Data Visualization & Information Design Videos Hacker News Recommends

talk#23

A Better Default Colormap for Matplotlib | SciPy 2015 | Nathaniel Smith and Stéfan van der Walt

Enthought

“This hilarious SciPy2015 talk[1] convinced me to switch to the Parula color scheme.”

15 HN recommenders · 2015–2026

explainer#66

Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC

BBC

“Spend five minutes and watch this. Amazing presentation my Hans Rausling”

10 HN recommenders · 2010–2023

lecture#73

DON'T PANIC — Hans Rosling showing the facts about population

Gapminder Foundation

“I can highly recommend this lecture by the late Hans Rosling”

8 HN recommenders · 2017–2021

explainer#318

Wealth Inequality in America

politizane

“This short info-graphic video makes is pretty clear how dramatically top heavy wealth distribution in the U.S. is”

8 HN recommenders · 2013–2025

talk#355

Animations of unseeable biology | Drew Berry | TED

TED

“I had a much greater appreciation for how our bodies are made up of trillions of tiny protein machines.”

7 HN recommenders · 2017–2025

explainer#401

Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs

NumbersUSA

“Please, please watch this 6 minute TED-style talk on immigration numbers”

7 HN recommenders · 2013–2024

talk#404

How not to be ignorant about the world | Hans and Ola Rosling

TED

“I promise it is not a waste of your time.”

5 HN recommenders · 2015–2023

talk#492

The best stats you've ever seen | Hans Rosling

TED

“the original 2007 Gapminder talk[1] still surprised and educates people today”

5 HN recommenders · 2013–2026

talk#527

4 2 1 Christopher Domas The future of RE Dynamic Binary Visualization

Adrian Crenshaw

“really blew my mind when I saw it.”

7 HN recommenders · 2013–2026

explainer#675

Simulating an epidemic

3Blue1Brown

“3blue1brown's video on the topic is super digestible and informative [1].”

8 HN recommenders · 2020–2023

explainer#747

Star Size Comparison 2

morn1415

“The combination of audio and content of this video gives me chills.”

5 HN recommenders · 2016–2022

explainer#988

Animated Voting Methods

Unify The Vote

“I always recommend this pair of videos when discussing STAR voting vs other alternative systems.”

3 HN recommenders · 2018–2022

explainer#1085

Overpopulation – The Human Explosion Explained

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

“Kurzgesagt has a good video on this”

4 HN recommenders · 2017–2023

talk#1126

Religions and babies | Hans Rosling

TED

“Then watch this video to understand the real trends in population growth.”

4 HN recommenders · 2013–2024

music#1136

Flying Dream

Gary Garrett

“this beautiful song using it”

4 HN recommenders · 2014–2020

lecture#1197

Why the world population won’t exceed 11 billion | Hans Rosling | TGS.ORG

THINK Global School

“This video might be more approachable”

4 HN recommenders · 2017–2023

talk#1308

Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen

TED

“There is a great TED talk by Hans Rosling showing the same improving global condition through different metrics.”

4 HN recommenders · 2011–2017

demo#1386

15 Sorting Algorithms in 6 Minutes

Timo Bingmann

“just want to quickly share an IMHO interesting sorting algorithm visualization video”

4 HN recommenders · 2014–2023

talk#1411

Bret Victor - Media for Thinking the Unthinkable

Colin McDonnell

“Tools let us think previously unthinkable thoughts.”

4 HN recommenders · 2015–2026

talk#1554

REcon 2013 - The Future of RE : Dynamic Binary Visualization (Christopher Domas)

Sébastien Duquette

“after having seen Christopher Domas present "The Future of RE: Dynamic Binary Visualization" my mind was forever blown.”

3 HN recommenders · 2015–2024

talk#1735

Bret Victor - Drawing Dynamic Visualizations

Colin McDonnell

“My favorite Bret Victor talk ever is”

3 HN recommenders · 2021–2025

demo#1894

The Known Universe by AMNH #datavisualization

American Museum of Natural History

“So eye opening”

3 HN recommenders · 2010–2020

documentary#1984

The Fallen of World War II

Neil Halloran

“does a great job of giving a sense of what the proportions are of relative tragedies in terms of loss of life.”

3 HN recommenders · 2020–2025

explainer#2132

I Solved Klotski

2swap

“the state space of the game can produce some intuition on why certain games are hard”

3 HN recommenders · 2025–2026

comedy#2180

Why are we changing maps? (from The West Wing)

SaltLakeUsersGroup

“my favorite scene from The West Wing”

3 HN recommenders · 2021–2026

talk#2356

BahnMining - Pünktlichkeit ist eine Zier (David Kriesel)

media.ccc.de

“there's the great talk from David Kriesel on the 36C3 [1] about how Deutsche Bahn is... "doing statistics" to hide their delays. It's well worth the hour!”

2 HN recommenders · 2022–2026

commentary#2478

Sonification & The Problem with Making Music from Data

Tantacrul

“Tantacrul has a typically incisive video [1] about the real potential of sonification as a powerful technique for understanding data”

2 HN recommenders · 2020–2024

talk#2589

Hans Rosling: Global population growth, box by box

TED

“Totally changed (well, confirmed) my world view. Start here”

2 HN recommenders · 2013–2020

explainer#2634

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D

Deep Astronomy

“This [0] IMHO gives more perspective”

2 HN recommenders · 2012–2022

comedy#2673

Gall--Peters Projection

UsefulClips

“one of the best ways to teach someone about how different our classic maps are from reality”

2 HN recommenders · 2015–2024

other#3005

A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 - by Isao Hashimoto

aConcernedHuman

“It really puts into perspective just how many nukes have gone off for purposes other than to kill people.”

2 HN recommenders · 2013–2025

explainer#3044

Drawing Conclusions: Is renting really a waste of money?

The Globe and Mail

“The TL;DW is that if you compare a renter & a buyer from day 1 to the end of a 25 year mortgage, both the renter and owner will have roughly the same net worth.”

2 HN recommenders · 2018–2019

commentary#3193

violin plots should not exist

Angela Collier

“Here is a great rant (borderline lecture) from Angela Collier on why they aren’t [0]”

2 HN recommenders · 2023–2026

explainer#3440

Google Earth’s Incredible 3D Imagery, Explained

Nat and Friends

“Here there is a video on how Google creates the 3D for Google Earth”

2 HN recommenders · 2017–2022

talk#3455

See how the rest of the world lives, organized by income | Anna Rosling Rönnlund

TED

“It helps me put stuff in perspective”

2 HN recommenders · 2018–2023

talk#3517

Is the world getting better or worse? A look at the numbers | Steven Pinker

TED

“tl;dr: it's getting better. We're living longer, homicides are down, fewer wars and autocracies, etc..”

2 HN recommenders · 2018–2022

other#3644

Reddit Place (/r/place) - FULL 72h (90fps) TIMELAPSE

Gurkengewuerz

“I found this whole thing to be incredibly fascinating.”

1 HN recommenders · 2017–2024

demo#3717

NASA | A Year in the Life of Earth's CO2

NASA Goddard

“it was eye opening for me, and seemed obvious upon seeing that video”

1 HN recommenders · 2019–2022

demo#3916

Deep Visualization Toolbox

Jason Yosinski

“Highly recommend this video on the Deep Visualization Toolbox”

1 HN recommenders · 2016–2025

talk#4183

Visualizing Data Using t-SNE

Google TechTalks

“there's a really interesting Google techtalk on how it works”

1 HN recommenders · 2013–2019

demo#4354

High Res Wifi Signal Mapping

CNLohr

“the space is basically riddled with interference patterns”

1 HN recommenders · 2017–2024

talk#4359

H3: Tiling the Earth with Hexagons

Uber Engineering

“They go into a lot of the details later on the same video.”

1 HN recommenders · 2018–2025

documentary#4787

To Scale: THE SOLAR SYSTEM

To Scale:

“a mini-documentary where people attempt to build a true-to-scale model of the Solar System”

1 HN recommenders · 2015–2025

demo#4788

800+ days of Minecraft in 8 minutes

Minecraft

“Minecraft released an animation of their first 800+ days of dev”

1 HN recommenders · 2016–2023