441: quantum of sollazzo
#441: quantum of sollazzo – 28 September 2021
The data newsletter by @puntofisso.
Hello, regular readers and welcome new ones :) This is Quantum of Sollazzo, the newsletter about all things data. I am Giuseppe Sollazzo, or @puntofisso. I’ve been sending this newsletter since 2012 to be a summary of all the articles with or about data that captured my attention over the previous week. The newsletter is and will always (well, for as long as I can keep going!) be free, but you’re welcome to become a friend via the links below.
·
My “Six Questions” series is taking a few weeks’ break after 14 issues while I prepare the next series. Which gives me the opportunity of asking: who would you like to be featured in the next series of interviews? I’m just a few interviews away from completing this, so please do shout.
Also, in case you’re in the mood for some GCP and don’t have an account… “Whenever someone signs up for a Google Cloud free trial using your referral link, they’ll get US $350 worth of credits — that’s US $50 more than the standard free trial offer. When any of your referrals become a paying customer, you will earn US $100 free credits which will be deposited automatically into your account. There’s no cap on how many people you refer or how many rewards you receive. GCP Referral Code.“
·
For the geekiest among you, there’s a pretty cool Gresham Lecture at the Museum of London, which can be attended both in person and virtually. “GPS” is a lecture by Professor Richard Harvey on the history and mechanics of the Global Positioning Service: “In 1977 or thereabouts a collection of scientists huddled around a secret radio receiver in the US desert. This was the start of GPS, Glonass, Gallileo and the whole navigation industry.“
·
‘till next week,
Giuseppe @puntofisso
Become a Friend of Quantum of Sollazzo →
If you enjoy this newsletter, you can support it by becoming a GitHub Sponsor. Or you can Buy Me a Coffee. I’ll send you an Open Data Rottweiler sticker.
Quantum of Sollazzo will always be free.
You’re receiving this email because you subscribed to Quantum of Sollazzo, a weekly newsletter covering all things data, written by Giuseppe Sollazzo (@puntofisso). If you have a product or service to promote and want to support this newsletter, you can sponsor an issue.
Topical
Angela Merkel in Zahlen–Die Bilanz ihrer Kanzlerschaft
The original, interactive German article is here. Automatically translated into English, it becomes “Angela Merkel in Numbers–A review of her Chancellorship“. It looks at several areas of work, including society and the economy, but of course her major contribution remains this.
Europe’s internet speeds are faster than ever, but not for everyone
Federico Caruso and Ornaldo Gjergji have done some extensive data analysis work to assess the broadband speeds in Europe. The write-up is here, but they’ve also released a handy [interactive dashboard] (https://datavis.europeandatajournalism.eu/obct/connectivity/).
The 20 Fastest Growing Jobs in the Next Decade
Some predictions from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
## Scientists scramble to harvest ice cores as glaciers melt
“Ice provides historical records about climate and shows the impact humanity has had. But many glaciers are now melting, prompting renewed urgency among scientists.“
This brilliantly visualized article by the Reuters Graphics team is aptly taglined “the vanishing climate archive“.
Tools & Tutorials
Borb
“borb is a library for reading, creating and manipulating PDF files in python.“
ggHoriPlot: build horizon plots in ggplot2
For the R aficionados, this library allows you to build horizon plot like the one below.
Link out CSS
A simple codepen code snippet that shows how to add the “out” link icon, which the W3C recommends for better accessibility, when you add a link to a different page.
Descript
Descript offers “all-in-one audio & video editing, as easy as a doc“. It includes interesting features like automatic transcribing. It offers a free tier.
Data thinking
The Data Product Manager
“Leading research and advisory firm Gartner has predicted that through 2022, only 20% of analytic insights will deliver business outcomes“. This article proposes the data product manager as the bridge between analytics and business needs. IMHO, 20% sounds pretty good to me, and I’m not sure that data can get much better than that, but I think we’re all finally acknowledging that we need to have focussed data collection and data use strategies.
Why your data needs a QA process
“At this point, most software engineers see the value of testing their software regularly. But are you testing your data engineering as well?“
Why sourcing climate data is difficult
The Economist’s Guy Scriven explains in the newspaper’s newsletter how with climate “even simple-sounding questions can be complicated.“
Dataviz & Interactive
Phantom Islands – A sonic atlas
“Phantom Islands are artifacts of the age of maritime discovery and colonial expansion. During centuries of ocean exploration these islands were sighted, charted, described and even explored – but their existence has never been ultimately verified. Poised somewhere between cartographical fact and maritime fiction, they haunted seafarers’ maps for hundreds of years, inspiring legends, fantasies, and counterfactual histories. Phantom Islands – A Sonic Atlas interprets and presents these imaginations in the form of an interactive map which charts the sounds of a number of historical phantom islands.“
River Runner
Sam Learner has taken open data from the USGS’s NLDI API and thel NHDPlus data, and created this applications that allows you to “click to drop a raindrop anywhere in the contiguous United States and watch where it ends up“. All source code is available.
Exploring 120 years of timezones
Timezones have been changing over time way more than you’d think, and so has daylight saving.
The importance of comparable data: what our two new dashboards enable us to do
Gen Maitland Hudson, Deputy CEO at Social Investment Business, explains how good data collection practices are helping her organisation. SIB has recently released a Diversity Data Dashboard and a # Futurebuilders Financial Resilience Dashboard, which you can see below.
Apples to Apples: London Underground Map Update
The current, official TfL London Underground Map is a notorious mess as it tries to keep the original method of creating the map with new features (e.g. multi-zone fare areas) that are not possible within it. This article suggest that there is a way and explains the design process.
(via Guy Lipman)
AI
AI’s Islamophobia problem
“GPT-3 is a smart and poetic AI. It also says terrible things about Muslims.“
VOX looks at this other example of bias in AI.
Predicting FT Trending Topics
Adam Gajtkowksi shows how his data science team at the Financial Times uses machine learning in order to predict what their readers are interested to see and help journalists write more relevant stories. It is an interesting article that looks at model inception to deployment.
2021 Data/AI Salary Survey
The results of O’Reilly’s surveys of their Data & AI Newsletter are now available. The average salary (!) is $146,000, and they don’t see evidence of increased resignations.
quantum of sollazzo is supported by ProofRed’s excellent proofreading service. If you need high-quality copy editing or proofreading, head to http://proofred.co.uk. Oh, they also make really good explainer videos.
