Data analysis is not a straight-forward process: you try out lots of things, you go down a path that seems promising but then turns out to not work out, and suddenly you hit upon the thing you were looking for. This comic is about mathematical proofs, but what hit me recently is how well it also applies to data […]
So here we are. 10 years. A decade. 3653 days. 452 postings. Some good stuff. Some bad stuff. Some terrible stuff. A decade is a long time. But its end is also just the beginning of the next one. Now that I’ve shed the blog theme, I can see a number of things that need to be […]
Have you ever wondered where the weird name comes from, what the site was like before it was a blog, and how it all got started? This posting has all the answers. The Name I had been thinking about starting a website for a bit (in addition to my existing kosara.net site, which I had had since 2000). […]
Why spend countless hours writing a blog like this? What do I get out of it? What do I hope to accomplish? What is the purpose? To Get Information Out This is really the biggest thing. No normal person is ever going to read a research paper. They don't know they exist, they don't know […]
This site has gone through many different looks and designs. I haven't kept count, but I'd be surprised if it was fewer than ten. So far, they have all either been off-the-shelf generic designs or ones I had created myself. For its tenth birthday, I decided to splurge and get eagereyes a complete makeover: a new theme and a […]
I have opinions. I state those opinions. Not everybody likes my opinions. And sometimes it's not just a matter of opinion, but also of tone and approach. Criticism can be a useful tool or it can be an angry attack. Figuring out which is which isn't always easy while you're doing it. Why Be Controversial? When […]
Just ahead of the first decade of this website's history clicking over, here's a look back at where things started. Some of those postings were terrible, some of them were quite prescient or are even still popular. This is partly why I created the interactive posting calendar. It makes it easy browse postings just by […]
October 1 marks the ten-year anniversary of this website. Well, it’s really older than that, but the first posting in its modern history is dated October 1, 2006. To celebrate, this week will see a posting every day, so hold on to your hats! If you’re reading this in a feed reader, you might want […]
We just announced next year's Tapestry Conference – the fifth episode (chapter? act?)! It will take place on March 1st, 2017, in St. Augustine, FL. We have three exciting keynotes, and we're looking for your talk proposals, posters, and demos! Tapestry is a conference about storytelling with data. The goal is to bring together people from different backgrounds and […]
So turns out Ben Shneiderman is into pies! Actual pies that is, but in the form of charts. Rather than, you know, the other way around. Feast your eyes on delicious-looking chart pies! I'm pulling a Gelman here by just quoting Ben's email: I've started a new hobby-- baking peach pies. I did a few this […]
