Visualizations
Representing sets of data in non-tabular form is the work of visualizations. Complex representations which convey meaning and value to the recipient in a pictorial form is much harder than it seems. The ability to not mis-represent or mis-lead the reader is paramount.
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Five Simple Steps: Designing with Data
Over the last 6-7 months, I have been working on an introductory book. It is over 40,000 words on the topic of charts and graphs. It is more interesting that it sounds. I managed to sneak past the editor sections about crop-circles and the holy grail.
Geonames Maps
Using geonames’ free data set and a few quick lines of scripting, it was possible to convert a table of boring data in to a sovereign country. Even on a blank page, the borders are distinctly visible without the need to draw them explicitly.
Ada Lovelace Day: Florence Nightingale
March 24th is Ada Lovelace day with the intent of highlighting the achievements of women in technology. My contribution to this effort is an article about Florence Nightingale and her invention of visualizations and methods to improve the health and lives of everyone.
Have Gun, Will Travel
The ever popular CV, it’s that thing you update every once and awhile when you have too. More recently, the buzz words “living document” have been bantered around when discussing business plans and resumes and it is important to keep your CV up to date, but maybe not for the reasons you’d expect.
Þjóðfundur 02009: data mining a government
On November 14th, 02009, 1200+ Icelanders came together to discuss their vision for the future of their nation. As they spent the day discussion and jotting down their ideas, all of their data was catalogued and index. This information has been made freely available to anyone to further augment, visualize and mine it for more information. So we did.