USA? USA? USA?
October 22, 2012 2:10 PM Subscribe
Mark Rice writes about historical urban and colonial photography; specifically the portrayal of American colonial acquisitions and the imperfect "American Dream" captured by the NEA Photography Surveys of the 1970's. He's also a regular contributor to Forbes magazine, constantly measuring America's policies and self-regard against that of other countries. His blog "Ranking America" portrays many of these measurements using good old-fashioned bar graphs.
For instance:
The U.S. ranks 2nd in alfalfa exports.
The U.S. ranks 50th in erection length.
The U.S. ranks 3rd in liking the United States.
The U.S. ranks 4th in employees faking illness.
For instance:
The U.S. ranks 2nd in alfalfa exports.
The U.S. ranks 50th in erection length.
The U.S. ranks 3rd in liking the United States.
The U.S. ranks 4th in employees faking illness.
Considering the presence of an "erection length" graph, it's remarkable we don't need a NSFW tag..
posted by obscurator at 2:39 PM on October 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by obscurator at 2:39 PM on October 22, 2012 [1 favorite]
Dude needs to learn to scale his axes correctly. Take this graph. Is it meaningful that 5.63 is twice as tall as 5.39? It seems to me that the top 10 was clustered close together, so maybe a table of numbers would have been more appropriate. Or maybe for a better bar graph you'd need every country, beyond the top 10.
Same issue here.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 4:24 PM on October 22, 2012
Same issue here.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 4:24 PM on October 22, 2012
80% of Saudi Arabia's land is agricultural? How could that be true?
This says 1.5% of the land is arable. So I take it that 80% of that is agricultural? But then that doesn't fit with data for other countries.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 4:42 PM on October 22, 2012
This says 1.5% of the land is arable. So I take it that 80% of that is agricultural? But then that doesn't fit with data for other countries.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 4:42 PM on October 22, 2012
Anyone who ever read the classic "How to Lie With Statistics" knows how generally accepted - and generally misleading - truncating charts is. That's why I always look at the scale first.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:12 PM on October 22, 2012
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:12 PM on October 22, 2012
The graph - "Global Distribution of Fresh or Chilled Beef Exports" is not correct. This site says the situation is quite different, as does the US FDA.
(I get to be on the receiving end of this kind of thing at work all the time. It's MY TURN, dammit!)
posted by sneebler at 12:58 PM on October 23, 2012
(I get to be on the receiving end of this kind of thing at work all the time. It's MY TURN, dammit!)
posted by sneebler at 12:58 PM on October 23, 2012
Yeah, I thought that seemed totally wrong. Netherlands as #1?
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 1:10 PM on October 23, 2012
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 1:10 PM on October 23, 2012
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posted by tonycpsu at 2:18 PM on October 22, 2012