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Gregor Aisch

@driven-by-data.net

2.8K followers 440 following 180 posts

Senior Visual Data Journalist at @zeit.de. Co-founder and former CTO of @datawrapper.de. Former @nytimes.com graphics editor #datajournalism #graphics #maps #cartography (he/him)

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · May 13

Last week I had the pleasure of finally releasing the #SveltePlot alpha version during my talk at the #SvelteSummit in Barcelona. It's a new visualization framework for @svelte.dev that I've been working on for the past 18 months, so it's about time for a 🧵

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Tom Calver @tomcalver.bsky.social · 10d

NEW: Since the start of the Ukraine invasion, 17 out of 27 EU nations have spent more on Russian oil and gas than they’ve sent to Ukraine in aid!

Despite an oil embargo, Europe is still sending £1bn a month on Russian energy.

This week’s column:

www.thetimes.com/article/dd9d...

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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 11d

When you consider the *ecocide* alongside the genocide being perpetrated in Gaza, you begin to grasp the totality of the Israeli state’s attempt to eliminate both the Palestinians and their homeland.
My column today.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Israel’s ecocide in Gaza sends this message: even if we stopped dropping bombs, you couldn’t live here | George Monbiot

Consider the annihilation of agricultural land alongside the genocide – and grasp the chilling totality of this attempt to eliminate all life, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

www.theguardian.com

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · 19d

This seems to be a good moment to cancel that Disney+ subscription. I didn’t watch two seasons of brave rebels fighting the evil Empire only to see real world media conglomerates bowing to government pressure at the slightest hint…

Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · 23d

3. But why would you look at the distributions side by side (horizontally) when you can learn so much more if they're stacked vertically. You almost lose all of the benefits these 3 chart power-horses can offer us when not stacking them orthogonally to the main dimension.

The horizontal layout in a "raincloud plot" makes it actually harder to compare distributions...

A vertical layout makes it a lot easier to compare the distributions. Also a lot more mobile friendly.

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · 23d

2. And yes, it's definitely better to look at your data in different ways than just relying on one chart type. And yes, histogram/density, box plots and scatter are high on the list.

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · 23d

Interesting, didn't know about "raincloud plots". Here are my hot takes:

1. Raincloud plot is not a new plot, but 3 plots stacked (density, box plot, jittered 1d scatter).

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The Upshot @upshot.nytimes.com · 24d

What Malnutrition Does to Children’s Bodies

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 26d

Israel ordered everyone in Gaza City to leave. Satellite images show how hard that’s going to be. nyti.ms/3VMbtp7

A small map of the Gaza Strip next to the headline "Where Will Everyone In Gaza City Go?" More text reads: "The Israeli military is telling hundreds of thousands of Gaza City residents to find space to shelter in an already densely populated area to the south."

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · 25d

For my latest Weekly Chart at @datawrapper.de I tried a different way of mapping destruction in Gaza using OSM buildings. www.datawrapper.de/blog/mapping...

OSM building footprints in Gaza overlaid with damage assessment by Corey Scher and Jan Van Den Hoek.

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Robert Simmon @rsimmon.bsky.social · Aug 26

Have you ever wanted to map satellite data like temperature, cloud cover, and vegetation with GDAL? I wrote a tutorial for that! medium.com/@robsimmon/a...

A Gentle Introduction to GDAL Part 6.1: Visualizing Data

You may be wondering what I mean by “data visualization with GDAL”? After all, aren’t satellites images and maps — prominently featured in…

medium.com

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · Aug 16

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com

“Gaza represents not some distant and inevitable tragedy, but our own moral and practical failing,” our columnist Nicholas Kristof writes. “We have blood on our hands.”

Opinion | Answering My Critics About the War in Gaza

Why I believe American support for Israel in this conflict is a moral and practical failure.

nyti.ms

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Prof Lisa Schipper 🌍🍉💪 @lisaschipper.bsky.social · Aug 12

Absolutely devastating but no longer headline news…
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Wildfires rage across southern Europe as temperatures pass 40C

The heatwave has led to red alerts being issued in parts of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and the Balkans.

www.bbc.com

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · Aug 2

I've been playing with the new Observable Notebooks 2.0 over the past days and I'm amazed. While still a preview I think it's already a serious alternative to R or Jupyter notebooks. Love that it works locally now and that notebooks are just HTML files with vanilla JS observablehq.com/notebook-kit/

Observable Notebooks 2.0 Technology Preview | Observable

observablehq.com

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Stefan Niggemeier @niggi.bsky.social · Aug 1

„In March, Israel imposed an aid blockade on Gaza in an effort to squeeze concessions from Hamas; it also said, without providing evidence, that the militant group was systematically stealing the supplies. That (...) caused widespread hunger among Gazans.“ www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

How Did Hunger Get So Much Worse in Gaza?

Less food is going into Gaza now than during most other times in the war. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed while heading toward aid sites. Many others are suffering from serious malnutrition,...

www.nytimes.com

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Mike Bostock @ocks.org · Jul 29

Notebooks 2.0 is here! 📓🔮 Previewing today: Notebook Kit, an open file format for notebooks with open-source tooling for generating static sites; and Observable Desktop, a macOS desktop application for editing notebooks as local files, with a radical new approach to AI. observablehq.com/notebooks/2/

Observable Notebooks 2.0 Technology Preview | Observable

observablehq.com

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · Jul 24

Nein, ich glaube das ist nicht so gern gesehen, wenn man seinen eigenen Artikel schreibt. Fakten korrigieren müsste aber gehen, so lange du sie auch mit externen Quellen belegen kannst (du selbst zählst glaube nicht als Quelle 😅).

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · Jul 24

*Huge* new feature in Datawrapper! You can now create locator maps using the globe (aka orthographic) projection. Makes small scale maps so much better compared to the Mercator projection! All thanks to the amazing folks at @datawrapper.de and @maplibre.org ❤️
www.datawrapper.de/blog/new-glo...

New: Globe projection in locator maps | Datawrapper Blog

Create locator maps using a globe projection

www.datawrapper.de

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Covering Climate Now @coveringclimatenow.org · Jul 19

Extreme heat doesn’t receive the same “round-the-clock” coverage as wildfires, hurricanes, or floods. Yet, “Of all the climate disasters we face, heat is the most urgent, and its day-to-day effects are also the trickiest to talk about.” By Meg Bernhard @columjournreview.bsky.social

What Makes Heat So Hard to Cover?

For journalists, the most urgent climate disaster is also the trickiest to report on.

buff.ly

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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · Jul 5

Trump’s approval rating on deportations is currently lower than his approval on the economy

www.gelliottmorris.com/p/data

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · Jul 2

I feel we can look at data as long as we want without ever grasping how serious this is. This is what 1.5 degrees warming feels like, and on our current course we’re heading for 2.7. There’s no „good side“ to look at in a summer like this.

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · Jul 2

No map or visualization can tell you how hot 37°C feels like. Walking the streets in Berlin today feels like slowly dying. Spain and Portugal have suffered from this heat wave all week, and I can’t even begin to imagine temperatures in China, India, Iran, etc. www.zeit.de/wissen/2025-...

Hitze in Europa: Hier ist die Hitze am extremsten

Selten war es in ganz Europa so früh so heiß. Für Millionen Menschen wird das zu einer wiederkehrenden Gefahr. Daten zeigen, welche Regionen besonders betroffen sind.

www.zeit.de

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Marcel Pauly @marcelpauly.bsky.social · Jun 23

The representative electoral statistics show how often each demographic group voted for different parties in the German federal election. This year, I’ve prepared the data as radar charts. What do you think: does this type of chart work well for this kind of data? www.spiegel.de/politik/deut...

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AccuWeather @accuweather.com · Jun 29

Multiple tornadoes tore across parts of South Dakota on Saturday.

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Kyle Buchanan @kylebuchanan.bsky.social · Jun 23

So excited to have this out!

I’ve been working on The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century for months. We polled over 500 major directors, actors, and other people in and around Hollywood to find out the best films released since 2000. You’re gonna be obsessed. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century (Gift Article)

More than 500 influential directors, actors and other notable names in Hollywood and around the world voted on the best films released since Jan. 1, 2000. See how their ballots stacked up.

www.nytimes.com

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Gregor Aisch @driven-by-data.net · Jun 22

Special thanks to Prof. Dr. Georg Feulner who compiled data from many different studies into a single time series. Without climate scientists, we wouldn't be able to do this!

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