Hello again! We're kicking off the new year with a Star Wars analysis, inviting dissent, random projection in humans, and Nick Felton's final report.

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ONE LAST HURRAH
Personal Data Is Beautiful in this Graphic Designer’s Year-End Reports
Over the past decade, designer Nick Felton has chronicled each year of his life in gorgeous, colorful charts. He recently released the final installment in his series of Annual Reports. From taking copious notes on his phone to recording everything with commercially available apps and devices, his reports document not just his life, but the advances made in personal data collection over the past 10 years. - The Creators Project

THE FORCE ANALYZED
Was “The Force Awakens” Really the Biggest Movie Debut Ever?
The team at AngeloueEconomics examined a bunch of different factors that affect movie ticket sales—movie quality, ticket prices, population growth—to see if Star Wars really does rule the cinematic galaxy. - AngeloueEconomics

EQUAL CHARTS
What Would Feminist Data Visualization Look Like?
Data visualizations wield immense power. It's up to their makers to ensure visualizations represent subjects responsibly. This article provides some great suggestions for how to recognize the limitations of your visualization, investigate data provenance, and become comfortable with uncertainty by inviting dissent. - MIT Center for Civic Media

GREAT MINDS...
Georgia Tech Researchers Demonstrate How the Brain Can Handle So Much Data
Random projection is frequently used in machine learning to make sense of big, diverse data. It turns out this method could be one of the ways that humans learn, too. - Georgia Tech

People are talking about: 2015 in review

We know, we know—it's 2016. But these roundups are worth exploring.

• 2015: The Year in Visual Stories and Graphics (The New York Times)
• 10 Significant Visualisation Developments: July to December 2015 (Visualising Data)
• The most misleading charts of 2015, fixed (Quartz)
• How interactive news and data journalism responded to the major events of 2015 (Webkid Blog)

Happy New Year!