power point is the enemy, 27 april 2007

strictly speaking, not a failure to understand numbers
1) the frontpage graphic that goes with the story
is supposed to serve as an example of ppt run amok, but it is actually a great graphic - some smart person spent a lot of time an effort putting a lot of info into a graphic -seriously, th guy who did this is a hero
2) how to make ppts is known see here
3) as with the recent coment by strogatz on probability, even tho how to do it i well known, no one teaches the right method

Time magazine, april 19, 2010 page 36

The graphic on page 36 is a map of the world, showing how much highly enriched uranium is posessed by different countries.
The graphic is extremely misleading, because what the brain processes is based on the visual image of colors, and this tell the brain that the US, russia are similar, and that canada and china are not far behind.
The reality, which is in the numbers in the grahic, is that the US has 194 TONS of enriched, bomb grade Uranium, and the USSR and china have, respectively, 33 and 1 ton of bomb grade uranium.

the online version of this story doesn't seem to have the graphic
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1978713-3,00.html

Bad graphics on op ed page 17 April 2010

April 17 2010
On todays New York Times Op-ed page is an article b one C M Blow, which dicusses data from a public opinion poll that compared tea party members to other groups in the country.
The article is accompanied by a graphic showing the poll data.
The graphic is in a form that is well known to be unsuitable for presenting numberical data; the Times would never have articles that violate basic rules of English grammar, but the innumerate editors and writers apparently have no problem with graphics that violate basic rules of how humans process information.