I'm building a whiteboard app for Windows called AtlasDraw. I've been at it for a while now, and I'm finally starting to be happy with where it's at. It's still a work in progress, and before I go much further I'd love some honest feedback and a few beta testers.

The idea: something that feels as quick as scribbling on paper, but can turn into a proper diagram without switching tools. Here's where it's at so far:

• Hand-drawn or clean. Every shape can be sketchy or crisp, and you can switch whenever you like.
• Arrows that stay attached. Move a box and its arrows follow. Labels can sit above, below or on the line.
• A starter kit. 150 ready-made pieces (flowcharts, software diagrams, wireframes, workshop stickers) and 26 templates.
• Effects. Drop shadows, glow, frosted glass, jelly, water, grain and gradient fills.
• Markdown in any note or label. Headings, lists, bold, code and links.
• Shapes and paths. 13 present shapes, a path tool you bend by dragging, a freehand pen and 11 arrowhead styles.

Every image in this post was made in AtlasDraw, including the illustrations in the last one.

What I'd love feedback on

• What would you use something like this for: planning, architecture diagrams, teaching, wireframes, something else?
• What's missing that would stop you using it day to day?
• Does anything in these screenshots look confusing or unnecessary?
• Any other feedback good or bad welcome.

Looking for an icon

AtlasDraw still doesn't have a proper app icon. If you're a designer and fancy having a go, I'd love to see what you come up with.

Beta testers wanted

If you're on Windows and happy to try an early build let me know. I'm still looking at the best way to actually do the beta so details will follow once its ready

Thanks for reading.

How to (maybe) turn off Russian bots | The European Correspondent

Trust in Federal Government Sinks to New Depths

put this together using 2025 US-reported UN Comtrade data, broken down by HS2 product categories

the US imported about $327.5b in goods from china and exported $106.3b back, with a goods trade deficit of roughly $221.2b

what stood out to me was how much of china's exports to the US were electronics and machinery, while aircraft and pharmaceuticals were among the larger US export categories going the other way

the figures represent customs values in USD, not quantities, domestic production or company profits. services aren't included

the bottom panels show the largest product-category trade imbalances, calculated from the import and export values in the same dataset

original data source — UN Comtrade (2025, US-reported, HS2, imports and exports):

https://comtradeapi.un.org/public/v1/preview/C/A/HS?period=2025&reporterCode=842&partnerCode=156&cmdCode=AG2&flowCode=X,M&motCode=0&customsCode=C00&partner2Code=0

full HS2 breakdown and methodology:

https://corplox.com/trade/cn/us

Managed to get this last night on takeoff from Seattle.

Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-worlds-most-and-least-liked-countries/

Source: Eurostat, foreign-controlled enterprises by country of control [FATS_CTRL], persons employed and value added, 2024: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/fats_ctrl/default/table

A company counts as foreign-owned when its ultimate controlling parent is in another country; the owner named is that parent's country, ranked over every country of control in the release. Businesses means industry, construction and market services; the public sector, farming and finance are not counted. Poland's figures follow a different definition. Figures for Russian-owned companies in Cyprus are withheld as confidential; the release's totals keep them below Greece's. No figures for the UK, Switzerland, Iceland, Türkiye, Ukraine, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania or Montenegro. The EU row is Eurostat's own EU figure.

Tools: Python (pandas) for the data, an HTML/SVG page rendered with Chromium for the chart.

After the Nobel Peace Prize was again--shockingly!--awarded to someone who did not start any wars this past year, the US President seemed to talk about it. Like, a lot.

So I used Roll Call's awesome archive of everything Trump and went back to look at all the times Trump has mentioned this award. He's mentioned it 101 times since his reentry into the Oval Office alone, but the fascination goes back years.

This dashboard infographic shows just his mentions since 2025, but it's actually a snippet from the interactive website where you can choose a specific date period, see just his social media mentions, or filter by several other types of records. If you want to play with the interactive version, it's 100% free and ad-free and just a fun pet project! It's at https://artofnodeal.com/nobel for anyone who is interested in the details of different statements and toggling and filtering through the years.

I always thought the US was in a K shaped economy where the top earners are continuing to do better while those doing worse are continuing to struggle. But directionally it seems the opposite. College grads, the top 20% of earners, and the top 25% of net worth all saw declines in income between 2022-20225.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf26.pdf

Source: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2024/lgbtiq-equality-crossroads-progress-and-challenges#publication-tab-3

Sources: Eurostat, nights spent at tourist accommodation in selected cities [TOUR_OCC_NINC], 2025 (hotels, holiday flats and campsites, all guests), and city population [URB_CPOP1], latest year. Vienna, Graz, Linz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt and the four Danish cities: Statistik Austria and Statistics Denmark, 1 January 2025. City locations: Eurostat GISCO Urban Audit.

Cities are Eurostat's city list (urban centres of about 50,000 people or more), so smaller resorts such as Dubrovnik are not included. Ireland reports no city figures.

Tools: Python (pandas), HTML/SVG rendered with Playwright.

Copernicus Atmosphere: 40% of global population exposed to harmful ozone pollution, amid transboundary pollution in 2026 | Copernicus

Sources: Eurostat, prisoners by age and sex [CRIM_PRIS_AGE] and prisoners by citizenship [CRIM_PRIS_CTZ], 2024. UK: Ministry of Justice (England & Wales, 31 Dec 2024), Scottish Government and NI Department of Justice (2024-25 averages). Germany foreign share: Destatis, sentenced prisoners, 31 March 2024.

Tools: Python (matplotlib, geopandas), HTML/SVG rendered with Playwright.

Article: Every new word* they ever rapped

Sources:

• Genius: lyrics and performer credits.
• MusicBrainz: albums, release dates, and track lists.
• Wikipedia: discography cross-checks.
• The Pudding’s original article, by Matt Daniels: the rapper list, eras, and 2019 vocabulary counts.
• Wikimedia Commons, via Wikidata: portraits, individually credited in the article.

Tools: JavaScript/Node.js for data collection and word counting, Python for an independent recount, rhp for the charts, and SolidJS + Vite for the interactive article.

Code, derived data, and methodology: GitHub.

Source: AmericasBarometer 2026

https://www.vanderbilt.edu/cgd/data-playground/

https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2026-03/fs_2603_at_2025.pdf

Source is the survey of consumer finances conducted by the Federal Reserve System https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm

https://x.com/EuropeElects/status/2108509335328321672

https://www.oe24.at/a/umfrage-beben-spoe-stuerzt-auf-14-ab-900122085

Data is from the General Social Survey, GSS. N = 13,599. More frequent church attendance was associated with lower rates of reported infidelity.

Chart is made by Steve Rattner, current investor,
former New York Times journalist, and worked in the Treasury Department during the Obama Administration in 2009

https://news.gallup.com/poll/715430/americans-confidence-food-safety-drops-new-low.aspx

I created an animated bar chart race showing the estimated populations of major historical states from year 1 to 2026.The early historical data should be interpreted as a reconstruction rather than exact census figures. Full animation: https://youtu.be/7PspZWBTnEc