456: quantum of sollazzo

This week's edition is sponsored by OpenCage · The data newsletter by @puntofisso

                            February 8, 2022

                456: quantum of sollazzo

                        #456: quantum of sollazzo – 8 February 2022
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.
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Every week I include a six-question interview with an inspiring data person. This week, I speak with Taylor Johnston, a fellow of the New York Time Graphics Department, and a well-known maker of incredible map-based news stories.
'till next week,

Giuseppe @puntofisso  

This week's edition is sponsored by OpenCage

        OpenCage operates a highly available, simple to use, worldwide, geocoding API based on open data like OpenStreetMap. With libraries for python, R, MATLAB, Stata, and over 30 other programming languages it's easy to dive in. Whether you just need to geocode one dataset, or you have an on-going need, we offer cost-effective, flat-fee packages, and all the benfits of Open Data.
        Try the API now on the OpenCage demo page.

    Six questions to...
Taylor Johnston

        Taylor is a Fellow at The New York Time Graphics Department.

What is your daily data work like and what tools do you use?

    As a member of the graphics desk at The New York Times, I work with data and design maps, charts and other types of visualizations for breaking news and enterprise stories. When performing data analysis, I use a combination of Google Sheets and RStudio. Then when designing, depending on the visualization I am trying to create, I use ai2html for static charts and infographics, QGIS for mapmaking and Svelte.js for building web applications.

Tell me about a data project that you're proud of...

    When I was the data and interactives intern at The Dallas Morning News during the summer of 2019, I produced a project on the inequity in Dallas’ public pools using data analysis and visualization.

We found that as the city began to renovate public pools, it widened disparities. Pools in mostly white, affluent communities were chosen to receive upgrades, while pools in primarily Black and Latino, lower-income communities were less likely to be revamped.

...and a data project that someone else did and you're jealous of.

        There are so many projects that I come across on a weekly basis and store away in my trove of data viz bookmarks… but I think one of my all time favorites is Nadieh Bremer’s “Why do cats & dogs…?”

I love the style of this piece and how fun it is! It brings together design and data viz so wonderfully.

If I say "dataset", you think of...

        Jeremy Singer-Vine’s newsletter “Data is Plural” ... a newsletter I often scroll through when I am seeking inspiration!

Give someone new to data a tip or lesson you wish you'd learned earlier.

    Try to find one specific skill or tool you want to master, and focus on that. When you feel comfortable, move on to the next. When I was first starting out I was so overwhelmed by trying to learn everything that others in this field were using to do their jobs. There’s so many tools out there and it’s nice to be familiar with them but take each one step at a time!

Data is or data are...

    I follow the AP Stylebook so… data is!

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Topical
‘Pandemic of the unboosted’: low US Covid jab uptake piles pressure on hospitals
An article appeared on the Financial Times on the critical importance of vaccination in beating Covid, summarised in this Twitter thread by John Burn-Murdoch's Twitter.

What Spotify data show about the decline of English
"Our interactive analysis of five years of hits in 70 countries—and the links between them."

This is a crazily good dataviz by The Economist, which comes with a walk-through in their newsletter.

(via Massimo Conte)

On the edge of war
"A build-up of Russian troops, tanks and artillery along Ukraine’s borders leaves the West wary that Moscow could invade"

An in-depth article, but also a spike chart seen in the wild.

Tools & Tutorials
Glassbox
Glassbox is a "a protocol for the communication on how the news change between media outlets and its audience [...] to let the audience know how the news change and evolve."
Data thinking
Are data trusts a suitable stewardship model for the developing world?
"How, and by whom, decisions are made over data sharing has come under heightened scrutiny"
Overdebunked! Six Statistical Critiques That Don’t Quite Work
This is a very good article with a few tips that could help deliver and challenge statistics better. Importantly, "an overabundance of skepticism can lead you to disbelieve things that are true".
What Happens If a Cryptocurrency Exchange Files for Bankruptcy?
"the custodial agreement clearly says that I am the owner, that it’s my property, that I retain title to it. Yup, but that’s not how the law actually works. Just because they wrote that doesn’t mean it’s true."

I don't often link to blockchain stuff, but this could be an eye opener
Dataviz, Data Analysis, & Interactive
A map of data visualization
"This map is an attempt to organize the field of data visualization to make it more approachable".

To be honest, I'd have used a different visualization library, but it could still be useful.

(via Massimo Conte)

[OC] U.S. Recorded Music Revenues by Format
Welll, the music has changed – and, by the way, don't miss the discussion below the animated dataviz.

(via Andy Redwood)

The Pandemic Cyclone
"This chart shows the daily number of new Covid-19 infections in each state over time. The y-axis is the population-normalized number of new infections per day; the x-axis is the rate of transmission (Rt). Each dot is a state or territory of the US, colored by region, and the area of the dot is proportional to the estimated number of new Covid-19 infections on that day in that state."

It's on Observable, so it can be forked and reused.

(via Matteo Conte)

Where are Americans born?
Brilliant chart by "Six Questions" graduate Erin Davis.

Life satisfaction by latitude
According to Alasdair Rae the numbers don't suggest that your life satisfaction is greater up North, with the exception of Orkney (which is interesting, being one of the places that I'm trying to convince my partner to move to...)

Gender & language
"Modifying language to reflect a spectrum of gender identities is a fundamental change that stirs fierce debate", and Reuters Graphics have created this amazing scrollytelling article to explore aspects of that debate.

AI
explainerdashboard
explainerdashboard is a tool to "quickly build Explainable AI dashboards that show the inner workings of so-called "blackbox" machine learning models."

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