The Electromagnetic Spectrum - infographic comic

I recently found a great old infographic from xkcd.com visualizing the Electromagnetic Spectrum.  Check out the detail in the larger version on the xkcd site.

Visualizing Gravity Wells - infographic comic

 

Another great new infographic comic from xkcd.com.  A mix of real science and humor, this one plays on the words “gravity well” by visualizing the strength of each planets gravity as the depth of a crater scaled to Earth’s surface gravity.

The chart shows the “depth” of various solar system gravity wells.

Each well is scaled such that rising out of a physical well of that depth - in constant Earth surface gravity - would take the same energy as escaping that planet’s gravity in reality.

Click on the image to go to the xkcd.com site to see the high-resolution version.

Thanks for sending in the link Ruben!

Holiday Cliché Find-It Graphic from Xplane.com

Check out this fun Holiday Cliché Find-It graphic from Xplane.com!  It's available as a 11x17" sized PDF so you can view or print it out.

“Get your ducks in a row” so that you aren't “caught with your pants down” this holiday season! After all, it can be like “herding cats” out there this time of year, and you definitely don't want to get stuck “in the weeds.” So, go ahead and take a minute to “shop this around,” “see if it sticks” and celebrate from a “10,000-foot view.” It's all “blue sky” from here on out, nothing but a “win-win situation!”

Think you know your business clichés? Find where they're hiding in this holiday XPLANATiON™ created by your friends at XPLANE! Just click the image above to download the tabloid-sized 11x17" PDF.

Thanks to Parker at Xplane.com

The Simpsons 20th: Comedy [Family] Tree

The Simpsons celebrate their 20th anniversary this week on Thursday, and CNN Entertainment published this chart "The Simpsons Comedy Tree" on Monday.  A combination Nightingale Rose Graph (also called a polar area diagram), family tree and timeline, this simple chart connects the influences that impacted Matt Groening and the creators of the Simpsons as well as the shows that came after.

"The Simpsons" stands on the comedic shoulders of many that came before -- and has influenced countless works that have arrived since. Here are just a few of the roots of the "Simpsons" comedy tree and the branches of those it gave life to. (The following, illustrated by the doughnut at the top of the story, is by no means complete, and each member has its own, sometimes overlapping influences.) 

Thanks to Tony Hendra's "Going Too Far" for inspiration and cartoonist Art Spiegelman for having his fingerprints all over the place.

The article also includes descriptions of the actual influence for each of these shows.

Thanks for the link Matt!

Also:

For those Simpsons fans of you, here is also the poster created exclusively for Entertainment Weekly celebrating the release of the 20th season DVD set on Jan 12.  Dude, make sure to go look at the large, scrollable version.

XKCD: Movie Narrative Charts

Great post by the XKCD online comic series!  They occasionally post a infographic-style piece, and this one doesn't disappoint.

Created by Randall Munroe at XKCD, the Movie Narrative Charts plot the interactions between key characters on a timeline, grouping the character lines together when they are interacting in the movies.  He obviously spent some time working on these, and be sure to check out the detail in the full size version.

The last two are jokes, but the ones for Lord of the Rings, the original Star Wars Trilogy and Jurassic Park are real and very well done.  I love the Primer chart poke at trying to follow the movie!  Not as mainstream as the other movies, but it's definitely appropriate.  I'd love to see how Randall would chart Memento!

Thanks Tom for the email link!  Popular on the blogs, this was also found on Infothetics, FlowingData, SimpleComplexity, VizWorld and Fast Company.

What's a Gruzzle?

So, what's a Gruzzle?  With extensive use of Venn Diagrams, GL Hoffman often posts these visual blog posts on his blog, What Would Dad Say, and Fast Company has also started pubishing them as well.

So back to the original question, What's a Gruzzle?  Here's a really good answer, by one of his readers:

But here's the official answer:

You can also follow @GLHoffman on Twitter

Procrastination: The Infographic Video

Although I really like this video by Johnny Kelly at Design You Trust (Good-Okay-Brilliant-Great job Johnny!), I not convinced this is infographics.

What do you think?  Is this infographics or illustration?

Found on The MLxperience

Information vs. Confusion chart

Love it!

From Jessica Hagy on Indexed.

Balance Your Media Diet (The Media Pyramid Infographic)

From Wired Magazine's "New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans" section of the August 2009 issue.

Practicing good nutrition keeps your mind sharp, your body fit, and your life long. The same could be said for consuming media. (Seriously, knowledge is power.) When you add it all up, the average American spends roughly nine hours a day glued to some kind of screen, and like your diet, quality is as important as quantity. Here areWired's suggested servings for optimal media health.

Found on Nathan's Flowingdata.com

What is Your Wine Personality?

From the Texas Department of Agriculture at GoTexanWine.org, the Wine Personality Wheel comes from the Texas in a Bottle guide to Texas Wine (download as a pdf).  I love the sense of humor.

Ever listen to somebody describe a wine?  They talk about it having "character" and "personality."  To hear them tell it, wines are a lot like people.  We've talked it over and came to a conclusion - they have it backwards.  People are a lot like wines.

Here at the Viticultural Personality Institute, we've compiled a fun list of personality types based on wine preferences.

If your favorite wine listed here does not accurately reflect your particular personality, please choose another favorite wine (or change your personality - otherwise, you'll make our researchers look bad).

Looking around the GoTexanWine.org site, I also found a good, animated timeline (link) of the history of wine in Texas.

Eight federally approved Viticultural Areas currently exist in Texas. Eighty-five percent of wine from a Viticultural Area must be made from grapes grown within the area's boundaries. If the wine is a varietal, 75 percent of that wine must be made from the designated grape variety.