To have some fun with it, let's have a little contest. Take a picture of the book in your hands, on your desk, or wherever you like really, and send it to fun@flowingdata.com by this Friday, August 12, 2011. If you have a digital version, feel free to take a picture of your iPad or Kindle with the book open. I'll put all the pics together in a mosaic or something.

Then I'll choose five winners at random, and you can pick any print book you like from the Wiley Tech library (minus box sets). Good luck!

Related

• Visualize This: Spotted in the wild
• Review: We Feel Fine (the book) by Kamvar and Harris
• Fun With Words that Collectively Make Pictures

WikiViz 2011 is about visualizing the impact of Wikipedia. We want to see the most effective, compelling and creative data-driven visualizations of how Wikipedia impacted the world with its content, culture and open collaboration model. Potential topics include: the imprint of Wikipedia on knowledge sharing and access to information; its impact on literacy and education, journalism and research; on the functioning of scientific and cultural organizations and businesses, as well as the daily life of individuals around the world.

There are lots of small datasets within Wikipedia articles, but Wikipedia itself is also one giant (open) dataset. For example, we've seen the history of the world according to tagged events as well as back and forth discussions for deletion.

Can you find something good? Judged by Moritz Stefaner, Andrew Vande Moere, and Kim Rees, among others, winners get to attend WikiSym on the house and of course get a mention or two.

Related

• Geography of Wikipedia edits
• Data and its impact on journalism
• Visualize This: Winning Wikipedia fundraiser banners

Participate

So here are a handful of visualization contests to get your hands dirty. Hey you might even win a couple of thousand dollars. Not that money matters to you, because as well all know, learning is your reward.

Hacking Education — A contest for developers and data crunchers. DonorsChoose.org has inspired $80 million in giving from 400,000 donors, helping 165,000 teachers at 43,000 schools, and the donation site has opened up this data. Can do you do something with it? Deadline: June 30, 2011.

Data In Sight — A hands-on competition in San Francisco's SoMa district with surprise data sources. Some talks, lunch, dinner, and a 24-hour hackathon. Event date: June 24, 2011 (better to register your team early).

Tableau Interactive Viz Contest — This one is coming up the quickest, but is the most straightforward. Plus, you get a t-shirt just for entering. Grab some business, finance, or real estate data and go to town with Tableau Public. Deadline: June 3, 2011.

Know of any other data/visualization contests coming up? Let us know in the comments.

Related

• Design for America – Win $5,000
• Visualization as a mass medium in the 21st century
• Data-Driven Documents for visualization in the browser

How to Win

You know the drill. Simply leave a comment on this post by Sunday, March 8 at 11pm PST. This time around, let's go with... your favorite number. Yeah, tell me what your favorite number is. Then I'll choose four winners at random on Monday.

Obviously make sure you use a valid email address, and only one entry per person please. Good luck!

Update: Winners announced! You should have received an email if you were picked. Thanks for participating, everyone.

Related

• Best of digital news design winners announced
• Winners of NSF Visualization Challenge 2008 Announced
• March Madness bracketology – winners and losers

Happy Friday, everyone. Leading into the weekend, HistoryShots has kindly put three prints up for grabs to decorate that plain wall of yours with data and information. HistoryShots has been around for a while, but in case you're not familiar, they "create elegant graphics and diagrammatic art that visually tell stories about subjects, time periods and events." Some are vintage reprints from the 1800s and others are original designs.

How do you win a free print? Go to the HistoryShots list of available prints, and then come back here and leave a comment saying which one you want by Sunday, March 27 at 10pm. I'll pick three winners at random. Good luck!

Update: Winners picked. If you won, you've received an email from me. Thanks for entering!

Related

• Best of digital news design winners announced
• Winners of NSF Visualization Challenge 2008 Announced
• March Madness bracketology – winners and losers

It's Friday, and the weekend's staring you in the face. You look like you need some free stuff. Timeplots has kindly put up three visual history prints up for grabs. In case you're not familiar, Timeplots takes complex history stories, like the American presidency or the changing nature of the Senate, and puts them in visual form.

How to win

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below by Monday, March 7, 2011 Tuesday, March 8, 2011, 7:00pm PST. Let's go with... your favorite food. Yeah, that should be fun. I'll pick three winners at random, and they will have their pick of any one of the five prints Timeplots has to offer. I'd probably go with the Senate one myself.

One entry per person, please.

Good luck!

Update: If you were one of three lucky winners, you should have received an email from me by now. Thanks all for participating! If you still want one, you can still buy them over on Timeplots.

Related

• Best of digital news design winners announced
• March Madness bracketology – winners and losers
• Winners of NSF Visualization Challenge 2008 Announced

Unprecedented computing power and connectivity are bringing new layers of experience to our lives in how we manage and present data sets of all sizes.

Throughout three days of training, breakout sessions, and plenary discussions, O'Reilly Strata connects the decision-makers, practitioners, and leading vendors from enterprise and the web who are at the leading edge of this space. Topics include data science, acquisition, organization, machine learning, visualization, and more.

Want to win the free pass? Leave a comment below by Friday, January 28, 2011 at 7pm PST. Tell us what super power you'd want if you could only pick one. I'll pick a comment randomly and email you the discount code. Please only enter if you know you can attend February 1-3 in Santa Clara, California. I'd hate the pass to go to waste.

If you don't want to leave it up to the randomized gods and just want to register now, it's not too late to do that either. You can register here and get a 25% discount. The program looks like it'll be a good one.

Update: Congrats to Tyson! "I’d like to fly"

Related

• Strata data conference: Last day for early bird registration + 20% off
• Data conference: only a few days left for early registration + reader discount
• Data talks and keynotes from O’Reilly Strata conference

The back cover reads:

Collecting data is relatively easy, but turning raw information into something useful requires that you know how to extract precisely what you need. With this insightful book, intermediate to experienced programmers interested in data analysis will learn techniques for working with data in a business environment. You'll learn how to look at data to discover what it contains, how to capture those ideas in conceptual models, and then feed your understanding back into the organization through business plans, metrics dashboards, and other applications.

It's a little over 500 pages and thorough about describing how to analyze your data. However, it is light in the "with open source tools" part of the title. Most of the time is spent explaining concepts, and then each chapter ends with a workshop, which includes some code. There are examples throughout, but few provide an explanation of how a plot was made or the implementation of a method. So definitely not a book for beginners.

However, if you've taken an intro stat course, and are ready to learn more, then Data Analysis could be helpful. It's pretty technical, or as my wife said, "It has a lot of equations."

Win a copy

Want to win a copy? I have five of them up for grabs. For a chance to win, leave a comment below by January 9, 2011, 10:00pm PST. Tell us what you used to make your very first graph. Pencil and graph paper? Excel? R? Jelly beans?

Then come back here on Monday to see who won. I'll pick five people at random. Good luck and have a nice weekend.

Update: Congratulations to the following...

• Chris - "The first graphs I made were with Generic Mapping Tools (which still really kicks ass). We made pub quality maps and graphs from Perl with GMT on the command line."
• Ketan - "Excel"
• Paul - "#2 pencil and graph paper!"
• Dan W - "It's hard to say for sure, but I'm clinging to the hope it was with large amounts of macaroni and glue."
• DFruge - "I made my first graph using graph paper, a protractor, and a pencil."

Thanks for participating, everyone. Still want a copy? Grab it on Amazon.

Related

• A guide to geostatistical mapping with open-source tools
• How Open Should Open Source Data Visualization Be?
• Open Source Data Visualization Framework – Axiis

Ever notice how pants seem to fit differently from store-to-store even though they're labeled as the same size? Why does the 36-inch at Old Navy feel kind of loose but the same size at The Gap feels like you had too many fries at lunch? Here's your answer from the Esquire Style blog. The actual size (from this über-scientific study, I am sure) tends to be bigger than the size as advertised. A 36-inch waistline actually means 41 inches in Old Navy units.

And just for kicks, here's a simplified remake. I opted for a graphic sans belts and tape measures, but sorta less fun.

[Esquire via @demaws]

Update: It just occurred to me this would be a great challenge. You've seen my remake, now let's see yours. Post your redos in the comments below by Friday 5pm PST, and I'll randomly select a submission. Winner gets a free copy of The Visual Miscellaneum by David McCandless.

Related

• Abstract maps of the United States
• Perceived vs. actual country rankings
• Challenge: make this graph easier to read

We saw this handy dandy coffee guide by Plaid Creative a while back. Oh so clean. Oh so informative. The world of fancy pants coffee drinks can be confusing, but it doesn't have to be with this poster on your wall to guide you through the most difficult challenge in life: ordering coffee.

With some updates and corrections to the original, The Perfect Pour is now in poster form.

How to win a copy

Want a free poster for yourself? Leave a comment below, and tell us what your favorite coffee drink is. If you don't like coffee, well, why do you even want this poster? Or if you must, just make a drink up. I'll have a soy caramel venti mocha chai iced tea lemonade drink. And I want it steaming hot.

Leave your comment below by this Sunday, August 22, 10pm EST. Then come back here to see who won. Good luck!

Update: Congratulations to David! Thanks everyone for entering. Still want a print? Grab one from Plaid Creative.

Related

• Citizen’s guide to fancy pants coffee drinks
• Charted guide to fancy drinks
• Hacking the Coffee Maker – Caffeine Viewer