Recreational Dataviz and Photography Adventures

I enjoy exploring open data with open-source tools like , and lately . When I’m out and about I always try to bring along my camera. I share what I discover and learn in bite-sized blog posts.

The Ides of March

In which I use Integer arithmetic on Characters to implement a simple Caesar cipher.

Capulet's Orchard

JuliaLang

A Matter of Character

In which I get a foreshadowing of future opportunities (and bugs) by learning about the the difference between a Character and a String in Julia

Capulet's Orchard

JuliaLang

miniblog

Of Crows and Swans

In which I find a solution to run Julia code while rendering Quarto documents, not by some magical config-foo, but by switching from RStudio to VS Code.

Capulet's Orchard

JuliaLang

miniblog

Of Crows and Swans

In which I find a solution to run Julia code while rendering Quarto documents, not by some magical config-foo, but by switching from RStudio to VS Code.

Capulet's Orchard

JuliaLang

miniblog

A scatterplot of the Palmer Penguins dataset for demonstration purposes only, without any actual meaning to the chart.

First light

In which I take Makie.jl for a spin to visualize the Palmer Penguins. First challenge: how to color the species.

Capulet's Orchard

JuliaLang

miniblog

The two logos of the Julia Programming Language and the R Language next to eachother.

Ay me! Where art thou, Julia?

In which Quarto refuses to talk to Julia, forcing me to add the output manually instead of rendering this .qmd file properly.

Capulet's Orchard

JuliaLang

miniblog

The two logos of the Julia Programming Language and the R Language next to eachother.

Both alike in dignity

In which I dip my toes into the Julia programming language, get overly dramatic (literally!) and start a series of shorter blog posts, called ’Capulet’s Orchard.

Capulet's Orchard

JuliaLang

miniblog

A bivariate map titled 'How ISO codes match the country names' showing the world. The title and subtitle reads: 'Not all ISO codes seem to be derived from the initial letters of the name or the countries' acronyms. In fact, for 140 countries neither condition is met, even if the native and English names of the countries are considered. In 84 names, the ISO code resembles the initial letters of the name, in 26 the acronym (or a permutation of it). Only in Saudi Arabia, the 3-digit code (SAU) matches the name and the 2-digit code (SA) the acronym.' Countries where the ISO code matches the beginning of the name are coloured in blue, those where the acronym matches in red and the one overlapping country in a dark purple colour.

ISO-codes deep dive

Do ISO country codes match a country’s acronym or the beginning of the country’s name? This combined contribution to #30DayMapChallenge and #TidyTuesday explores this with a bivariate map.

dataviz

tidy tuesday

R

python

30DayMapChallenge

maps

A photograph of an empty lecture hall. Multiple rows of bright, wooden chairs. The background, a white wall with doors and a clock is blurred.

SPACE AHEAD: Setting and Audience

At the beginn of “SPACE AHEAD” you should actively consider how, where and to whom you present your data. Let’s take a look at why this matters and why slapping your figure from a paper onto a presentation slide might not be the best approach.

dataviz

space ahead

workshop

AI generated image using Midjourney with the prompt: 'An adventurous astronaut in a space suit, seen from the back with a light angle. He is pointing his finger, as if he was pointing to a distant aim, where he aspires to go. In the background there are stars, planets and a few distant galaxies. The style should be a retrowave, synthwave album cover.'

Mind your SPACE AHEAD

Visualizing scientific data in a clear and compelling way can be hard, as the underlying matter is complex and time often is short. The “SPACE AHEAD” acronym helps conceptualise the desired chart and gives pointers on where/how to optimise the design and accessibility. This first part of the series can be used as a go-to checklist, when you’re not happy with the default settings of your software and don’t know where to start. I’ll dive into more details in the following posts.

dataviz

space ahead

workshop

Ten scrabble letters spelling the words 'Order' in the top and 'Chaos' in the lowe part. The letters forming 'Order' are nicely arranged, while the letter spelling 'Chaos' are arranged in a chaotic way.

Cleaning Babynames

In this post I download, clean and tidy open data from the City of Munich regarding baby names. The available datasets have different filename patterns, column names, delimiters, typos and implicitly missing data. I’ll use the cleaned data for future posts.

data cleaning

EDA

R

The hex sticker of the webpea package.

Export plots in WebP format

Since there’s no “built in” way to export R graphs to WebP images, {webpea} offers a function to save single plots or to automate WebP export in quarto / Rmd documents.

ggplot2

experimental

R

An image of a small wooden table with a flower on it. To the left and right are empty chairs. The scene is set in front of a white painted brick wall, which fills the whole background.

Integrating tables in plots

Including a table in a graph can be very informative. Unfortunatley that wasn’t very straight forward in {ggplot2} - until now. I revisit one of my plots for #30DayChartChallenge to showcase how to include a {flextable} into a plot using {patchwork}.

maps

tables

R

Switching to quarto

I recently ported my blog to quarto. In this post I highlight the key features, that I like about quarto and that I implemented for this website.

meta

A photograph of seating rows in an ancient amphitheater. The stone rows and steps take up the whole frame leading from the lower right to the upper left in a curve.

When Not in Rome…

…still do as the Romans do. The Roman Empire built many amphitheaters outside of its capital. This post explores 268 of these historic sites and includes a dashboard for interactive exploration.

R

EDA

tables

maps

interactive

A screenshot from a part of the final table of the plot.

NY Times Bestsellers

Building an interactive and informative table with {reactablefmtr} and {crosstalk} using data on the top selling fiction books between 1931 and 2020.

tidy tuesday

R

tables

interactive

30 Day Chart Challenge - interactive plots

This post hosts the interactive plots from the #30DayChartChallenge. This will be updated throughout the 2022 challenge.

30DayChartChallenge

R

A drawing of a christmas gift.

Santa. Secret Santa.

With “Spooky Season” coming to an end, Holiday Season is up next. If you have done Secret Santa rounds before, you might have wondered, what the odds are that someone draws his or her own name from the lots.

python

simulation

Tea, Earl Grey, Hot

My submission for #TidyTuesday 2021 week 34. A look at StarTrek TNG voice interactions with the Enterprise’s computer. In this submission I focus on the ‘locate’ command to find someone on the ship.

tidy tuesday

R

RegEx

TidyTuesday 2021 week 24: Great Lakes Commercial Fishing

An analysis of the commercial fish production in the Great Lakes 1867 - 2015. Using beeswarm plots to produce schools of fish. My very first submission for #TidyTuesday!

R

tidy tuesday

experimental

environment

Bundestag Part III: Voting on the edge

Leveraging network analysis tools, the voting behaviour of the deputies in the Bundestag shows similarity-clusters across three legislative periods. A visual analysis.

R

network analysis

germany

bundestag

politics

A photograph of a folded metal gate. The folded parts form a repetitive blue and red pattern.

Bundestag Part II.1 - Go back to start…

After further research I found a way to get more data and with better quality.

R

germany

politics

bundestag

RegEx

record linkage

Three words on a dark background: with flying colours. Each word is differently coloured: orange, blue, red.

With flying colours

After three months of sailing, it is time to adjust the rigging. A refreshed look with a custom color palette, a custom ggplot2 theme and an updated logo and new typography.

meta

typography

ggplot2

superseded

German Bundestag - Part I: members of the parliament

An analysis of the german national parliament (“Bundestag”). This first part focuses on biographical data of the elected representatives and the composition of the parliament over time.

R

politics

germany

bundestag

World Of Waste

The amount of waste produced every year across the globe is frightening. But there’s a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

R

environment

international

A plot from the post showing a positive correlation between the number of participating athletes and medals won per caountry.

Olympic history

Participating athletes and medal count in the Modern Olympic Games over 120 years. Analysis of athletes and national teams from 1896 until 2016 and the influence of population and GDP per capita on the medal count of the nations in 2016.

R

sports

international

tidy tuesday

Setting Sail

Make ready for departure, I’m going on a journey.

meta