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It's downright deceitful, in my opinion. The entire page is trying to exaggerate the significance of the shutdown.

arscan 13y ago
I personally think the author did this because otherwise the DoD would so heavily dwarf everything else that you wouldn't be able to see whats going on. But I agree, intended or not, this has the effect of heavily exaggerating the proportion of people on furlough. Its like using a log scale on a pie chart. It really makes no sense. The author really should consider this and think hard about what point he is trying to make with that chart on the bottom.
thatrailsguy 13y ago
It's not attempting to be deceitful. The problem is the DOD has 8x as many employees as the next largest agency. If spaced without a logarithmic scale, the rest of the agencies are so insignificant it doesn't have any effect at all. To try to avoid the confusion, I'm working on another graph of percentages working for each agency, and a disclaimer about the scaling.
- waqf 13y ago
  Mark more scale points: I suggest {1,2,4,6,8}x10^n for each n. That way the visual texture of the scale lines will immediately suggest "log scale".
- gohrt 13y ago
  Make a 2nd chart, with little inset zoomy lines to connect the 2 charts (like you see on a paper map that shows a zoom of the downtown core) Like this: http://xkcd.com/radiation/ http://xkcd.com/radiation/
  - thatrailsguy 13y ago
    Is there a good js library for doing this style chart?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
It seems like you're loading it with the Sean Hannity inane view that its basically no big deal though, right?
timtoo 13y ago
Exaggeration seems to be a common theme for one of the authors: https://twitter.com/JustineTunney/status/385843326085132289 https://twitter.com/JustineTunney/status/385843326085132289
RailsResearch 13y ago
Exaggeration was not the intent. We've updated our graphs to be more clear.

I personally think the author did this because otherwise the DoD would so heavily dwarf everything else that you wouldn't be able to see whats going on. But I agree, intended or not, this has the effect of heavily exaggerating the proportion of people on furlough. Its like using a log scale on a pie chart. It really makes no sense. The author really should consider this and think hard about what point he is trying to make with that chart on the bottom.

thatrailsguy 13y ago

It's not attempting to be deceitful. The problem is the DOD has 8x as many employees as the next largest agency. If spaced without a logarithmic scale, the rest of the agencies are so insignificant it doesn't have any effect at all. To try to avoid the confusion, I'm working on another graph of percentages working for each agency, and a disclaimer about the scaling.

waqf 13y ago
Mark more scale points: I suggest {1,2,4,6,8}x10^n for each n. That way the visual texture of the scale lines will immediately suggest "log scale".
gohrt 13y ago
Make a 2nd chart, with little inset zoomy lines to connect the 2 charts (like you see on a paper map that shows a zoom of the downtown core) Like this: http://xkcd.com/radiation/ http://xkcd.com/radiation/
- thatrailsguy 13y ago
  Is there a good js library for doing this style chart?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

dinkumthinkum 13y ago

It seems like you're loading it with the Sean Hannity inane view that its basically no big deal though, right?

timtoo 13y ago

Exaggeration seems to be a common theme for one of the authors: https://twitter.com/JustineTunney/status/385843326085132289 https://twitter.com/JustineTunney/status/385843326085132289

RailsResearch 13y ago

Exaggeration was not the intent. We've updated our graphs to be more clear.