Matt Stiles

Hacker journalist.

[mattstiles]

The Health Care Ruling as a 'Word Tree'

As everyone knows by now, the U.S. Supreme Court today essentially upheld the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. I created a word tree to find specific words in the document and see how they fit in context with those around them. Here are phrases that begin with "federal power":

Here are phrases that end with "federal power":

Phrases that begin with "cost":

And, finally, "tax":

The tool allows you to select words and change the view by drilling down:

Check out the interactive version, and try out your own phrases.

[mattstiles]

Charting SCOTUS Decisions Over Time

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to release rulings on key cases over the next week, including the much-awaited decision on the Affordable Care Act.

The court has seen its workload decrease over the last 50 years. Last year, for example, the court issued just 71 rulings, the fewest since at least 1946, the earliest date in the Supreme Court Database. (It decided 197 cases in 1967). This chart shows the trend over time:

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Visualizing the MIT-Knight Civic Media Conference

I've spent the last few days in Boston, helping the Knight Foundation visualize data about attendees at its Civic Media Conference. Here is some of that work, which Knight has posted on its blog:

First, I wanted to know when people applied for the Knight News Challenge on networks, the winners of which were announced yesterday. Apparently some of the applicants are procrastinators:

This morning I charted more than 2,600 tweets posted with #civicmedia hashtag yesterday. Tweets by the hour:

Tweets by the minute:

And the people who posted most with the hashtag:

I also spent some time looking at the demographics of the attendees:

By state:

By domain name type and gender:

Some of the visualizations focused on the panel discussions. For a panel featuring DC's HomicideWatch, I charted five decades of homicides in the city:

And for a session featuring Paul Salopek, a reporter planning to spend years walking the historic path of human migration from Asia to South America, I mapped migration by country last year:

[mattstiles]

Inside U.S. Prisons — From Above

A few years ago, the great Niran Babalola and I dreamed up a news app that included all inmates and prison units in Texas. We built it because the state's database was perpetually down, and we thought the public — victims, prosecutors and inmate families, especially — should have a reliable view inside their state's prison system. One of my favorite features was a Google satellite image of each prison unit.

Here's what Texas' Death Row looks like from the sky, for example:

Today I discovered a nifty new (to me) site that has similar views of most United States prisons:

The United States is the prison capital of the world. This is not news to most people. When discussing the idea of mass incarceration, we often trot out numbers and dates and charts to explain the growth of imprisonment as both a historical phenomenon and a present-day reality.

But what does the geography of incarceration in the US actually look like? Prison Map is my attempt to answer that question.

Check it out:

(via Alan Palazzolo @zzolo)

[mattstiles]

The Daily Viz Has Moved!

My little blog has a newly redesigned home. Come check it out, and please help me spread the word: 

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[mattstiles]

Mapping Drought Conditions

USA Today reports that the country hasn't been this "dry" in five years: 

Still reeling from devastating drought that led to at least $10 billion in agricultural losses across Texas and the South in 2011, the nation is enduring more unusually parched weather.

The map uses the same data we at NPR used recently to map conditions in Texas, which endured the worst drought in its history last year. The map shows the full country, for context, and allows users to see an animated view week-by-week from summer 2010 to last month. Check it out. 

[mattstiles]

Ranking TechRaking Tweets

Dozens of technologists and journalists today descended on Google's beautiful Mountain View, Calif., campus for a discussion about technology and journalism. The conference, organized by the Center for Investigative Reporting, led to some prolific tweeting, as one might expect.

I used a simple script to ingest the 1,500-plus tweets with the search API into a sqlite database. This chart, made with Google Docs' chart tools (when in Rome...), shows the top 25 most prolific tweeters (as of 4:30 p.m. pacific) who used the #techraking and #techrakingcir hash tags.

Congrats, Ian Hill, you top the list (which includes, I think, some spammers): 

This is just a quick chart made in a rush. Feel free to download and check out the pipe-delimited data for yourself: #techraking | #techrakingcir. Send me your visualizations or thoughts, and I'll post 'em here. See the full list of Twitter user counts here.

[mattstiles]

Googling the GOP

A look at the GOP race through Google searches: 

UPDATE: Ron Paul included at disobey's request: 

[mattstiles]

Tiger's Worst Masters

The Associated Press captures the performance well: 

Tiger Woods arrived at Augusta National as a favorite to win his fifth green jacket. Instead, he left with his worst score as a pro.

This chart, made with data from the Augusta Chronicle, shows his four-round average scores at the Masters since he turned pro in 1997. This year was the highest (which, in golf, if a bad thing): 

It should be noted that weather conditions vary each year. Tiger finished second in 2007 when low temperatures and wind made scoring difficult, for example. Still, it's a general indicator of performance. Another measure is the leader board position: Tiger finished 41st this year, by far his worst effort.

[mattstiles]

Tiger's Tee Troubles

Tiger Woods struggled off the tee yesterday at the Masters, a key reason he's tied for 29th in a tournament in which many picked him as the favorite.

Tiger's driving accuracy has also contributed to the general decline in his performance since its peak in 2000. He's looked better this season, though, leading to his first PGA Tour win since 2009 two weeks ago. 

This chart shows his driving accuracy over time, according to tour statistics: 

Here's how Woods' performance yesterday compares to his career — and the rest of the field at the Masters: 

See driving accuracy for all players on tour since 1980. 

PREVIOUSLY: 

Charting Tiger Woods' Career

PGA Tour Driving Distance Increased By 30 Yards Since ‘80

Mapping U.S. Open Venues

[mattstiles]

'Sprawl On The Skids'

Nice before/after map and story from USA Today about how suburban growth has slowed: 

Five years ago, millions of Americans were streaming to new homes on the fringes of metropolitan areas. Then housing prices collapsed and the Great Recession slowed growth to levels not seen since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Growth remained slow last year, and largely confined to counties at the center of metropolitan areas. Maps show population gain or loss in 2006 and 2011, based on new Census Bureau estimates.

Anyone have thoughts about the colors? Though muted, they could remind readers of politics maps. 

[mattstiles]

How Americans Spending Habits Compare With Other Countries

From The Washington Post: 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a fascinating new report out that compares consumer budgets in the United States, Canada, Britain and Japan. As the graph below shows, there’s a huge amount of variation in what people in each country are spending their money on: 

[mattstiles]

How Many Cops Does Your Local Government Have Per Resident?

Does Washington, D.C., have more cops than other cities? That's the question I asked myself the other day after watching a patrol car drive down our quiet, residential street. I see patrol cars everywhere — much more often than I did previous cities like Houston and Austin. 

There's a reason: Among the top 50 most-populous local governments, D.C. simply has more police officers per resident, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, which surveyed large police forces a few years ago. The city has about 670 cops per 100,000 residents, well ahead of Chicago, which was second with about 472 per 100,000. Houston had about 220, and Dallas had about 260. 

Of course, D.C. is the capitol and diplomatic center of the country, and it's densely populated with pockets of high crime and poverty. So a large officer to resident rate is understandable. But it's a bit surprising how much D.C.'s ratio eclipses that of other major cities. 

This chart shows the cities among the top 50 that have the highest per-resident officer ratio: 

Here are the data for all 50 cities plotted on a map made with TileMill. Larger symbols represent higher numbers of officers per 100,000 residents: 

See larger, interactive version

Data source: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics

[mattstiles]

Mapping Surface Wind

Hint.fm visualizes surface wind from the National Digital Forecast Database: 

View larger, live version and archive.

H/T @blettenberger

[mattstiles]

PGA Tour Driving Distance Increased By 30 Yards Since '80

PGA Tour players hit the ball 30 years farther off the tee now than they did three decades ago, according to the tour's statistics. That's most likely because their equipment, fitness and coaching have improved dramatically over that time. 

These charts show a year-by-year average of all 980 players active on the tour since 1980, as well as the trend for Scott Verplank and Phil Mickelson individually.

(See larger interactive versions).

Data Source: PGA Tour