Same same, but different

Thinking buying somebody else’s stuff? A large part of our daily products goes back to only a few companies.

In order to use the “dygraphs“, do the following:

1. Prepare your values (for example, divide by 1.000.000; add “Date” to the right field, concatenate(Field-with-year,”-01-01″))
2. Copy from Mac to Windows, insert into Excel, change date again to right format
3. Save as CSV
4. Replace “;” with “,”

a. Use the Symbol font. It has several parts of curly and straight braces and parentheses, designed to stack upon eachother with zero extra leading (or slightly less, if you want a smaller brace).

b. Put these into an Anchored object, anchored somewhere at an appropriate place, so its frame will always keep the same relative position to its text.

c. Well, it oughta look like this. On the left: a frame with three parts of a curly brace. In the middle: some random math. The top line “contains” the anchored object, as can be seen by the ¥ sign. On the right, the anchored object itself, positioned relatively to its anchor.

Via

Bret Victor demos some great looking software that connects code to the visual, making the creation process more visceral, and he finishes up with worhtwhile thoughts on the invention process.

Here just two examples of graphs which were supposed to go into a report (left) and which got a little bit of a face lifting (right)… (data visualization)

I’ve build a neat SVG application. It uses data (via a direct database connection) from the UNEP Environmental Data Explorer (ex-GEO Data Portal). Lots of possibilities to play around with the data, for each variable some 40.000 data points.

Nice examples for boxes around HTML elements here.

How to convert this:

to this:

Great VisualBasic script for Excel which does exactly that:

Option Explicit
Sub MoveData()
Dim LC As Long, LRO As Long, NR As Long, HowMany As Long, a As Long, b As Long
Dim c As Range, rng As Range
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
LRO = Sheets("Output").Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row
If LRO > 1 Then Sheets("Output").Range("A2:E" & LRO).ClearContents
NR = 2
With Sheets("Input")
LC = .Cells(1, Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column
For Each c In .Range("A2", .Range("A" & Rows.Count).End(xlUp))
Set rng = .Range(.Cells(c.Row, 3), .Cells(c.Row, LC))
HowMany = Application.WorksheetFunction.CountIf(rng, ">-10000")
If HowMany > 0 Then
.Range("A" & c.Row & ":C" & c.Row).Copy Sheets("Output").Range("A" & NR & ":A" & NR + HowMany - 1)
b = NR
For a = 4 To LC Step 1
If .Cells(c.Row, a).Value > -10000 Then
Sheets("Output").Range("D" & b) = .Cells(1, a)
Sheets("Output").Range("E" & b) = .Cells(c.Row, a)
b = b + 1
End If
Next a
NR = NR + HowMany
End If
Next c
End With
Sheets("Output").Select
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Source

Standard numerals are the size of capital, or uppercase, letters. Their best uses are for standalone numbers like your house number, or, because they have a single set width, for columns of tabular material. Because they line up in columns, they are also referred to as lining numerals. Lining numerals are standard in almost every typeface, and are by far the most widely used.

Old-style numerals are the equivalent of lowercase letters — small x-height, plus ascenders and descenders. They’re the best choice to use in a body of text — for dates, times, addresses, phone numbers, and so on, as in, “He lives at 6451 Elm Street,” or, “The 1979 version had 42,362 points.”

Not all typefaces have old-style numerals — which are sometimes called expert numerals — even as an option. The most widely used typeface that has old-style numerals as the default is web favorite Georgia, which you’re now reading.

Source

Nice application to check colors for color blind people.

New Agriculturist:

“Very much a reference book, Keeping track of our changing environment will prove an invaluable and accessible source of data that underpins a proper understanding and interpretation of numerous issues confronted daily by readers of New Agriculturist, whether specialist advisor, educator or policymaker. Eye-catching and providing much ‘food for thought’, UNEP is to be congratulated for conceiving and commissioning this ‘must have’ publication.”

Friends of Europe

Although the authors of the report have carefully avoided providing any critical evaluation of the statistical data, anyone reading the 111-pages study can hardly conclude that global leaders have done a great job since they received a wake-up call about the world’s sustainability challenges twenty years ago.
All in all, the UNEP study is an impressive work of data collection but it could have done with a little bit less spin and a bit more “hard” evaluation. But then again, maybe this document has a political function and the real meat can be expected in May of next year?

National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy

Graphs of the report used in the PPT of “NRT President and CEO” David McLaughlin

Our World 2.0:

This report is proof that, through restrained use of technical language and intelligent application of design tools and graphs, complex messages can be conveyed to wider audiences. Overall, Keeping Track does a good job of explaining to us where we have come from. Where we are going is now up to all of us.

Monsanto:

Two graphs included in a Monsanto-Presentation on Climate Change

UNESCAP-Rio+20

Listed as one of the four “KEY REFERENCE REPORTS”

CEOS – The Earth Observation Handbook

The Keeping Track book is the best of the summary pieces I have surveyed for Rio+20 and Im glad to be able to use its messages.

KPMG Consulting Study (PDF, Graph, Phrases)

Newly created graph based on all statistics of the KT report. Interesting, different perspective.

Some simple graphics, but nicely done.

Tools for some Finder, iTunes etc. tweaks and fixes. Finder Sidebar, many small things.

Keka is a free file archiver for Mac OS X

“The map on the left and the cartogram on the right plot identical data. The only difference is that each hexagon on the cartogram represents an equal number of people. The two views give very different impressions: the big dark green patch on the middle-right of the map — representing a relatively sparse neighborhood — is shrunk to a single dark green hexagon on the cartogram. Meanwhile, the most deprived areas (dark purple) which look relatively small on the map are expanded to quite a few hexagons.” (from Junk Charts); corresponding article

Circos is a software package for visualizing data and information. It visualizes data in a circular layout — this makes Circos ideal for exploring relationships between objects or positions. There are other reasons why a circular layout is advantageous, not the least being the fact that it is attractive.