Latest news with #ThePudding
Time Out
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
This stunning new project maps every word found on NYC streets
If New York City had source code, it might look something like this. A mind-bending new project from media artist Yufeng Zhao and data storyteller Matt Daniels has sifted through 18 years of Google Street View imagery to build a searchable map of every word visible on NYC's streets. The result, hosted on The Pudding, is part sociolinguistic study, part urban scavenger hunt and fully addictive. Using optical character recognition (OCR) software, Zhao fed eight million Street View panoramas into a tool that transcribed everything from storefront signage to bumper stickers to graffiti tags. In total: 138 million snippets of text, neatly geotagged and searchable. Want to know where the word 'jerk' appears? (Hint: It's more about Jamaican cuisine than personality types.) How about 'gold,' 'halal' or 'beware'? There are maps for each. Some findings are charmingly predictable, like the 111,290 sightings of 'pizza' scattered across the five boroughs or the hot dog hegemony of Sabrett-branded carts. Others are almost poetic in their specificity. 'Luxury' gets thrown around citywide but is especially concentrated in Hudson Yards. 'Iglesia' maps neatly onto New York City's Spanish-speaking enclaves. And 'Siamese'? Not a feline reference, but an old-school term for a dual fire hose hookup. The most common phrases across the dataset form a sort of municipal mood board: 'stop,' 'no,' 'do not,' 'only' and 'limit' dominate—a stern vocabulary of restriction that reflects the city's built environment. (If you're wondering, 'Fuhgeddaboudit' does appear, too—and it's actually posted on signs.) The project's companion search tool, lets users explore these words visually, like decoding the city one frame at a time. But it's not just fun and games. The project raises fascinating questions about how the city presents itself, what it values and what slips into the visual background. It also suggests that while Google may have pioneered Street View, it's indie tinkerers like Zhao who are now pushing its potential. 'It feels like sifting through the city's source code,' the authors write. Or maybe it's more like an urban poem—written not in verse, but in vinyl decals and awning fonts.
The Guardian
13-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The Crunch: how Ukraine drones hit Russia; marine heatwaves; and the collapse of Canada's third parties
Hello and welcome to another edition of The Crunch! There's been so much great datavis published over the last couple of weeks, it was a real struggle to whittle down. But in this week's newsletter we've got another great political▲triangle▲ chart, an analysis of the accuracy of Asian casting in Hollywood, a visual explainer on the Ukraine drone attack on Russia, an interactive map showing the extent of marine heatwaves and how you can mislead people by being selective with the data you show. The Greens lost three seats and their party leader in the 2025 Australian federal election, despite a relatively steady national vote. How did this happen? We took a deep dive into the Greens vote, looking at how dispersed Greens voters are across the country, why a seat redistribution affected Adam Bandt in Melbourne, and the 'three-cornered' contests between the Greens and the major parties in Brisbane. Stick around to the end of the piece to play with our interactive preferences calculator. Our colleagues in the US have also published this great visual guide to the Los Angeles protests. The map is particularly useful if, like us, you find it hard to tell the scale of the protests from the television coverage. 1. How accurately are Asian-Americans cast in Hollywood? There's a lot to like in this visual essay from Dorothy Lu and Anna Li at the Pudding. It starts with a lovely comic strip explaining the inspiration for the piece, then takes a detailed look at Asian representation in cinema. 2. Ukraine drone attack Even days after Ukraine's drone attack deep in Russian territory earlier in June, it was hard to imagine what exactly had happened. Reuters has a great visual explainer, showing what the drones look like and how they were smuggled into Russia inside modified trucks. 3. Marine heatwaves getting more frequent and widespread A quarter of the world's oceans experienced temperatures in 2024 that qualify as a heatwave. Delger Erdenesanaa and climate graphics wizard Harry Stevens at the NYT have produced this interactive piece looking at how widespread marine heatwaves have become ($), with an excellent, if confronting, interactive map that shows the spread of heatwaves over time. Sign up to The Crunch Our data journalists showcase the most important charts and dataviz from the Guardian and around the web, free every fortnight after newsletter promotion The map also works really well on mobile, which you can't always say about a lot of interactive maps. 4. ▲△▲MORE TRIANGLES ▲△▲ Regular readers of the Crunch will know that we love ternary scatterplots, so we were excited to see this view of Canadian election results which shows the movement of vote share in every federal riding (these are Canadian electoral districts), from third parties to the two major parties. The chart was made by designer Nick Abasolo, and you can read more about it here. The New York Times on boys falling behind in kindergarten ($) The Economist on girls falling behind in maths ($) Our World in Data on how childhood leukemia became treatable As The Economist's Archie Hall said, this chart posted by the UK Conservatives is the type where when you start the x axis really matters: And so the FT's Alphaville made this excellent edit of the chart, showing how inflation was far higher – and increased far more – under the Conservatives: Enjoying The Crunch? If you like what you see and think you might know someone else who would enjoy it, please forward this email or send them a link to the sign up page.
