Amanda Shendruk
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not-ship.com
Amanda Shendruk
@not-ship.com
1.2K followers 1.1K following 280 posts
https://www.not-ship.com/

Explaining the world through data and design • Newsletter: Not-Ship • Formerly Washington Post, Quartz, the Guardian 🇨🇦 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
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Reposted by Amanda Shendruk
drsimevans.carbonbrief.org
Worth a read…
not-ship.com Amanda Shendruk @not-ship.com · 14h
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 8:30 AM
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
not-ship.com
If you love them, tell them they're wrong.

My argument for why we need to get better at fact-checking those closest to us.

www.not-ship.com/normalize-de...
Let's normalize debunking each other
The spread of misinformation has become an epidemic, but information hygiene can help.
www.not-ship.com
September 2, 2026 at 5:12 PM
not-ship.com
I had a great conversation with Creator Spotlight about all things charty!

www.creatorspotlight.com/podcast/s/tc...
The principles of good data visualization ft. Amanda Shendruk
Amanda Shendruk is an award-winning visual journalist who's spent 15 years making charts for the Washington Post, Quartz and The Guardian, and now writes the data newsletter Not Ship. Francis asks her...
www.creatorspotlight.com
September 2, 2026 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by Amanda Shendruk
alv9n.com
The ethical duty to understand large numbers, from @ashendruk.com. My irrational hot take: We should say $1,400 million instead of $1.4 billion.

www.not-ship.com/large-number...
Understanding large values: It's our ethical duty
We can't be numb to big numbers.
www.not-ship.com
July 15, 2026 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Amanda Shendruk
heimbergecon.bsky.social
Healthcare spending in the United States is substantially higher than in other advanced economies, yet life expectancy is considerably lower.
July 15, 2026 at 9:51 AM
Reposted by Amanda Shendruk
higsch.com
We are hiring and looking for a creator and developer of interactive news apps.
German language required.
Please share and dm me, if you have any questions.

jobs.spiegelgruppe.de/Vacancies/13...
Redakteur (m/w/d) Interaktive Entwicklung - Ausschreibung
jobs.spiegelgruppe.de
July 15, 2026 at 6:45 AM
Reposted by Amanda Shendruk
yusufimaadkhan.com
“Our world is increasingly moving towards extreme values: Damages from climate change, deaths due to genocide, wealth that knows no bounds. And we can't tackle them if we can't wrap our heads around the numbers.”
July 15, 2026 Understanding large values: It's our ethical duty Amanda Shendruk
July 15, 2026 at 9:55 AM
not-ship.com
What's your favourite technique for trying to understand big numbers? I like turning them into time! In my newsletter this week I look at ways to wrap our heads around large values. What did I miss?

www.not-ship.com/large-numbers/
This is a table showing how large numbers convert to time. 1 million seconds is 11.6 days, about as long as a vacation. 1 billion seconds is 31.7 years. About the length of a career. 1 trillion seconds is 31,700 years, which is longer than human civilization.
July 15, 2026 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by Amanda Shendruk
volts.wtf
An amazing quote from Lindsey Graham in this Atlantic story. It really captures an essential truth about politics that too few people ever really come to terms with.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
July 14, 2026 at 7:57 PM
not-ship.com
Look at the black line in this chart. That's the kind of sheer plummet that says "something is really wrong here". I thought this was a Trump 2.0 specialty. I was wrong.

In the last decade, academic freedoms deteriorated in 67% of countries.

www.not-ship.com/uh-whats-goi...
This chart shows the decline of academic freedom in the US. The decline is very sharp and starts around the beginning of 2025.
July 9, 2026 at 9:58 AM
not-ship.com
For decades, Americans haven't been feeling too optimistic about their country.

Now, on its big anniversary, I gave the US a 250-year performance review. How do you think it's doing? Meets expectations? Room for improvement?

Full performance review here: lnkd.in/ePYdgmjy
This line chart shows the percent of US adults who say they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the US today. It starts in 1990 and goes until 2026. Around 2000, the portion of those dissatisfied became greater than the portion of those who are satisfied. It has been that way ever since.
July 3, 2026 at 10:19 AM
not-ship.com
I gave the US a 250-year performance review. The KPIs — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — are straight from 1776. I checked the data on all three.

Tl;dr: A strong track record, but recent performance suggests significant room for improvement.

Agree?

www.not-ship.com/america-250-...
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: A 250-year performance review
America set three KPIs in 1776. Here's how it's tracking.
www.not-ship.com
July 2, 2026 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Amanda Shendruk
globalecoguy.bsky.social
I especially love this diagram.
June 25, 2026 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by Amanda Shendruk
abbeyarletto.bsky.social
When reality surpasses fiction!

Top: fictional forecast for August 2050, broadcast by French TV in 2014 to warn about the consequences of global warming.

Bottom: Real French forecast for yesterday, June 22, 2026.
June 23, 2026 at 7:23 PM
not-ship.com
Things are really heating up in Europe. So, in today's Not-Ship the focus was heatwaves. I was floored by this: Heatwaves are clearly on the rise globally, but the "dirty thirties" were such an extreme outlier that you can't even see that rise on this chart of the US.

www.not-ship.com/heatwaves/
This is a chart showing the Annual heat wave index for the US. The spike in the 1930s is so extreme that it dwarfs all other data by at least three times. During the 1930s, the US experience extreme heatwaves as part of the Dust Bowl.
June 24, 2026 at 9:33 AM
not-ship.com
I went down a 3-30-300 rabbit hole. It sounds like some kind of conspiracy, but it's a rule of thumb for figuring out if you live near enough nature. In writing the piece, I found out my neighbourhood fails. Does yours?

www.not-ship.com/can-you-see-...
Can you see three trees?
There's a simple three-part test for whether your city has enough nature. Most fall short.
www.not-ship.com
June 18, 2026 at 9:44 AM
not-ship.com
I wanted to find the most-recommended book of summer 2026. So, I gathered over 1000 recommendations from 49 different lists. Enjoy!

www.not-ship.com/summer-books...
June 10, 2026 at 4:59 PM
not-ship.com
Need a holiday read? Why trust a random review online when you can trust — ALL THE REVIEWS.

I gathered over 1000 summer book recommendations to find the titles that show up on the most lists. The top book was on almost 1 in 3 lists!

www.not-ship.com/summer-books...
Your summer reading list, based on the data
I analyzed more than 1000 book recommendations; here are the ones that stand out.
www.not-ship.com
June 10, 2026 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Amanda Shendruk
akshatrathi.bsky.social
"AI systems consistently collapse toward generic outputs when operating without human intervention."

Excellent data-driven look at the sameness we're being forced to gobble these days, by @ashendruk.com www.not-ship.com/nothing-new/
Nothing new here: Another sequel, another lighthouse
Movies, music, everything feels the same. It's not your imagination.
www.not-ship.com
June 6, 2026 at 8:57 AM
not-ship.com
You know what? Apparently we can just end smoking. The UK is taking a pretty radical step with just that target. Here's the case for why a gradual smoking ban is a great idea, and why it can absolutely work in other countries!

www.not-ship.com/huh-apparent...
Huh. Apparently we can just end smoking.
With the passing of a recent law, the UK hopes to create a smoke-free generation.
www.not-ship.com
June 5, 2026 at 10:22 AM
not-ship.com
Everything feels the same. And AI won't help.

Over and over, researchers put AI image generators in a feedback loop. All starting with a different prompt. What did they do? They converged on the same 12 generic image themes.

They called it "visual elevator music."

www.not-ship.com/nothing-new/
Nothing new here: Another sequel, another lighthouse
Movies, music, everything feels the same. It's not your imagination.
www.not-ship.com
June 4, 2026 at 8:23 AM
not-ship.com
What actually unites the right? Left vs right has traditionally been defined by economic policy. But today, Europe's far-right parties are far more closely aligned on social values (vertical axis).

More data, charts and analysis here: www.not-ship.com/what-unites-...
This is a quadrant chart. The vertical axis is Libertarian to Authoritarian. The horizontal axis is extreme left economic policy to extreme right. All the far-right parties cluster together at the top of the chart. United on the Authoritarian axis, but spread across the economic axis.
May 21, 2026 at 10:38 AM
not-ship.com
When Burning Man ends, 150 people walk the playa in a forensic-style sweep. For weeks, everything they find is removed and logged. At the end, they're left with a remarkable accounting of what 70,000 people left behind: The MOOP Map. And I'm obsessed.

www.not-ship.com/burning-man-...
The map that keeps Burning Man honest
The event's Leave No Trace principle isn't just a promise — it's measured, mapped, and made public.
www.not-ship.com
May 7, 2026 at 10:51 AM
not-ship.com
Talk is cheap, especially when it's about the future. There's a new addition to the corporate greenwashing playbook: Futurewashing.

Read all about it in this week's Not-Ship newsletter: www.not-ship.com/doublespeak-...
This scatterplot shows the quality of each company's climate targets compared with the prevalence of future-focused language in their annual reports. The vast majority of companies have either no targets or poor targets. Yet they still have lots to say about the future.
April 22, 2026 at 10:27 AM