De Regio

Data and visualization blogs worth following

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:34:02 -0400

Data and visualization blogs worth following:

About three years ago, I shared 37 data-ish blogs you should know about, but a lot has changed since then. Some blogs are no longer in commission, and lots of new blogs have sprung up (and died).

Today, I went through my feed reader again, and here’s what came up. Coincidentally, 37 blogs came up again. (Update: added two I forgot, so 39 now.) I’m subscribed to a lot more than this since I don’t unsubscribe to dried up feeds. But this list is restricted to blogs that have updated in the past two months and are at least four months old.

Design and Aesthetics

information aesthetics — By Andrew Vande Moere, the first blog I found on visualization five something years ago.
Well-formed data — Another one of the oldies but goodies. The blog of Moritz Stefaner, known for lots of projects around these parts
blprnt.blg — Blog of Jer Thorp, who has recently been on a github binge. See also blprnt.tmblr
Fathom — Ben Fry-run studio talks about interesting things
feltron — Nicholas Felton’s tumblr with quick bits of delight
Tulp Inspiration — Another tumblr, this one run by Jan Willem Tulp

Statistical and Analytical Visualization

Eager Eyes — I think the second blog I found on visualization. Written by Robert Kosara, research-focused
Junk Charts — Kaiser Fung finds the not-so-good and explains how to improve them. See also sister blog Numbers Rule Your World
Visual Business Inteliigence — Stephen Few’s business-centric musings
Visualising Data — Relatively newer
Data Pointed — Weird and cooky, in a good way
Effective Graphs — Fundamentals of graph-making
Jim Vallandingham — Releases good code sometimes
Excel Charts — Despite the name, provides some useful information for beginners
Statistical Graphics and more — Through the eyes of a statistician

Journalism

The Daily Viz — By Matt Stiles, data journalist at NPR
chartsnthings — Kevin Quealy of The New York Times talks process
Infographics news — Highlights news graphics
Matthew Ericson — Deputy graphics director at The New York Times

General Visualization

Neoformix — Features a variety of his projects
Datavisualization.ch — Different visualization work, but lately on process of client work
Periscopic — Information visualization firm, do good with data
vis4 — Gregor Aisch produces a mix of work
Chart Porn — Mix of charts and graphs
Communicating with data — Jerome Cukier from the OECD

Maps

Stamen — Map-focused design and technology studio, sometimes open source releases
Cartastrophe — Daniel Huffman talks good maps
Floatingsheep — Geography hodge podge
indiemaps — Usually on the how of maps
Kelso’s Corner — Nathaniel Kelso, cartographer at Stamen
tecznotes — Michal Migurski of Stamen gets into the nitty gritty of online map making
The Marauding Carto-nerd — Kenneth Field, research cartographer

Data and Statistics

Datablog — On The Guardian, poster of datasets and graphics
Juice Analytics — Putting business data to action
The Numbers Guy — Examines the way numbers are used
Infochimps — Data supplier and hackers unite
Civil Statistician — By Census Bureau statistician Jerzy Wieczorek
Revolutions — Frequent statistics goodies
Simply Statistics — The title says it all

That’s what I read. Your turn.

Writing in Markdown — Hiding Notes « Macdrifter

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:01:30 -0400

Writing in Markdown — Hiding Notes « Macdrifter:

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Whorfian Economics

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 19:55:00 -0400

Whorfian Economics:

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The already-dead, the not-quite-dead, and those who have clearly overstayed their welcome

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 19:50:39 -0400

The already-dead, the not-quite-dead, and those who have clearly overstayed their welcome:

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Mastered for iTunes: how audio engineers tweak music for the iPod age

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:06:22 -0500

Mastered for iTunes: how audio engineers tweak music for the iPod age:

(Description)

Mastered for iTunes: how audio engineers tweak music for the iPod age

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 10:33:20 -0500

Mastered for iTunes: how audio engineers tweak music for the iPod age:

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login

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:19:37 -0500

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Test

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 12:56:09 -0500

Michael Drout recently wrote about how much easier he found reading dialogue from The Lord of the Rings aloud to his children than dialog from other books (Herbert, Le Guin, Cooper, McCaffrey, Heinlein).

I think, though, that I’ve come across one minor technique in Tolkien that really makes a difference, and I think this aspect of his work arises from his having read so much of The Lord of the Rings to the Inklings: you never, when reading Tolkien, are in any doubt about who is talking in dialogue. There is always some kind of information, either in the set-up, the dialogue itself or the description, so that you never have the experience of reading a block of text and then realizing “Wait! That’s Eomer talking, not Gandalf.”

I’ve read TLotR out loud four times now (twice with my wife, once for bedtime story with my son, and once for bedtime story with both children), and can confirm that in my experience, at least, this is largely true (albeit with the occasional Merry/Pippin gotcha), not only in comparison to other fantasy and SF authors (ahem, Rowling, you know I’m talking about you, in particular!), but also Kipling and even Dickens.

Expanding on Drout’s post, though: it seems to me that when Drout mentions “the dialogue itself” as offering information about who’s speaking, that information is just as often contained in the style as in the content of what’s being said. Tolkien is often accused of being stylistically inconsistent, but so much of this inconsistency works to convey the vast societal and historical differences among the characters.

One of my favorite pieces in the collection of Tolkien’s Letters is a draft he apparently never sent to Hugh Brogan (#171, from September 1955):

But a real archaic English is far more terse than modern; also many of things said could not be said in our slack and often frivolous idiom. Of course, not being specially well read in modern English, and far more familiar with works in the ancient and “middle” idioms, my own ear is to some extent affected; so that though I could easily recollect how a modern would put this or that, what comes easiest to mind or pen is not quite that. But take an example from the chapter that you specially singled out (and called terrible): Book iii, “The King of the Golden Hall.”

“Nay, Gandalf!” said the King. “You do not know your own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to war, to fall in the front of the battle, if it must be. Thus shall I sleep better.”

This is a fair sample — moderated or watered archaism. Using only words that still are used or known to the educated, the King would really have said:

“Nay, thou (n’)wost not thine own skill in healing. It shall not be so. I myself will go to war, to fall…” etc.

I know well enough what a modern would say.

“Not at all my dear G. You don’t know your own skill as a doctor. Things aren’t going to be like that. I shall go to the war in person, even if I have to be one of the first casualties”

— and then what? Theoden would certainly think, and probably say “thus shall I sleep better”! But people who think like that just do not talk a modern idiom. You can have “I shall lie easier in my grave,” or “I should sleep sounder in my grave like that rather than if I stayed at home” — if you like. But there would be an insincerity of thought, a disunion of word and meaning. For a King who spoke in a modern style would not really think in such terms at all, and any reference to sleeping quietly in the grave would be a deliberate archaism of expression on his part (however worded) far more bogus than the actual “archaic” English that I have used.

Drout is chair of the English department at Wheaton College and teaches Old English, Middle English, medieval literature, &c., so I’m certainly not saying anything new to him! But the “works in the ancient and ‘middle’ idioms” with which Tolkien was most familiar were to a great extent oral works which were later written down — or works which themselves were originally written in the style of such oral material.

Clearly, Tolkien heard each of his characters speaking in his mind’s ear, as it were, and as a storyteller he could not be untrue to their voices.

Drout concludes:

Perhaps this orality (both in terms of oral roots and ease of oral presentation) is another aspect of Tolkien’s work that makes it appealing to such a wide range of readers and draws people back to re-read the books over the courses of their lives.

Absolutely! I’m hoping I’ll get a chance to read The Lord of the Rings out loud at least one more time before our younger child has fledged; fortunately, we still have a few years left!

Mark, Sandy, Andy, Marc, and me at the third Conference on...

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:10:00 -0400

Mark, Sandy, Andy, Marc, and me at the third Conference on Middle-earth. Thanks, Andy, for the photo!

Big look into Drupal and its requirements: PHP, a SQL backend (mySQL, PostgreSQL ), Apache,… A...

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:00:00 -0500

Big look into Drupal and its requirements: PHP, a SQL backend (mySQL, PostgreSQL ), Apache,…

A development environment for all of these together can be installed easily in OS X via MAMP (with mySQL) or Bitnami’s mappstack (with PostgreSQL).

Then I found Acquia , which may fit my needs even better than mappstack. And the forthcoming Drupal Gardens looks completely amazing.

Drupal 7 development has entered a code-freeze stage; unstable versions are available, but the release of 7.0 should be within two to four months, it looks like. This should be excellent timing for my work with Doinz.

We all just went to the Savoy Theatre and saw Ponyo . Fantastic...

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:56:00 -0400

We all just went to the Savoy Theatre and saw Ponyo . Fantastic animation, and a very good story, too.

I spent the last hour editing next month’s QFQ. But now it’s time to break for Swedish pancakes!

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:12:13 -0400

I spent the last hour editing next month’s QFQ. But now it’s time to break for Swedish pancakes!

Beautiful cool sunny day here in Cabot. I brought in a half cord of wood and pre-painted several...

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:23:00 -0400

Beautiful cool sunny day here in Cabot. I brought in a half cord of wood and pre-painted several clapboards for Matt to use next week.

Karen’s teaching ASL & horseback riding here this afternoon; C is learning to knit; T is doing lots of homework.

K, T, & I are planning to watch Manon des sources this evening. We watched Jean de Florette a couple of weeks ago with Grandma Judy and enjoyed it very much. Beautiful photography!