A few days ago, I shared a data visualization I did for the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) to support their international press release on a flag survey they did in late 2022. Today, I have the analytical one ready, intended more for research, or to find things to research and answer among the results.
analysis
A Self-Study of a Contest’s Winning Modern Poetry Entries
A few weeks back, I was able to share a short poem I had written this year that didn’t fare well in a local poetry competition, with anticipation of seeing the finalists and/or winning entries so I can “self-study” them as one more of many attempts to “get” modern poetry. Well, I got them and have shared them below, along with some self-study notes.
A Mad Way to Fill Brackets for March Madness?
It’s one of my favourite time of the year, March Madness with the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament, and I’m so happy the tournament’s on again after COVID shut it down last year. Still, it isn’t the same without the fans, a weak North Carolina Tar Heels team that is my favourite, and neither perennials of Duke nor Kentucky, as much as despise those teams. It’s all a little less mad than other years, but still mad, as shown by the first big upset almost out of the gates with #15 ranked Oral Roberts upsetting #2 seed Ohio State.
An Interactive Analysis Suite for Google COVID-19 Mobility Data
I recently completed an interactive analysis suite for Google’s COVID-19 mobility data, to let me (and others) do all kinds of comparisons one simply cannot get close to with those static Google mobility data reports! Unfortunately, you will have to go to the Tableau public site, the platform on which I built it, to see and use it because I cannot embed webpages with JavaScript in the WordPress platform this blog is built on.
The Tableau “viz” analysis suite lets you do things like compare for any time period for which Google gave daily data, and even between two time periods. You can also compare any number of countries, regions, even US counties, with data filters. You can compare habits over the days of the week, or see what mobility behaviors people changed (or didn’t, on individual days in a range days). There are “fair expectations” set for each metric based on average to slightly above performance shown to be attainable over a 6 week period, to give further context to the numbers. There is a population filter to compare countries in select ranges of populations. Finally, there are ranks so you don’t have to memorize any numbers in comparing performance in different places and/or over different times. Lots of stuff you can do all kinds of analytics with, draw conclusions about (though be careful on assumptions), and such!
The Tableau viz will be updated roughly once a week, when Google puts out the latest data set. It doesn’t seem they’ll be too consistent with when they do that, but only varying between Thursday and Friday so far. In that Tableau viz is:
- A table of content tab (at top of view) outlining what is in each tab;
- A map of the world showing how countries compare for each of the 6 metrics;
- Continental maps showing regional breakdowns in each country on the continent (where there is data);
- Even a US county breakdown map;
- Graphs showing ranks of countries and regions (US counties were too spotty with incomplete data for me to care and give it its own comparison dashboard);
- Graphs showing select regions against others, allowing comparisons between countries and smaller regions like states and provinces, for example;
- Graphs showing results over time;
- Bundled sets of charts in logical order to produce what would be a good briefing report, without text that someone could write for their region/s if they wanted to; and
- Lots more!
Please click on the link if you want to test out the analytical suite I built. It’s free! No ads or anything! 🙂
Thanks!
Ready to Beat Obama’s Barackets Once Again
March Madness is once again upon us, and I am playing like millions of North Americans. Ever since President Barack Obama has been in office for the tournament, he has submitted what’s been known as the Barackets on ESPN. Of course, I took up the challenge to go against da Prez and have beaten him 4 out of 5 years. It’s all on this blog, with too many posts to link to. This year, I will once again go against da Prez and track it here.
Do you have your brackets ready and do you think you can beat The POTUS if so? He beat almost 75% of all brackets on ESPN last year, and something like over 90% in 2009, if memory serves, when he correctly picked North Carolina to win it all. He went with Michigan State this year. I went with Florida. Both coaches have won it all so they know how. Teams are both great. Florida’s been together longer.
Good luck and game on!
Digital Citizen 