Saturday, December 18, 2010

Hans Rosling's Ted Talk trendanalyzer is now Google Docs Motion Chart

It's not new, but it's still awesome to see Hans Rosling demo the Trendanalyzer wealth/mortality graph. It's a great antidote to Rationalist fatigue; we have made awesome progress in 200 years. Measured in wealth and life expectancy, the hellholes of the modern world are still better than most of the europe of 1800.

Check out the mortality spikes at WW I/Spanish Flu and WW II, and the fall of South Africa.

The real trick is getting the data, but the software is still cool enough. Must be awesome to have something like that. Must cost a fortune though.

Except, it's free. My friend Rob M. pointed me to Motion Chart, Google's rebranding of the Trendanalyzer. It comes with Google Docs. You can make some pretty nice graphics for a blog post from it.

Yes, we've come a long way.

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