Andy Kirk
LightNews LightNews
banner
visualisingdata.com
Andy Kirk
@visualisingdata.com
3.8K followers 400 following 1.9K posts
An Independent Data Visualisation Expert educating, inspiring, and celebrating data viz excellence, everywhere since 2010.

🇬🇧 in 🇮🇪

It’s all here http://visualisingdata.com/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
visualisingdata.com
Andy Kirk @visualisingdata.com · 5d
Whether you're new to the data viz world or seeking to make a leap forward in your craft, learning never stops.

Come join my next public training event, the 2-day 'Masterclass in Data Visualisation' taking place at Flourish HQ in London over 23-24 November.

visualisingdata.com/2026/09/new-...
Cover image of data vis event info Photo of training practitioners at a data vis course event Photo of training practitioners at a data vis course event witnessing, some might say, greatness. Some have said, actually, but they go to another school so you wouldn't know them. Photo of training practitioners at a data vis course event enjoying ice creams but this is kind of a bonus feature of events taking place in heat waves so please manage your expectations.
Reposted by Andy Kirk
chezvoila.com
Nice to see @munzner.bsky.social on Bluesky today. 📊
September 16, 2026 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
joescaramanga.co.uk
Anyone thinking that Piddington is a lovely little village story and what japes, needs to watch this.
rolandmcs.bsky.social Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 1d
Very nice to hear a sane voice from Piddington. Serious respect to this woman, who is apparently already being othered by more bigoted villagers.
September 16, 2026 at 8:50 AM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
not-ship.com
I really didn't want to add to the AI hype. But there's something the reporting is missing. That scary number? The ">10% chance we'll all perish" number? It's nonsense. It's just a bullshit hunch with a percentage sign.

www.not-ship.com/stop-trustin...
Stop trusting the extinction math
The AI industry's favourite 'statistic' isn't backed by data. And it distracts from what's really going on.
www.not-ship.com
September 16, 2026 at 8:11 AM
visualisingdata.com
Looks like a chilli pepper heat scale
owenwntr.bsky.social Owen Winter @owenwntr.bsky.social · 2d
Great case of "land doesn't vote, people do" in Sweden
September 15, 2026 at 7:20 AM
visualisingdata.com
Nice to be boarding a plane to leave Dublin just before he sets foot on the tarmac
Air force one landing in Dublin airport
September 12, 2026 at 7:22 AM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
mikebrondbjerg.bsky.social
Totally recommend @visualisingdata.com's #dataviz course!! Do it!! 💯 📊
visualisingdata.com Andy Kirk @visualisingdata.com · 5d
Whether you're new to the data viz world or seeking to make a leap forward in your craft, learning never stops.

Come join my next public training event, the 2-day 'Masterclass in Data Visualisation' taking place at Flourish HQ in London over 23-24 November.

visualisingdata.com/2026/09/new-...
Cover image of data vis event info Photo of training practitioners at a data vis course event Photo of training practitioners at a data vis course event witnessing, some might say, greatness. Some have said, actually, but they go to another school so you wouldn't know them. Photo of training practitioners at a data vis course event enjoying ice creams but this is kind of a bonus feature of events taking place in heat waves so please manage your expectations.
September 11, 2026 at 3:53 PM
visualisingdata.com
My August newsletter is now open for all to read!

visualisingdata.com/2026/09/the-...
The August 2026 newsletter is now open to all - Data Viz Excellence, Everywhere
My August newsletter, sent out to subscribers at the end of last month, is now open for all to read. You can access this issue, as well as visit the growing catalogue of previous issues, on the Newsle...
visualisingdata.com
September 11, 2026 at 2:23 PM
visualisingdata.com
Whether you're new to the data viz world or seeking to make a leap forward in your craft, learning never stops.

Come join my next public training event, the 2-day 'Masterclass in Data Visualisation' taking place at Flourish HQ in London over 23-24 November.

visualisingdata.com/2026/09/new-...
Cover image of data vis event info Photo of training practitioners at a data vis course event Photo of training practitioners at a data vis course event witnessing, some might say, greatness. Some have said, actually, but they go to another school so you wouldn't know them. Photo of training practitioners at a data vis course event enjoying ice creams but this is kind of a bonus feature of events taking place in heat waves so please manage your expectations.
September 11, 2026 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
gasbuddyguy.bsky.social
MAXXED OUT at $9.999!! GasBuddy data showing 5 stations in California that have hit the limit and are selling diesel at the dispensers highest possible price: $9.999/gal
September 10, 2026 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
chezvoila.com
I've just done the largest update to the #dataviz starter pack, with 30 accounts (20%) replaced. It means it will generate more content now. Might be worth re-clicking.

Sadly, gender imbalance got worse. I saved 5 spots for women-run accounts. Send suggestions, including yourself! Replies or DMs.
September 10, 2026 at 10:58 AM
visualisingdata.com
Wow, this was one of the first great vis-videos and it’s been updated
craigipedia.bsky.social Craig Harrington @craigipedia.bsky.social · 7d
Oh my gosh, the best political video on YouTube just got updated after a decade and a half and it's still just perfect!

It visualizes something that I've talked about a lot since the first video came out: The real problem is the billionaire class.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gxl...
September 10, 2026 at 10:50 AM
visualisingdata.com
The post-summer return to proper work has started off in very good shape with an enjoyable two days delivering data viz training to a lovely group of smart enthusiastic people in London. You can’t tell that from only seeing the back of their heads in this pic, you’ll have to take my word for it
A pic of my training room with people working hard on an exercise which means they cannot afford to spend even a second turning round to pose for the camera. As a bonus there’s some nice exposed brutal steel from the foundations of this building.
September 10, 2026 at 8:19 AM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
hypercubexl.bsky.social
GDT's reddit AMA spitting fire

www.reddit.com/r/movies/com...
reddit comment: Hello! Did you intend the ending of Pan’s labyrinth to be real or in Ofelia’s mind? Guillermo Del Toro's reply: My interpretation, and it's exclusively mine, is that it's real. Because there's two things. One is what people call “The Shining Question.” The Shining Question is, Who opens the door for Jack to get out of the fridge? And Ofelia is in an attic with a guard outside her door, and she draws the door with the magic chalk, and she shows up in the labyrinth. So, the only way she could have gone into the labyrinth is the magic chalk. And the flower is real at the end. The flower that blooms in the dead tree. And the reason I think it’s real is because—and this is why I'm in favor of the human factor in art—I think that art does transform the world. You know? Think about it for a second. One of the goals, with all this movement, is to make you believe that art is vulgar. That art is nothing special, and anybody can do art. That is like me telling you that I'm faster at running than Usain Bolt but I “run” in my motorcycle. Well, that's not the same. That’s not the same at all. Art is important, and they want you to believe it isn't. It's part of the idea of control. The goal is not to have artificial intelligence. The goal is to foster natural stupidity. The goal is to foster you not looking for answers, and to trust yourself entirely to an engine. Look at the way we are dipping our toes into these things. We are starting to ask the machine, Is this true? For now, there's a correlation between reality and what the answers of the machine are. For now. But soon, we won't even investigate further. We will be told it's true. And if the machine is in the hands of somebody who should not be trusted, then your reality has been completely and utterly fucked. Because your intelligence ends at the question. You don't seek the answer. It's given to you. Q: You recently mentioned that AI creates 'semi-compelling screensavers' and that you'd 'rather die' than use it. As a filmmaker who relies heavily on practical effects and creature design, what do you think is the biggest thing lost when a computer generates an image instead of a human hand? GDT: The three quarters of the process that gave you the chance to think of the idea that people don't think about without that process. Meaning, AI can get you to the middle really fast, but there's a dialectic with the process that gets you to that top 10%. I'll give you an example with the Pale Man. We sculpted it as an old man, with a face. And then I said, Let's take out the face. This happened because I saw a photo of a manta ray and the poster for Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. That combination, which happened at two different times during a week or a month, are not permutations that are chemically part of an equation. They are alchemy. And then I said, Take out the face, and then I said, Let's put the eyes on the hands. This triangulation happens because I spent a month or two months living with the idea of this creature. And it's not linear. AI is like a super-fast engine that makes semi-sentient permutations of things that are already done. Creation is things that have never been done. Coming to exist. And the second thing is the loss of the apprenticeship that one has as an artist. You're never a master; you're always an apprentice. This is a kinship I have with, for example, Chris Nolan. When he showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him—because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model—and I asked him, How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.” And you're gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally. You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, '94, Jim…
September 9, 2026 at 10:32 PM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
brendelbored.bsky.social
Every podcast I don’t listen to is called “Achieving the Limit with Duff and Ween” and gets sold for 300 million dollars while every podcast I do listen to is called “The Movie Toilet” and begs me to buy a t shirt so they can eat food
December 19, 2024 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
data.ft.com
FT Alphaville’s Art of the Chart show returns 15 October. Tickets are £5, get them here ft.trib.al/c4PlHri
FT Alphaville’s Art of the Chart show returns 15 October. Tickets are £5, get them here
Delightful dataviz and drinks in London’s oldest parish church 👇
ft.trib.al
September 10, 2026 at 6:14 AM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
jonkeegan.com
Where's the AI agent that helps someone:
- Apply for Medicaid for a parent
- Appeal an insurance denial for a medical procedure
- Manage joint child custody?

You rarely see these real problems being solved in product demos. It's all sunshine and planning for trips. Dogfooding all the way.
September 9, 2026 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
johnspacemuller.com
Good news guys ChatGPT solved football analytics
September 8, 2026 at 2:10 PM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
joyofcode.xyz
I made a Svelte component wrapper around Rough.js for creating graphics with a hand-drawn, sketchy appearance 😄
September 7, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
bethanyblack.bsky.social
4 years since The Rock did one if the all time tweets
Rest in peace to Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II. A great woman who sat on the throne as long as anyone in British history. Sad she will never get to see #BlackAdam V IN THEATERS OCT 21st
September 8, 2026 at 5:29 AM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
mcnees.bsky.social
This scraper account posts other people’s stuff without credit. They grudgingly post a separate attribution after the fact, if enough people call them out.

Any time an account says “dm me if you own the original,” just put them on the block list. Don’t let these accounts get a foothold here.
September 7, 2026 at 3:30 AM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
astrokatie.com
Update: the dialect map quiz thing going around is a cheap knockoff of the good one, which is here: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk (Published 2024)
What does the way you speak say about where you’re from? Answer all the questions below to see your personal dialect map.
www.nytimes.com
September 4, 2026 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
chezvoila.com
It's been a while I've shared one of our projects.

A client approached us to give more clarity and punch to their report on downtown Montreal trends. 📊

It was not the first edition, so for once we get to truly compare the before/after impact of our work.

See thread 🧵👇
Cover page with a single large word saying "L'état" and then underneath "du centre-ville de Montréal" smaller. Two columns of text on a background image of the Montreal skyline. A night picture of Montreal downtown overlaid with the title of the report: Un centre-ville en transformation.
September 1, 2026 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
petergleick.bsky.social
And there you have it. Google Maps is calling Lake Ontario Lake America, despite having NO obligation to do so.
Cowardly, unnecessary, corporate capitulation.
August 30, 2026 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by Andy Kirk
chezvoila.com
I love how this artistic project reveals the inner workings of Andy's mind, with a mix of artistry and organization. 📊
My summer side quest - Data Viz Excellence, Everywhere
Earlier this summer I embarked on an outside-of-work project to bring a bit of colour to a blank garden wall. Other than brightening up a part of the garden that spends most of the day in shade, it wa...
visualisingdata.com
August 28, 2026 at 1:03 PM
visualisingdata.com
My next newsletter is coming out to subscribers' inboxes tomorrow, sign up now to get yours!

visualisingdata.com/newsletter/
Cover image for the newsletter with thumbnail images of the 10 works to be profiled in the issue
August 27, 2026 at 3:44 PM