TED: Hans Rosling Shows the Best Stats You've Ever Seen

A couple of days before Christmas last year I posted Hans Rosling's  "200 Countries in 200 Years" video when it went viral on these inner-tubes.  Last night I happen to catch Chris Anderson (the curator of TED) on Charlie Rose and he told what he described as the "remarkable story of Hans Rosling" to illustrate the value of the TED talks.  Which sent me off to Google, of course, seeing as how I recognized Dr. Rosling's name from the "200 Countries" association.  I found this (best viewed full-screen):

Fascinating, and there's more of Dr. Rosling on the TED site... all ya gotta do is google his name.  I'm the sorta guy that always found statistics and data rather boring, even though I mucked about with the subject during my IT operations career.  Dr. Rosling certainly changed MY perception of stats and here's an excerpt from his bio on the TED site:

What sets Rosling apart isn't just his apt observations of broad social and economic trends, but the stunning way he presents them. Guaranteed: You've never seen data presented like this. By any logic, a presentation that tracks global health and poverty trends should be, in a word: boring. But in Rosling's hands, data sings. Trends come to life. And the big picture — usually hazy at best — snaps into sharp focus. 

The data DO sing and I sure as Hell wish I had had the operational analysis tools to create presentations like Dr. Rosling's back in the day.