588: quantum of sollazzo
#588: quantum of sollazzo – 17 December 2024
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.
The most clicked link last week was TechChruch's discussion on the fact that BlueSky's API is open access and, therefore, anyone could use it for AI training.
Loud Numbers have released a new piece of data-driven music: "On Standby is a piece of sound art designed to be listened to while sleeping. It’s based on data collected by seven different people in Malmö, Sweden. Each of those people used a smart plug to collect data on the energy consumption of a device in their home over the course of a single night, the night of 25th August 2024."
It's AMA o'clock! This is the Quantum of Sollazzo Ask Me Anything section.
Some of you have come to me suggesting this, so let's give it a try. AMA – Ask Me Anything by submitting a question via this anonymous Google form. If there are many questions, I'll select one each couple of weeks and answer it on here :-)
Don't be shy!
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'till next week,
Giuseppe @puntofisso
✨ Topical
How much money do Americans spend on holiday shopping?
"Since 1992, people have spent more in December than any other month. In 2023, it was around $1,750 per person."
After years on the rise, ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You' listenership is slipping
"Data shows Mariah Carey’s classic Christmas song doesn’t have the hold on October and November that it once did."
This is Not My Name
"You may come across Chinese names in various contexts, such as Cixin Liu, the author of the science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem, and Ai Weiwei, a contemporary Chinese artist.
However, these names have been transliterated to Hanyu Pinyin, which represents Mandarin pronunciation, rather than their original characters. This can lead to name ambiguity, as even native Chinese speakers may find it challenging to decode the original names behind the Pinyin."
Brilliant visualization, using trees to represent the ambiguity of Pinyin translations.
Web Almanac
"HTTP Archive’s annual state of the web report. Our mission is to combine the raw stats and trends of the HTTP Archive with the expertise of the web community. The Web Almanac is a comprehensive report on the state of the web, backed by real data and trusted web experts. The 2024 edition is comprised of 21 chapters spanning aspects of page content, user experience, publishing, and distribution."
Trading flags for medals: Inside the Olympic naturalisation market
A team for the European Data Journalism Network: "Europe's athletes have been switching nationalities since well before the Olympics. But the preferential treatment they receive is now becoming a source of tension. EUrologus has perused the data."
Sitters and Standers
Alvin Chang with an interactive article for The Pudding: "This story is about two kinds of workers in America: Sitters – people who sit for living – and Standers – those who stand, crouch, crawl, and lift". And this is where I would be, if I worked in the USA:
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🛠️📖 Tools & Tutorials
Data Science Project Failing After 1,600 Days
Martin Lellep: "I spent >1,600 days working on a data science project that then failed because I lost interest. This article is to cope with the failure and maybe help you (and me) to finish successful data science projects by summarising a few learnings into a checklist, see below."
You need 4 colors
A simpler palette generator.
Will your code run again?
"Tips for making code reproducible in R". A good slide deck with 6 easy steps to ensure your code will run again.
From PDFs to AI-ready structured data: a deep dive
"In this blog post, I’ll present a new modular workflow for converting PDFs and similar documents to structured data and show how to build end-to-end document understanding and information extraction pipelines for industry use cases."
Mastering SVG Arcs
"SVG arcs demystified! Akshay Gupta explains how to master radii, rotation, and arc direction to create stunning curves. Make arcs a powerful part of your SVG toolkit for creating more dynamic, intricate designs with confidence."
📈Dataviz, Data Analysis, & Interactive
Eastenders title recreated with Sentine 2 imagery
Here by John Murray, who you should follow.
Distribution of illegal Matlabs in the US
Well, this made me think of my time in academia :)
(via Peter Wood)
Anti-Tag Cloud
"An Anti-Tag Cloud shows you the most common English words that never appear in a text, visualizing the "negative space" of a literary work. Size indicates how frequent a word is across other texts."
This is genius.
Local Map
A brilliant idea: a map that allows you to search for all geo-tagged articles on Wikipedia in a specific area.
(via Daniele Bottillo)
Flight delays? Snow problem.
Michael Do Thoi (Datawrapper): "I found a dataset listing all delayed U.S. domestic flights in 2022".
🤖 AI
Trustworthiness in the age of AI
What an opening: "It probably feels liberating to be a little bit wrong, all of the time."
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