, and thoughtful digital feature this is. Full disclosure: I am a millennial (according to HuffPo’s definition: anyone born between 1982 and 2004). We are so often castigated, generalised, mocked. This article makes a welcome, weighty change, putting the blame on housing policy and economic infrastructure. Animation is used brilliantly to tell the story, along with a stylish design and a sense of humour. It’s long, but worth it.
FATAL FEDS — link
We can’t always trust government or official data, especially when it comes to controversial topics like police shootings. Vice News analysed figures from the 50 largest local police departments in the United States and the findings suggest that police shoot Americans more than twice as often as previously known — the local departments shot at least 3,631 people between 2010 and 2016. There are some powerful video case studies and good gridplot graphics. Unsurprisingly, there are racial disparities revealed, even though more than a dozen departments did not provide data on race. And the data is free to download too.
HATERS HATE — link
There’s a new dating app called Hater, and this one matches partners based on mutual likes and dislikes. What’s universally loved? Puppies, foreplay, and Italian food. Hated? Dirty bathrooms, dry skin and bad wifi. However, as analysis of the app’s hundreds of thousands of users by The Pudding shows, some of our tastes change over time. Once you’re past 28, Shia Labeouf plummets in popularity. Sparkling wine, however, ages like a fine wine, so to speak. Depressingly, by 37, having “nothing to do” grows in support. It’s all in a nice chart grid, as well as some maps and a cool sort of beeswarm, dot strip plot.
CLIMATE CHANGED — link
Can the climate be gamed? According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we need to reach net-zero emissions by 2060 in order to avoid serious damage to the Earth. A tool by Quartz allows you to adjust the level of taxes for different energy sources such as renewables, nuclear and coal. The problem: even with the highest practical level of taxes for all dirty energy, it’s not enough to reduce emissions to zero. “At this stage, nothing should be off the table,” they conclude, pointing to changes in behaviour such as stopping deforestation and meat eating.
REFUGEE ROHINGYA — link
Even though it is no longer receiving the media coverage it once was, the situation of the Rohingya refugees that fled from Myanmar is truly one of a crisis. A jaw-dropping 800,000 of them are now crammed into ramshackle camps across southern Bangladesh. The parallels with the Calais Jungle are obvious, but this is on a much larger scale. Using satellite imagery, Reuters help highlight the scale of the issue, particularly with regards to shocking sanitary conditions and distribution of water. Lower down, a map shows how the current refugee areas would cover cities such as London and New York. The drone footage up top is very powerful too.
FOOD4THOUGHT
Making a greek salad with this was also a fait accompli.
That’s all for this week’s newsletter. Please tell me if there’s something cool you’ve done or have seen that I should check out.
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