2009 July

• Compare What Your Senators and Reps are Talking About With Congress Speaks

  July 31, 2009 to Misc. Visualization, Online Applications  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (10)

  

  There's a lot of talking in congressional meetings, but what are your state senators and representatives talking about? Design group Periscopic explores what congress men and women said from 2007 to 2008 in this tongue-in-cheek comparison tool with talking heads. The best part about the tool is that behind the humor is actually something useful.

  Compare word distributions of senators, of states, of a senator to a state, or representatives, so on and so forth. We get breakdowns by gender, number of words spoken, and by state. All data come from public records.

  [via @krees]

• Friday Freebies: Beautiful Data is Now Available

  July 31, 2009 to Contests  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (204)

  Beautiful Data from O'Reilly is now available! The book is a collection of articles from 39 data practitioners including Michal Migurski, Aaron Koblin, Jeff Heer, and plenty others, sharing their experiences with data, their methods, their thoughts, and most importantly, how beautiful data really is.

  I was fortunate enough to write one of the chapters: Seeing Your Life in Data. I describe my experiences developing for the Personal Environmental Impact Report and the beginnings of your.flowingdata. I'm looking forward to reading all of the other contributions.

  Two Free Copies to Give Away

  Lucky for you I have two free e-book copies to give away. Want to win one of them? Leave a comment below by the end of today - July 31, 11:59 EST. Let's go with your favorite food this week. One entry per person please. Good luck.

  P.S. If you're not one of the two winners, don't fret. Use the following discount code on the O'Reilly site for a 30% discount: ABF09.

• Review: Now You See It by Stephen Few

  July 30, 2009 to Reviews, Statistical Visualization  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (7)

  Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge and author of Information Dashboard Design has a new visualization book on the shelves: Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis. It's 300+ information-packed pages on how to interpret your data using proper visualization tools.

  About the Book

  If you liked Few's first book, but want something more in depth on the analysis side of things, then this is probably the book you're looking for. What this book is not is a picture book for some light coffee table reading. Now You See It is for those who really want to dig into their data.

  The book is split into three main parts with the bulk of the content in the first two:

  1. Building Core Skills for Visual Analysis
  2. Honing Skills for Diverse Types of Visual Analysis
  3. Further Thoughts and Hopes

  The first part places a good bit of emphasis on what visualization is and how you should approach it, while part two gets into specific types of data such as time series, rankings, distributions, and correlations.

  There are tons of examples throughout with a graph or chart on just about every page, and while Few specifies the software (e.g. a lot of Tableau) used to create each visualization, it's worth pointing out that Now You See It isn't a guide on how to use a specific type of software. Rather it teaches the principles of good visualization that transfer over to whatever tool you're using.
  Continue Reading

• Animated Infographics for the Eat Local, Eat Real Campaign

  July 29, 2009 to Infographics  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (6)

  

  I love food. I love infographics. Put them together, and this is what you get. As part of the Eat Local, Eat Real campaign, this infographic video (below), produced by Sons and Daughters and Crush of Toronto, argues why we should eat local.
  Continue Reading

• Suicides by Location on the Golden Gate Bridge

  July 28, 2009 to Infographics  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (11)

  

  This graphic from SF Gate is a good four years old, well before I knew what an infographic was, but just because it's old doesn't mean it's not interesting. Here we see San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and the "sad tally" of 1,218 known suicides by location. Each black square represents a person who has taken his or her life and 128 light poles are used as reference points.

  The east side of the bridge, where most of the suicides occurred, has a pedestrian walkway. The first suicide was just 10 weeks after the bridge opened in 1937.

  [Thanks, Justin]

• Gauge Your Distraction While You Text and Drive in the Distracted Driving Game

  July 27, 2009 to Infographics  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (8)

  

  From Gabriel Dance, Tom Jackson, and Aaron Pilhofer of the New York Times is this game to gauge your distraction while you're texting on the road. Yes. It's fun AND educational. Here's how it works.

  You're in a car with a driver's point of view. You're driving on a freeway or road with a ridiculous number of gates. There are six of them, and as you approach the gates, one will open, and you have select that open gate by pressing the right number. After a few seconds of practice, you'll receive a text message on the screen that asks a question. You have to reply while still selecting the correct gates as they pass.
  Continue Reading

• Friday Freebies: 5 E-book Copies of Beginning Python Visualization

  July 24, 2009 to Contests  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (110)

  It's Friday! I don't know about you, but I'm ready for the weekend, and what better way to start with some free stuff? I have five free e-book copies of Beginning Python Visualization to give away.

  I reviewed this book last month, and I thought it was really useful. In fact, I still have it in arm's reach on my desk.

  How to Win a Copy

  As usual, I'll make this really easy. All you have to do is leave a comment below telling me why I should give you a copy. Make up a reason if you like. I could use a good laugh. Do this by 11:59pm EST today (Friday, July 24), and I'll select five random winners. Good luck!

• Three Ingredients to Make the Perfect Business

  July 24, 2009 to Misc. Visualization  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (12)

  

  Thanks to Jessica Hagy and her Indexed project, we've seen lots of graphs and venn diagrams to communicate ideas outside of data. Some are bad and others are good. Here's one of the good ones. Bud Caddell shows what it takes to make the perfect business, or more generally, just about everyone's dream - to get paid for what you're good at and love to do. Get the poster version of the graphic here.

  [via dataviz]

• Death and Taxes Poster 2010 – 50% Off for FlowingData Readers

  July 23, 2009 to Infographics  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (1)

  

  Jess Bachman of WallStats just released his annual Death and Taxes Poster for 2010. For those unfamiliar, the poster is a graphical breakdown of the United States federal budget.
  Continue Reading

• IT Dashboard and Data from USAspending.gov

  July 22, 2009 to Data Sources  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (9)

  

  Taking another step towards data transparency, the US government provides the IT dashboard via USAspending.gov:

  The IT Dashboard provides the public with an online window into the details of Federal information technology investments and provides users with the ability to track the progress of investments over time. The IT Dashboard displays data received from agency reports to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), including general information on over 7,000 Federal IT investments and detailed data for nearly 800 of those investments that agencies classify as "major." The performance data used to track the 800 major IT investments is based on milestone information displayed in agency reports to OMB called "Exhibit 300s." Agency CIOs are responsible for evaluating and updating select data on a monthly basis, which is accomplished through interfaces provided on the website.

  Along with a page to filter and download spending data, there's a variety of views into the IT spending data that all provide a pretty good level of interaction.
  Continue Reading

• Comparing the Human and Chimpanzee Genomes

  July 21, 2009 to Infographics  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (1)

  

  As part of the Explore Evolution exhibit at the University of Nebraska State Museum, Judy Diamond displays a segment of the human genome in line with that of the chimpanzee that matches very closely. The point is to show how similar two are with the few differences represented by a drawing of a man, distinguished geneticist Svante Paabo.
  Continue Reading

• Important Data – Please Act Responsibily

  July 20, 2009 to Design  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (11)
  
  Photo by nyki_m

  Data visualization and infographics come in many forms. Some are comical and purely made for entertainment. Others are made for decisions, and important decisions at that. Let's focus on the latter right now.

  To make educated decisions based on graphics, you need accurate ones, and to make accurate graphics, you need a full understanding of the data.

  If you don't know about the data - the context of where it came from or how it was collected - your visualization or infographic is simply a data comic that could potentially misinform its readers.
  Continue Reading

• Thanks to Our FlowingData Sponsors

  July 20, 2009 to Sponsors  •  Share on Twitter

  A big thank you to our FlowingData sponsors who help keep the servers running. Without them, FlowingData would be way too slow for consumption or I would be an even poorer graduate student.

  Please do check out their sites to see the useful visualization tools they have to offer.

  Freakalytics — Get Tableau Training- live, hands-on by author of "Rapid Graphs." Registration is opening up across the country.

  NetCharts — Build business dashboards that turn data into actionable information with dynamic charts and graphs.

  Tableau Software — Data exploration and visual analytics for understanding databases and spreadsheets that makes data analysis easy and fun.

  IDV Solutions — Create interactive, map-based, enterprise mashups in SharePoint.

  InstantAtlas — Enables information analysts to create interactive maps to improve data visualization and enhance communication.

  Want to sponsor FlowingData, your most favorite blog in the whole wide world? Email me, and I'll get back to you with the details.

• From the FlowingData Forums [July 3-17]

  July 17, 2009 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (2)

  Visualize This: Obesity Rates by State

  This segment of Visualize This is all about obesity rates in America. The data comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  In 2008, every state in the US, except for one had an obesity rate greater than 20%. In 1994, there were zero. Here is the data for 2008. You can find data from 1985 to 2008 from the CDC site. Share your visualizations in this forum thread.

  Thanks to all those who participated in the last Visualize This with Rambo kill counts. A little bit of Tableau, some R, and dare I say, Powerpoint. Be sure to check those out in the forums.

  Interesting Threads

  • Edward Tufte is Talking at the Met - I know many of of you will be interested in this one. Tufte is giving a talk at the Met in NYC on classic drawings. Your ticket comes free with admission.
  • Help a Graduate Student Out - Do you collect data about yourself? Take this survey on personal informatics.
  • Mapping H1N1 Virus: Pattern of Spread Over Time - Do you have any suggestions on how to improve this graphic? Some put in their two cents while others provided their own work with the data.
  • Diseasome, Explore the Human Disease Network - A smooth network graph online to present scientific work.

• If Aliens Were Tuning Into Our Television Frequencies…

  July 17, 2009 to Miscellaneous  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (13)

  

  In a different take on a timeline of television, Abstruse Goose, a web comic, shows us what aliens would be watching if they were able to tune into our television frequencies light years away. It doubly serves as a reminder of how old you are.

  [Thanks, Patrick]

• Taking a Closer Look at Airplane-Bird Collisions

  July 16, 2009 to Data Sources  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (10)

  

  While we're on the subject of flight, ever since that plane landed in the Hudson River a few months ago, the thought of bird-airplane collisions haven't strayed too far from the media (or my mind each time I fly). In light of all the hoopla, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) finally gave in and opened up their bird strike database to the public.

  Below is an interactive exploring this data breaking things down by bird type, location, phase of flight, and time of day. Click through to this post to view.
  Continue Reading

• Why Are Cheap Airlines So Cheap?

  July 16, 2009 to Infographics  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (24)

  

  5W Graphics, whose work you've seen by now, compares lower-cost airlines to "regular" airlines. The infographic is from the Spain group, so the focus is on Eurpoean airlines. Apparently the concept of low fair airlines (LFAs) is fairly new in Europe, only starting in 1990 with Ryanair while Southwest Airlines was founded in 1970. I'm more of a JetBlue guy myself. I cherish my legroom and in-flight entertainment.

  [via Cool Infographics]

• Collect Data About Yourself with Twitter – your.flowingdata is Live

  July 15, 2009 to Online Applications, Projects  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (40)

  

  your.flowingdata (YFD), a Twitter application that lets you collect data about yourself, is now LIVE!

  I feel like I've been working on this project forever, but it's finally at a place where I think it's ready for human consumption. And unlike the previous version, what you track is completely up to you.

  How to Get Started

  You can start collecting data about yourself in just a few easy steps:

  1. First off, follow @yfd on Twitter.
  2. Second, sign in to your.flowingdata with Twitter.
  3. Once you're logged in to YFD, you'll see a link to a quick start guide. Follow the step-by-step directions and you'll be tweeting data in no time.

  Once you've started tweeting data, it'll take about two minutes (usually less) for your data to appear on YFD. Continue Reading

• How Does the Average Consumer Spend His Money?

  July 14, 2009 to Infographics  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (19)

  

  Add another graphic to the list of ways to show consumer spending. Visual Economics displays data from the most recent spending survey (April 2009) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Compare this to last year's survey results via an NYT interactive.

  The biggest difference I'm seeing is that between last year's spending on housing (42%) and this year (34%). Maybe that's why my mother-in-law keeps telling me it's a good time to buy a house. Do you notice anything interesting?

• Explore World Data with Factbook eXplorer from OECD

  July 13, 2009 to Data Sources, Statistical Visualization  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (4)

  

  The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) makes a lot of world indicators available (e.g. world population and birth rate). Much of it goes unnoticed, because most people just see a bunch of numbers. However, the Factbook eXplorer from the OECD, in collaboration with the National Center for Visual Analytics, is a visualization tool that helps you see and explore the data.

  Those who have seen Hans Rosling's Gapminder presentations - and I imagine most of us have - will recognize the style with a play button and a motion graph in sync with parallel coordinates and a map. Choose an indicator, or several of them, press play, and watch the visualization move through time.

  Also, if you've got your own data, you can load that too, which is certainly a nice touch.

  [via BBC News | Thanks, Lawrie & Liam]