1. Notabilia

Wikipedia has become a truly incredible compendium of free human knowledge, and a cultural barometer of sorts in terms of what we believe is worth knowing. Visualizing the discussions on removing items from its vast library is intriguing because the topics it shows aren’t always considered because they aren’t notable, but are sometimes considered because they’re things we’d like to culturally forget and ignore. The keep/delete leanings help frame and provide a story for each topic, but the fact that we see the story before the topic is almost a spoiler. I’d rather pick a name and then be surprised by what the community has voted for.

2. Tokyo: Right Now

Tokyo: Right Now is a visualization of census data collected in Japan of what people in Tokyo are doing. They asked citizens to record their actions in 15 minute intervals, and the data is available online to be browsed by gender, economic status, and activity over a weekly period in every minute. It’s amazing to see such a complete picture of a city in data, and to be able to browse it easily. That this data is so general yet can become so focused is very intriguing.