Tightgrid | Geoff Edwards

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One-star reviews of The Wire

I think you can often judge the greatness of a work of art by its most negative reviews just as by its most glowing. But it’s very difficult to find harsh critics of my favorite television show, The Wire. Take Amazon: out of more than 600 reviews, there are only six one-star reviews for the [...]

Iceland on the brink of collapse

Iceland is in trouble.
This North Atlantic volcanic island, which is the size of Cuba, with a population of 320,000 - the size of Coventry’s - is an unlikely player on the global financial stage. It is famous for its fish, geysers and for winning the UN’s 2007 ‘best country to live in’ poll. But Iceland [...]

Storytelling with maps

Of course maps tell a story. But while cartographers like John Krygier and Cindy Brewer offer us resources for making good maps, how do we tell better stories?
According to This American Life’s Ira Glass, a good story consists of three basic components:
1. Begin almost self-consciously in media res, with an unrelenting anecdote full of “and [...]

Dutch town to pave road with air-purifying bricks

The road to Hengelo is paved with good inventions. The Dutch town [map, wiki, official] is paving a local road with green bricks containing “a titanium dioxide-based additive” that “binds the nitrogren oxide particles emitted by car exhausts and turns them into harmless nitrates” when sunlight is added to the mix.
This is the first test [...]

May sees unexpected retail sales growth in London

For the month of May, retail sales growth in London (+3.5%) far exceeded expectations (-0.1%). Everybody’s congratulating the weather.
“I’m staggered,” said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec. “The figures are just on a completely different plane compared to market expectations. They contradict other anecdotal evidence suggesting retail sales activity is softening. There are bound to be [...]