Achim Tack

Hi! I'm an urban planner and data wrangler passionate about maps and geospatial data. I work as a consultant in data analytics at Ubilabs and as a data journalist in the Data & Visualizations unit at Der Spiegel. In my spare time, I engage in creative projects blending technology with design.

Wer sich in den vergangenen Wochen etwas mit der NSDAP-Mitgliederkartei beschäftigt hat, musste irritiert sein vom Stunt von Correctiv und Katapult. Viel zu spät haben die Medienhäuser begriffen, was sie da am Dienstag rausgehauen haben. Nun mussten sie ihre Veröffentlichungen zurückziehen. 1/12

A special FT magazine issue all about maps is out today, w great pieces by @okr.bsky.social and @theboysmithy.ft.com, plus maps by me on how glacial melt is redrawing Alpine borders, the battle to redraw America and more Read it online here (though best enjoyed in print!) www.ft.com/content/efab...

Unwahrscheinlich, aber falls noch jemand spontan ausfällt würde ich mich über ein Ticket echt freuen 🤓 #39c3ticket #39c3

Auch 2026 fallen einige Feiertage auf Wochentage. Wer Brückentage geschickt nutzt, kann das Maximale aus seinem Urlaub herausholen. Unser interaktiver Rechner zeigt, wie Sie möglichst viele freie Tage am Stück genießen können.

Laut neuen Berechnungen könnte die Zahl der Erwerbsfähigen um zehn Millionen schrumpfen. Das hätte Folgen für alle: Die Sozialabgaben müssten deutlich steigen. Der Überblick in Grafiken.

Missed out on the #39c3 ticket sale. Apparently not a great idea to try the ticket shop via a hospital WiFi. 😫 Anyways: if someone knows something...

Off to the Living Planet Symposium in Vienna this Sunday – excited to meet new faces and catch up with familiar ones. Who else is around? 🛰️ #LPS25

Wir haben das AfD-Gutachten des Verfassungsschutzes digitalisiert und machen die Zitate durchsuchbar, die das BfV als Belege für die Bestrebungen der Partei gegen die freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung heranzieht: www.spiegel.de/politik/deut...

I just released the Museum of All Things version 1.0!!! You can find it at mayeclair.itch.io/museum-of-al...

Officially approved pie chart today at the office. Thanks @helenbielawa.bsky.social!

A few months ago we introduced a new monthly team meeting: Charts & Drinks. Yesterday's edition was a mix of showing vacation pictures and geo guessing. Including a quiz interface built by ChatGPT, a felt map as collaborative tool and an unbeatable AI bot built by @atack.bsky.social. So much fun!

Did I miss the memo? Aren't we still calling ourselves like that?

Happy Holidays! 🎄🌍 Best time of the year to tinker around with gaussian splats...

NEW: The largest map I've made at the @financialtimes.com, highlighting the tragic events in Valencia. @barneyjopson.bsky.social report looks into the failed implementation of risk reduction plans, building on known flood zones and failure to heed warnings on the day ft.com/content/6199... #dataviz

Aus aktuellem Anlass: 9 Tipps für kritischen Medienkonsum bei Breaking News von #UseTheNews. Download als PDF https://learn.hoou.de/mod/page/view.php?id=3367 #magdeburg

✨ NEW 📊 project: When the German government collapsed on Nov 6, some parties immediately got a lot of donations for their campaigns. @spiegel.de now tracks large donations (more than 35,000 Euros) to political parties in 🇩🇪 in our donations tracker. ➡️ Free to read: www.spiegel.de/politik/deut...

... a really exciting year at Ubilabs is coming to an end. Time for the obligatory Christmas card, where the team has once again outdone themselves this year 🤯 xmas2024.ubilabs.com

Spotify wrapped cartographer's edition

New air quality stripes! Find your city and see how the air quality has changed over the past 170+ years. www.airqualitystripes.info Built by: Kirsty Pringle & @jimmcquaid.bsky.social

NHL Vancouver Canucks at Pittsburgh Penguins, Wednesday, November 27, 2024 #nhlhockey #gamecharts #dataviz

Fargo, Severance, Black Mirror, Atlanta, Master of None, Euphoria – they all left their fans waiting for three years or more between seasons. In fact, we're waiting longer than ever for TV shows to return, as @lisacmuth.bsky.social shows in her Weekly Chart: blog.datawrapper.de/waittime-for...

One of my favourite data discoveries this year: Google's mind-blowing ARCO-ERA5 dataset: hourly data for ~300 climate variables, available globally from 1940! 🤯 Loadable with a single line of Python code from a single cloud-friendly Zarr file! Below: a month of wind waves + swell: 🌊

Some more map calligraphy: Places I’ve called home so far. 🏠 5 of them have one thing in common, one is an outlier in this regard. Can you spot it? #30DayMapChallenge Day 23 Memory #rstats #maps

If ChatGPT with its data analyzer capability was unbelievable at the time of its launch, what you can do with Bolt.New on a given dataset is the next level. Everyone can draft a dashboard in minutes! 😨 No need to wait for the dev/data department to set up a new chart in Tableau/Power BI.

The US workforce can be divided into “sitters” (like programmers and lawyers) and “standers” (like servers and construction workers). In our newest piece, @alv9n.com looks at what we can learn from this labor split. 💻: pudding.cool/2024/11/sitt... 📺: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE_E...

This is a great idea. Reminds me of the navigation in classic Falk maps.

According datajournalism.com, 60% of data journalists in their last survey were male. And a recent @pewresearch.org paper showed about 2/3 of "news influencers" are men. So please share this with anyone who might be interested in broader horizons. Representation matters! go.bsky.app/8gob51T

Ever wondered what makes the perfect waffle? 🧇 Finding the best recipe can be tricky, so I analyzed hundreds of recipes to find out! Dive into the data-driven quest for the ultimate waffle recipe here: www.achim-tack.org/wafflelytics

A few charts and maps from our recent story on oil producing countries (oil rents as share of GDP, crude oil production per country, export flows). #ddj #dataviz www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft...

It's probably a surprise to no one, but telescopes have a lot of reflective surfaces just begging for selfies! 🤳 Take a browse through some of our recent favorites from our #RubinTeam 📸 🧪🔭

The EU only with letters. 🅰️🅱️©️ 🇪🇺 #30DayMapChallenge Day 19 Typography #rstats #maps

This Bluesky follow finder is super neat. It finds folks you don’t follow who follow folks you follow. So it helps fill in your network. It’s the type of cool stuff enabled by an open ecosystem. bsky-follow-finder.theo.io

🌍 #30DayMapChallenge Day 17: Collaborative Map! Today’s map was a family creation! Using LEGO bricks, my kids and I built a map of Switzerland highlighting its four distinct language regions: German, French, Italian, and Romansh. #maps #LEGO

Join Us for Dataviz Meetup #10: Visual Science Communication 🧪🌍 🗓 Date: December 3rd, 2024 🕕 Time: 18:00 MESZ 📍 Location: 👉 In-Person Event: www.meetup.com/data-visuali... 👉 Online Event: www.meetup.com/data-visuali...

#30DayMapChallenge Day 15: My data Quick fun project: I was curious if the spare coins I had would tell much about me - where i'm from, where i live, and where I’ve traveled... So I stacked all the coins on my table and overlaid a European map, here's what it showed!

PSA: Alphabetical order is often bad for geodata! I took the data from the WSJ article below and used a more natural geographical order; it makes it possible to see regional measles epidemics in 1935-36, the western polio outbreak, etc. Interactive notebook. observablehq.com/d/53c696e100...

Coming soon: Motion from video is levelling up 🥊 👣 You spoke we listened! Improved foot-to-ground contact ✅ Enhanced hand tracking ✅ Smoother overall motion ✅ Here’s a sneak peek of the new updates hitting the Meshcapade platform soon! #MoCapade #MotionCapture #3D #Animation

There's a starter pack with all SPIEGEL data & visual journalists now: go.bsky.app/G1RTn5g 📊👩‍💻👨‍💻

How did the pandemic reshape my daily life? Revisiting an old side project, "My Corona Year," I dive into personal data to analyze changes in mobility, consumer habits, and leisure activities during 2020. Explore the full post here: www.achim-tack.org/coronayear

A tale of two platforms: BlueSky user numbers have hit a new record high in recent days, while the number of people deleting their accounts on X/Twitter has rocketed 🚀

Sadly, I can’t join #30DayMapChallenge this year, but here’s a look back at the maps I created in 2021! www.achim-tack.org/30daymapchal... Always great to see so many ideas from the mapping community. #GIS #DataViz

Hey people! If you are into #geospatial anysis and data #visualization, I created a #GIS starter pack to help you connect with accounts with valuable resources in the field. Check it out here and please suggest new names to expand it: go.bsky.app/TJ7qQF6

On Election night I made a scraper that took the #NYTimes election data json ~every 10 minutes and put it on my mechanical display. #creativetech #dataviz This is a timelapse of the night with the sound added back in. vimeo.com/1027074047

I counted pixels to see just how bad this 3D pie from NBC is. The 3 percentage point difference between the two largest items has been exaggerated to look like a 21-point difference in the opposite direction! #election #dataviz

Also thanks @datawrapper.bsky.social for releasing arrow maps just in time. Came in handy for the election.