“Data is the New Hot, Drop-dead Gorgeous Field”

Data is the New Hot, Drop-dead Gorgeous Field (From FlowingData and New York Times)
Posted by Nathan / Aug 7, 2009 to Statistics / 1 comment
We all know this already, but it’s nice to get some backing from The New York Times every now and then. In this NYT article, that I’m sure has spread to [...]

“Journalism Needs Data in 21st Century”

This is an interesting summary from ReadWriteWeb about the role of data in media with several fresh innovative examples coming up 2009.  Some of them have already been presented before as posts in this blog. The conclusion is that journalism is data-driven and demands open access to raw data. Data should be transparent and not [...]

To build an ecosystem of data on the Web

Using statistical data to explain the world, telling stories with statistical data, visualizing statistical data to make these data accessible in a quick and instructive manner – all these topics are well known and belong to  long and intensive discussions and activities in many institutions of official statistics. Results can be seen on the websites [...]

20 Visualizations to Understand Crime

20 Visualizations to Understand Crime
POSTED BY NATHAN / JUN 23, 2009
There’s a lot of crime data. For almost every reported crime, there’s a paper or digital record of it somewhere, which means hundreds of thousands of data points – number of thefts, break-ins, assaults, and homicides as well as where and when the incidents occurred.
With all this [...]

“Hooray! The Second Derivative of the Unemployment Rate Improved!”

Nate Silver,  statistician,  is ranked to be among the 100 most influential persons in the world by Times.
He has a blog at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ which is based very much on information search and statistics not only in U.S. but also in other countries. This is an example from U.S. with focus on the economic recession:
5.08.2009

Hooray! The Second Derivative [...]

Reality Checks

From June 18th to 20th 2009 Data Designed for Decisions DD4D,  a joint IIID and OECD conference, will take place in Paris.
What’s about? 
‘Bringing personal meaning and relevance to statistics. Sharing tools to access and understand data. Finding stories in data and communicating them. Helping people understand complex issues. Graphic representation and decision-making. Visualising progress and development.’
Important and often [...]

Flowing Data: Visual Representation of Tabular Information – How to Fix the Uncommunicative Table

http://flowingdata.com/2009/04/21/visual-representation-of-tabular-information-how-to-fix-the-uncommunicative-table/
POSTED BY NATHAN / APR 21, 2009 TO DATA DESIGN TIPS, NETWORK VISUALIZATION / 18 COMMENTS

This is a guest post by Martin Krzywinski who develops Circos, a GPL-licensed (free) visualization tool that can help you show relationships in data. This article is based on a longer writeup which you can find here.
Suppose that you are reading an article and the [...]

Flowing Data: 27 Visualizations and Infographics to Understand the Financial Crisis

All graphics at: http://flowingdata.com/2009/03/13/27-visualizations-and-infographics-to-understand-the-financial-crisis/
Posted by Nathan / Mar 13, 2009 to Featured, Visualization / 119 comments

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If there’s anything good that has come out of the financial crisis it’s the slew of high-quality graphics to help us understand what’s going on. Some visualizations attempt to explain [...]

STATISTICAL LITERACY: A Reader

The International Statistical Literacy Project ISLP offers a new publication which gives an overview of some literacy projects of NSIs (National Statistical Institutes):
GOVERNMENT STATISTICAL OFFICES AND STATISTICAL LITERACY, 1st Edition Coordinated by Juana Sanchez
AUTHORS
Pedro Campos, Statistics Portugal and ISLP
Sharleen Forbes, Statistics New Zealand and ISLP
Paola Guiache, Italian Institute of Statistics and ISLP
Reija Helenius, Statistics [...]

Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian on Statistics and Data

Posted by Nathan / Feb 25, 2009 to Quotes, Statistics / 9 comments
“I keep saying the sexy job in the next ten years will be statisticians. People think I’m joking, but who would’ve guessed that computer engineers would’ve been the sexy job of the 1990s?”
Hal Varian, The McKinsey Quarterly, January 2009
Read more from Hal Varian [...]

History of official statistics from Google News

The prevalence of the search term seems to be visualised in relation to years occurring in the text. Design it yourself by choosing new year intervals and by putting in the name of your National Statistical Institute. Of course it is also possible to choose statistical subject matter areas, e.g “national accounts”, or any other search term [...]

Best of TED: Hans Rosling – now in Wired

Published in Wired Blog Network:
Best of TED: Hans Rosling

By Kim Zetter February 03, 2009 | 5:52:12 PMCategories: TED Conference
Hans Rosling is probably the only academic who ends his PowerPoint presentation by swallowing a sword. And he does this while wearing a muscle-T bedazzled with lightning bolts made from shiny, gold sequins.
Rosling is probably also the [...]

Some 10000 videos about statistics at YouTube

Translate a website with connecting links in seconds!

Here is an example of translation of a unique ISTAT education material from Italian into English. Google Translate manages most combinations of languages. Not perfect but understandable, isn’t it? And also all connecting links in Italian are translated. Try and compare with the official English version, which is often not comprehensive.

And the Winner will be …

In 2007 the Project ALEA of Statistics Portugal won the ISI  Award in Statistical Literacy.
‘This award is given every two years in recognition of outstanding, innovative, and influential statistical literacy projects that affect a broad segment of the general public and are fruit of the cooperation of different types of institutions (national statistical office and [...]

Didactics: Statistical Language!

Some days ago the Australian Bureau of Statistics ABS has published an e-Magazine about important statistical terms: Statistical language! This is an “educational resource designed to improve the reader’s understanding of some fundamental statistical concepts”.

There are not only definitions but also precious explanations about how to calculate and about benefits and downfalls related to these [...]

Statistics – a personal approach (2)

Another example bringing together Statistics and one’s personal situation is about life expectancy (!). It comes from a site called “Understanding Uncertainty“.
” This site is produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim is to help improve the way that [...]

Discuss graphs in groups

Swivel, well known for giving the possibility to visualize and comment data, has introduced Swivel Business some weeks ago. Swivel Business adds more of Web 2.0 and lets companies and offices visualize their data in closed user groups. Every member can comment (parts of) the graphs and get feedback from other members. To discuss with [...]

How to make statistics more accessible

Disseminating statistics to the public is the one side, making statistics accessible the other one. Even if huge databases are actually free and many statistical websites offered to the public there remain many obstacles to get the data to the (right) people.
Issue and agenda setting is one point, metadata another topic in this context. And [...]

History of statistics at YouTube!