5 ms·
Three-dimensional model of electricity consumption in Manchester (1954)
- jansan 6y agoIt's not only three dimensional, it's even haptic!
- netsharc 6y agoHuh, neat. Frivolous business idea: implement an Excel-to-3d-printer "graph" printer.
- kuu 6y agoYou can use a simple printer, cut them and stock them, as they did...
- me_me_me 6y agoOne funny thing I noticed, in the remark section a lot of those cards describe weather as 'Dull', a lot of them.
- Neil44 6y agoThat's Manchester for you!
- sleavey 6y agoInteresting to compare this to modern UK demand curves: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/295225/Seasonal_variations_in_electricity_demand.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/.... There seem to be dips in the middle of the day in the 1954 data (lunch breaks), and pronounced peaks and drops at the start and end of the working day, suggesting that the demand was strongly dominated by industrial use. UK demand curves today don't show this much - presumably because people still leave their office computers, servers, etc. on over lunch and overnight. There's also a smaller bump at 22h in the 1954 data and it's still somewhat present today in the summer data. I can't think of a good explanation for it. Perhaps street lighting, only visible as a second bump when they turn on only much later (summer) than the tapering off industrial demand? (An example of different demand types: those following fixed working hours and those following varying day/night light hours).
- arethuza 6y agoMaybe electric blankets and a last cup of tea before bed?
- makomk 6y agoYeah, as I understand it industry used to be a heavy consumer of electricity in the UK and it just isn't in that way anymore - particularly in places like Manchester and the North where a lot of the heavy industry was based - because the UK is no longer a major industrial player. I even saw talk by the National Grid in one of their planning reports about not replacing some of the transmission infrastructure up north when it ages out because with industry gone they just don't need that much capacity anymore.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoThe news used to come on at 10PM, I wonder if it was that.
- gillesjacobs 6y agoThe model description doesn't label axes. The biggest faux-pas in data visualization, so let's fix it: X: Days between October 1951 to April 1954. Y: City-wide electricity consumption (Megawatt-hours (?)) in increments of 5MWh. Z: Half-hours in day. Additional info on daily card: - sunrise-sunset time. - several fields for weather information. - illumination. - free form "notable events" annotated on card. Unbelievable someone cut these cards by hand in half-hour, 5MWh increments. Together with keeping track of notable events related to electricity consumption, some administrator filled a full-time job generating this data.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- eurusdac 6y agoI doubt it was a full-time job. Cutting out one card does not take a whole day.
- MayeulC 6y agoYou did not label your axes either :) In your left-handed (?) coordinate system, Y is up, and X is right. Another labeling comes more naturally to me: a right-handed coordinate system where Z is up. That swaps Z and Y relatives to yours (thus changes handedness), and left me really puzzled over your labels.
- gillesjacobs 6y agoOf course, you're right, right-hand axes labels are more common. A good example of the problems we get into it when axes aren't labelled on the original visualization.
- oceanician 6y agoWow. So 1950s. I wonder if this was the very first data visualisation then?
- dmd 6y agoer, what? People have been making graphs of data for hundreds of years, if not much longer. https://thinkinsights.net/digital/data-visualization-history/ https://thinkinsights.net/digital/data-visualization-history...
- graphpapa 6y agoGreat article
- kwhitefoot 6y agoFlorence Nightingale used charts. See https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/aug/13/florence-nightingale-graphics https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/aug/13/floren...
- hawktheslayer 6y agoThe physicality of a constructed graph like this draws me in. I used to work in commercial construction and the superintendent would print out the Gannt chart schedule on a large plotter, stick it to the wall, and use a fishing line and plumb to show the current date. That really motivated the subcontractor who was behind schedule and on the critical path better than an email with an .mpp attachment could ever do.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoA large physical display of complex relationships is easy to read, far more memorable than screen space, and politically and psychologically persuasive. We evolved to experience space, not just look at 2D maps of it. As a compromise I would love to have wall-sized displays - better, wall-sized holograms - which would show all the relationships between files in a project and keep them editable at the same time.
- dylan604 6y agoI was expecting a CGI 3D chart. This is much more impressive.
- ppod 6y agoThere's a note on one of them, 3am 25th March 1953: https://coimages.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/images/290/874/medium_YINH090__0022_.jpg https://coimages.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/images/290/874/me... http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/24/newsid_2785000/2785265.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/24/ne...
- rbanffy 6y agoInteresting. I was expecting a 2D plot of consumption by location, extruded to a 3D volume over time.
- burlesona 6y agoI bet this was really beautiful when it was new. It’s still fascinating, but it looks quite old and faded. There’s so much stuff like that, things still around from the 1950s and 60s in particular, that I wish I could have seen while it was still shiny. One other thing that’s interesting about pure analog data like this, is how they were able to freeform annotate on the cards without messing anything up. It’s always interesting to me comparing systems that work via pen and paper, and how much looser and more flexible they can be (while still functioning well), compared to computer programs.
- brey 6y ago> in an enclosure of chrome steel uprights, mounted on a wooden base, with a handle at each end That sounds so much better than “built on an upturned coffee table” ;-) But I jest - it’s very cool. I love the physicality - makes it feel much more real than 3D graphs represented on a screen.
- PaulHoule 6y agoIt makes me think about old devices that used 3-d mechanical cams.
- jsrcout 6y agoFascinating model. Loved the random annotations on the individual pages. For instance, a brief spike on 25 Mar 1953 was labeled as "Press load following death of Queen Mary".
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- dylan604 6y ago"The graph shows peaks in the winter and dips during warmer months." I found this interesting, as it is the opposite in my area. During the summer, the electric use is much higher with the need for A/C, with a significant drop off in winter as people heat with natural gas.
- acta_non_verba 6y agoWe're a cold country!
- MayeulC 6y agoIt is in my experience a lot more uncommon in Europe. English wikipedia says so without any details. French wikipedia says: > In 2016, three countries concentrate two thirds of currently working A/C units: China (35,1 %), USA (23 %) and Japan (9,2 %); UE is at 6%.
- Reason077 6y agoTraditionally, domestic air conditioning isn't that common in the UK as the climate doesn't really call for it. But it's starting to become more common, particularly in the South East, as summers get hotter and longer.
- iso1631 6y ago1950s was before the UK had widespread gas heating, so electric heating may well have been higher than it is now.