A Data Visualization Newsletter

Back in 2014, Matt Daniels released his renowned analysis of popular rappers’ vocabularies. He released V2 of the project last week, adding plenty of new rappers and a slick new chart. This update certainly makes one point clear: popular rappers nowadays use fewer unique words in their lyrics than they used to.

Most online personality quizzes you’ve taken probably haven’t provided you a ton of insight. This one from FiveThirtyEight, on the other hand, is legit. Backed by the Big Five, a common framework used by psychologists to assess an individual’s personality, this quiz will give you some real answers about yourself, and how you compare to the average American.

The death of the mid-range in the NBA has been a major storyline over the last few seasons, but these charts from FlowingData emphasize how extreme the shift has been. Mid-range shots made up 35% of shots in the 2003-2004 NBA season; this year, they’re down to just over 15%. Thanks, Warriors.

The government shutdown is now entering its fifth week, with little sign of ending anytime soon. Plenty of stories have focused on the shutdown’s effect on more than 800,000 government workers, whose paychecks are on hold until the government reopens. Less has been made of the legion of contractors in private companies doing work with government agencies, who will likely never see compensation for this period. The Washington Post breaks it down.