2 thoughts on “Which Is Better, Log or Linear?

  1. Mark

    I’m just commenting on the Log vs. Linear article you posted. I can’t believe the log scale is being used by media outlets! It’s bizarre! Most people can’t even read a histogram correctly, never mind that they’ve been trained by every previous graph they’ve ever seen to just automatically relate a trend line to a linear relationship.

    Suddenly the log scale is “all the rage.” One of the things I’ve noticed is that major news publications have been plagiarizing Economist content, running essentially summaries of their articles. And the Economist uses log scales: not frequently, but certainly occasionally. But their audience is trained for that kind of data visualization. Economist graphs sometimes take a minute to decode fully.

    Great find.

    1. cleek Post author

      it really is nuts to use a log scale for a general audience.

      and yep, i bet they’re just copying graphs from scientific papers because the reporters don’t know what they’re looking at either.

      sigh

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