Nerd dilemma: I'm proud of this chart and want to show it off, but I don't want to actually tell you what I'm charting and thus reveal exactly how much of a nerd I am. Anyway, I've been fiddling with it off and on for a while, trying to convey not only the relationship between X and Y, but how the ratio Y/X compares with certain reference points (the yellow ones, whose Y/X ratio is represented by the solid lines). A higher ratio (toward the upper left) is better. The upper and lower vertical bars on each point also represent two additional pieces of data about each point (the upper should be small, the lower large). whew. at least now I can see at a glance which points I should pay attention to and which I can safely ignore.


[click for larger]

and no, Excel's 3-d bubble chart thing didn't work very well.