If you’re a fan of SimCity, then you’ll appreciate IsoCity, an open source simulation game. The premise is the same. Start with land, build infrastructure, and try to maintain a thriving city. From the GitHub:

IsoCity is a open-source isometric city-building simulation game built with Next.js, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS. It leverages the HTML5 Canvas API for high-performance rendering of isometric graphics, featuring complex systems for economic simulation, trains, planes, seaplanes, helicopters, cars, pedestrians, and more.

I’ve never been big into video games, but I spent many hours in high school playing SimCity 2000, building up my city of the future. I installed the game from a single floppy disk on the family 486. My city was eventually sustainable with those robot-looking Energy Domes, and I thought our own future looked bright. If I could do it in the game, then surely we could do it in real life.

IsoCity, which runs in the browser, is not as expansive, but it’s a fun throwback.

Tags: city, game, simulation

But players are already in revolt because they can no longer chat to their friends, developers are demanding Roblox roll back the update, and crucially, experts say that not only is the AI mis-aging young players as adults and vice versa, the system does little to help address the problem it was designed to tackle: the flood of predators using the platform to groom young children.

In fact, WIRED has found multiple examples of people advertising age-verified accounts for minors as young as 9 years old on eBay for as little as $4.

I don’t think my kids will be playing Roblox much any time soon.

Tags: Roblox, safety, Wired

The administration cut science funding, withheld grants, and eliminated jobs in research areas that did not align. Nature, with visualization by Kim Albrecht, show the total impact so far.

A treemap with a broken glass metaphor leads the article. I’m into it. But you can see the sudden drop in staffing for the government science agencies in the chart above, which says most of what you need to know.

Tags: funding, Kim Albrecht, nature, science

The National Weather Service has current and historical snowfall data in various file formats and segments of time. The map could be improved, but the data is easy to access to analyze and make your own maps. Just select the file format from the menu and download.

I hope you east coasters are staying warm. Remember to pace yourself with the snow shoveling.

Tags: National Weather Service, snow, weather

In 2023, most of the family’s wealth, about 79% of it, was tied to real estate. These days, a growing portion belongs to cryptocurrency endeavors. For Bloomberg, Annie Massa and Tom Maloney report on the shifting assets.

Despite the new projects, the family’s overall net worth looks remarkably similar to last year at $6.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Even as crypto made the Trumps richer, the gains were offset by the plunging value of his social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. Its shares are down 66% over the past 12 months, despite efforts to diversify into finance, crypto and most recently, fusion power.

Circular voronoi treemaps, scaled by total assets, show the composition. There was an initial swell in the total and then mostly flat.

Tags: Bloomberg, cryptocurrency, ethics, wealth

From the New York Times editorial board, an animated big pile of money:

A review by the editorial board relying on analyses from news organizations shows that Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion. We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view. And they continue to grow.

Money rains down, each stack representing the median household income in the United States. You scroll, and more money falls on to the pile. The pile gets too big for the screen, so the view zooms out. The pile grows.

Tags: cryptocurrency, government, New York Times, scale, wealth

We focus on the bad, because that’s where it can and will get better. It’s good to remind ourselves sometimes.

Tags: Our World in Data, world

There is a dashboard for pizza places around the Pentagon.

The Pentagon Pizza Index (PizzINT) is a real-time dashboard that monitors pizza shop popularity around the Pentagon area in Arlington, Virginia. Based on the famous “Pentagon Pizza Theory,” this project tracks potential correlations between late-night pizza orders and military activity.

Originally a Cold War-era observation that pizza deliveries to government buildings might indicate crisis activity, the theory gained internet fame during recent geopolitical events. Our dashboard brings this concept into the digital age using publicly available data.

I’m torn because this is centered around crypto and memecoins, but a good dashboard built for the right audience and purpose is a good dashboard.

Tags: dashboard, Pizza Meter Theory

For the New York Times, Chris Buckley, Agnes Chang, and Amy Chang Chien analyzed and mapped the location of 1,400 ships that suddenly left their fishing locations and home ports to fill an area 200 miles long. Then they just stayed in place for 30 hours. In all likelihood it was a state-directed military exercise at a large scale.

The lead animation on the article reminds of the study on ants building a bridge across an empty space.

Tags: boat, China, fishing, military, New York Times

We talk a lot about using the right charts for an audience but often wave our hands around for the part about figuring out who that audience is. This week, we cover the types of visualization audiences to make sure we know who we’re talking to. Then, if you know who you’re talking to, you can design based on what they know, what they’re looking for, and what you want to show.

Become a member for access to this — plus tutorials, courses, and guides.

... et les négociants suisses jouent des coudes.

La justice soupçonne de corruption le patron du département de la sûreté de Genève Aéroport. Ce département a ouvert les vannes de la sous-traitance au début du millénaire, et les problèmes ont suivi.

Et le nombre de passagers ne croît plus comme avant (voir tableau ci-dessus)! Heureusement, cette semaine, les spotters du canton ont pu se consoler avec l'arrivée de nombreux appareils inédits et d'une nouvelle compagnie à Cointrin, Kenya Airways.

De la concurrence frontalière au rejet toujours plus massif des emballages, les défis s’accumulent pour Migros Genève. Sur l'arc lémanique, la situation est d'autant plus critique qu'en une décennie, Migros Genève et Migros Vaud ont supprimé 1187 postes de travail. Le patron de Migros Genève explique sa stratégie.

Nos articles sur l'affaire Obiang sont ici.

OC Sport, qui commercialise le marathon de Genève, a misé sur un marché en plein essor. L’entreprise ne fait pas l’unanimité.