andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2013 andrew_gelman_stats-2013-1734 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Jemes Keirstead sends along this infographic : He hates it: First we’ve got an hourglass metaphor wrecked by the fact that “now” (i.e. the pinch point in the glass) is actually 3-5 years in the future and the past sand includes “up to three years” in the future. Then there are the percentages which are appear to represent a vertical distance, not volume of sand or width of the hourglass. Add to that a strange color scheme in which green goes from dark to light to dark again. I know January’s not even finished yet, but surely a competitor for worst infographic of 2013? Keirstead doesn’t even comment on what I see as the worst aspect of the graph, which is that the “3-5 years” band is the narrowest on the graph, but expressed as a per-year rate it is actually the highest of all the percentages. The hourglass visualization does the astounding feat of taking the period where the executives expect the highest rate of change and presenting it as a minimum in the graph.
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 Jemes Keirstead sends along this infographic : He hates it: First we’ve got an hourglass metaphor wrecked by the fact that “now” (i. [sent-1, score-0.777]
2 the pinch point in the glass) is actually 3-5 years in the future and the past sand includes “up to three years” in the future. [sent-3, score-0.336]
3 Then there are the percentages which are appear to represent a vertical distance, not volume of sand or width of the hourglass. [sent-4, score-0.589]
4 Add to that a strange color scheme in which green goes from dark to light to dark again. [sent-5, score-0.686]
5 I know January’s not even finished yet, but surely a competitor for worst infographic of 2013? [sent-6, score-0.697]
6 Keirstead doesn’t even comment on what I see as the worst aspect of the graph, which is that the “3-5 years” band is the narrowest on the graph, but expressed as a per-year rate it is actually the highest of all the percentages. [sent-7, score-0.499]
7 The hourglass visualization does the astounding feat of taking the period where the executives expect the highest rate of change and presenting it as a minimum in the graph. [sent-8, score-1.049]
8 All ugliness aside, this reminds me of a story that I haven’t had a chance to share . [sent-9, score-0.127]
9 The bit on the above infographic about “C-level execs” reminds me of something that happened a couple years ago, when I was invited to speak at an event, “called “The 2012 Election: Predicted Outcomes and Implications for Your Business,” for “an association of C-suite executives. [sent-13, score-0.858]
10 ” I responded that I was interested and told them my fee, to which they responded: I am glad to hear that you are interested in this opportunity. [sent-14, score-0.555]
11 However, we don’t compensate speakers as we find that most are interested in the opportunity to be in front of a room full of high quality C-suite executives. [sent-15, score-0.393]
12 I speak to all sorts of people for free (for example, I just spoke last month at a datatviz meetup), but I was surprised to hear that an association of business executives weren’t planning to pay. [sent-17, score-0.831]
13 I say this not to imply that I’m some sort of anti-corporate crusader (after all, I would’ve been happy to talk for pay! [sent-19, score-0.073]
14 ) but to express my bafflement at the whole “C-level executive” thing. [sent-20, score-0.121]
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same-blog 1 1.0000001 1734 andrew gelman stats-2013-02-23-Life in the C-suite: A graph that is both ugly and bad, and an unrelated story
Introduction: Jemes Keirstead sends along this infographic : He hates it: First we’ve got an hourglass metaphor wrecked by the fact that “now” (i.e. the pinch point in the glass) is actually 3-5 years in the future and the past sand includes “up to three years” in the future. Then there are the percentages which are appear to represent a vertical distance, not volume of sand or width of the hourglass. Add to that a strange color scheme in which green goes from dark to light to dark again. I know January’s not even finished yet, but surely a competitor for worst infographic of 2013? Keirstead doesn’t even comment on what I see as the worst aspect of the graph, which is that the “3-5 years” band is the narrowest on the graph, but expressed as a per-year rate it is actually the highest of all the percentages. The hourglass visualization does the astounding feat of taking the period where the executives expect the highest rate of change and presenting it as a minimum in the graph.
2 0.12729141 1800 andrew gelman stats-2013-04-12-Too tired to mock
Introduction: Someone sent me an email with the subject line “A terrible infographic,” and it went on from there: “Given some of your recent writing on infovis, I thought you might get a kick out of this . . . I’m certainly sympathetic to their motivations, but some of these plots do not aid understanding… To pick on a few in particular, the first plot attached, cropped from the infographic, is a strange alternative to a bar plot. For the second attachment, I still don’t understand what they’ve plotted. . . .” I agree with everything he wrote, but this point I think I’m getting too exhausted to laugh at graphs unless there is an obvious political bias to point to.
3 0.11881097 863 andrew gelman stats-2011-08-21-Bad graph
Introduction: Dan Goldstein points us to this : It’s a good infographic–it grabs the reader’s eye ( see discussion here ), no? P.S. The above remark is not meant as a dig at infographics. On the contrary, I am sincerely saying that a graph that violates all statistical principles and does not do a good job at displaying data, can still be valuable and useful as a data graphic. For this infographic, the numbers are used as ornamentation to attract the viewer, just as one might use a cartoon or a dramatic photo image. P.P.S. At Hadley’s suggestion (see comment below), I’ve changed all uses of “infovis” above to “infographic.”
4 0.092113018 2154 andrew gelman stats-2013-12-30-Bill Gates’s favorite graph of the year
Introduction: Under the subject line “Blog bait!”, Brendan Nyhan points me to this post at the Washington Post blog: For 2013, we asked some of the year’s most interesting, important and influential thinkers to name their favorite graph of the year — and why they chose it. Here’s Bill Gates’s. Infographic by Thomas Porostocky for WIRED. “I love this graph because it shows that while the number of people dying from communicable diseases is still far too high, those numbers continue to come down. . . .” As Brendan is aware, this is not my favorite sort of graph, it’s a bit of a puzzle to read and figure out where all the pieces fit in, also weird stuff going on like 3-D effects and the big space taken up by those yellow and green borders, as well as tricky things like understanding what some of those little blocks are, and perhaps the biggest question, what is the definition of an “untimely death.” But, as often is the case, the defects of the graph form a statistical perspective can
Introduction: I continue to struggle to convey my thoughts on statistical graphics so I’ll try another approach, this time giving my own story. For newcomers to this discussion: the background is that Antony Unwin and I wrote an article on the different goals embodied in information visualization and statistical graphics, but I have difficulty communicating on this point with the infovis people. Maybe if I tell my own story, and then they tell their stories, this will point a way forward to a more constructive discussion. So here goes. I majored in physics in college and I worked in a couple of research labs during the summer. Physicists graph everything. I did most of my plotting on graph paper–this continued through my second year of grad school–and became expert at putting points at 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, and 4/5 between the x and y grid lines. In grad school in statistics, I continued my physics habits and graphed everything I could. I did notice, though, that the faculty and the other
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Introduction: Jemes Keirstead sends along this infographic : He hates it: First we’ve got an hourglass metaphor wrecked by the fact that “now” (i.e. the pinch point in the glass) is actually 3-5 years in the future and the past sand includes “up to three years” in the future. Then there are the percentages which are appear to represent a vertical distance, not volume of sand or width of the hourglass. Add to that a strange color scheme in which green goes from dark to light to dark again. I know January’s not even finished yet, but surely a competitor for worst infographic of 2013? Keirstead doesn’t even comment on what I see as the worst aspect of the graph, which is that the “3-5 years” band is the narrowest on the graph, but expressed as a per-year rate it is actually the highest of all the percentages. The hourglass visualization does the astounding feat of taking the period where the executives expect the highest rate of change and presenting it as a minimum in the graph.
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Introduction: From 2011: Chapter 1 On Sunday we were over on 125 St so I stopped by the Jamaican beef patties place but they were closed. Jesus Taco was next door so I went there instead. What a mistake! I don’t know what Masanao and Yu-Sung could’ve been thinking. Anyway, then I had Jamaican beef patties on the brain so I went by Monday afternoon and asked for 9: 3 spicy beef, 3 mild beef (for the kids), and 3 chicken (not the jerk chicken; Bob got those the other day and they didn’t impress me). I’m about to pay and then a bunch of people come in and start ordering. The woman behind the counter asks if I’m in a hurry, I ask why, she whispers, For the same price you can get a dozen. So I get two more spicy beef and a chicken. She whispers that I shouldn’t tell anyone. I can’t really figure out why I’m getting this special treatment. So I walk out of there with 12 patties. Total cost: $17.25. It’s a good deal: they’re small but not that small. Sure, I ate 6 of them, but I was h
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Introduction: Chapter 1 On Sunday we were over on 125 St so I stopped by the Jamaican beef patties place but they were closed. Jesus Taco was next door so I went there instead. What a mistake! I don’t know what Masanao and Yu-Sung could’ve been thinking. Anyway, then I had Jamaican beef patties on the brain so I went by Monday afternoon and asked for 9: 3 spicy beef, 3 mild beef (for the kids), and 3 chicken (not the jerk chicken; Bob got those the other day and they didn’t impress me). I’m about to pay and then a bunch of people come in and start ordering. The woman behind the counter asks if I’m in a hurry, I ask why, she whispers, For the same price you can get a dozen. So I get two more spicy beef and a chicken. She whispers that I shouldn’t tell anyone. I can’t really figure out why I’m getting this special treatment. So I walk out of there with 12 patties. Total cost: $17.25. It’s a good deal: they’re small but not that small. Sure, I ate 6 of them, but I was hungry. Chapt
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Introduction: Sunday, October 28, 2012, 4:00 pm, Larchmont Public Library, 121 Larchmont Ave, Larchmont, NY . I’m picturing a roomful of people like this: On the other hand, when I spoke at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark a few years ago, it was nothing like the Sopranos. . . .
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Introduction: Yair points us to this page full of wonderful graphs from the Stephen Wolfram blog. Here are a few: And some words: People talk less about video games as they get older, and more about politics and the weather. Men typically talk more about sports and technology than women—and, somewhat surprisingly to me, they also talk more about movies, television and music. Women talk more about pets+animals, family+friends, relationships—and, at least after they reach child-bearing years, health. . . . Some of this is rather depressingly stereotypical. And most of it isn’t terribly surprising to anyone who’s known a reasonable diversity of people of different ages. But what to me is remarkable is how we can see everything laid out in such quantitative detail in the pictures above—kind of a signature of people’s thinking as they go through life. Of course, the pictures above are all based on aggregate data, carefully anonymized. But if we start looking at individuals, we’ll s
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Introduction: Jaakko Peltonen writes: The Seventeenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (http://www.aistats.org) will be next April in Reykjavik, Iceland. AISTATS is an interdisciplinary conference at the intersection of computer science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics, and related areas. ============================================================================== AISTATS 2014 Call for Papers Seventeenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics April 22 – 25, 2014, Reykjavik, Iceland http://www.aistats.org Colocated with a MLSS Machine Learning Summer School ============================================================================== AISTATS is an interdisciplinary gathering of researchers at the intersection of computer science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics, and related areas. Since its inception in 1985, the primary goal of AISTATS has been to broaden research in the
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Introduction: Jemes Keirstead sends along this infographic : He hates it: First we’ve got an hourglass metaphor wrecked by the fact that “now” (i.e. the pinch point in the glass) is actually 3-5 years in the future and the past sand includes “up to three years” in the future. Then there are the percentages which are appear to represent a vertical distance, not volume of sand or width of the hourglass. Add to that a strange color scheme in which green goes from dark to light to dark again. I know January’s not even finished yet, but surely a competitor for worst infographic of 2013? Keirstead doesn’t even comment on what I see as the worst aspect of the graph, which is that the “3-5 years” band is the narrowest on the graph, but expressed as a per-year rate it is actually the highest of all the percentages. The hourglass visualization does the astounding feat of taking the period where the executives expect the highest rate of change and presenting it as a minimum in the graph.
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Introduction: From AC, AI, and AIH to WAHM, WOHM, and WM. P.S. That was all pretty pointless, so I’ll throw in this viral Jim Henson link (from the same source) for free.
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