If you haven't heard of TED, it is a series of conferences hosted by the non-profit Sapling Foundation. It is devoted to promoting "ideas worth spreading," and has been the source of some fascinating talks.
Today I came across a great talk by David McCandless, who recently published the book Information is Beautiful. McCandless is a former journalist who became a designer and who seeks to use design to make data easier to understand, or explore the relationship between sets of data.
The whole talk is fascinating, but I particularly enjoyed his breakdown on societal fears. He points out that one of the patterns is contained in the data about fears about violent video games - fear spikes in December, prior to Christmas, and April, the anniversary of the Columbine massacre.
Watch and enjoy.
