I’ve put together a release of the JDBC Providers at berlios. This packages up recent bug fixes and the separation of Java and SQL code which makes it easier to support other DB vendors.
Meanwhile Søren and Mikkel are working on a branch to futher separate the DB by using JNDI so we can rely on the servlet container to maintain the DB connections.
Information visualization specialists like Stephen Few and Howard Wainer often call out the 3-D Pie Chart as a graphical pariah. The curved areas of pie charts are already difficult to compare already, and they become worse when a 3-D perspective is added. Though authors like to rail on it, I suspected the form didn’t really occur in serious or even semi-serious data presentations. However, below is such a graph I found in the wild recently.
It’s from an North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics summary of alumni giving, and the graph breaks it down by class year. There seems to be one only piece of information to be gleaned from the graph: some class gave a lot more than any others. You can’t tell which one, because the classes of 1984 and 1993 are assigned the same color wedge. The graph may fall into the so-bad-it’s-good category because it tells you that there is something interesting in the data, forcing you to read the provided table of numbers to figure out just what it is. Unfortunately, the report has no explanation for the 1993 spike, but I’m guessing it was a single .com jackpot winner.
Here’s a quick scatterplot of the same data with 1993 removed (so it wouldn’t throw off the scale) and a Loess smoother added. It’s not surprising to see that older alumni give more money. The 1985 and 1987 mini-spikes are partially explained by considering class sizes. As I recall, the class size went from about 150 students to about 250 with the class of 1985, and the school’s two grades alternated between big and small sizes for a few years until they either evened out or the school grew again and expanded the even year class sizes to catch up.
Seen in Cary, NC off of Harrison Ave.
It’s easy to find critiques of bad graphs (just ask Google), so I’d like to comment on a good graph. The Orange Water and Sewer Authority does a great job of posting graphs of water supply and demand. The graphs are not especially pretty, but they do a good job of showing the data and have helpful legends.
The third “graph” is the real gem. (It’s not really a graph — it’s a decorated spreadsheet.) It shows a lot of information in a fairly approachable format. The colors represent water conservation stages associated with a given reservoir level and month. It’s easy to see that a 60% full reservoir is something to worry about in June but not a real danger in January. And for comparison, the graph also shows the levels during the 2002 drought, last year, and this year.
OWASA was kind enough to share the data with me, and here is my attempt at a prettier version of the graph.
The original graph has its share of graphic shortcomings, but it still makes for an insightful look at the data. Shortcomings:
My version addresses those shortcomings but has some of its own, mostly due to my app limitations:
It’s hard to count the requests I get for reviews of recent Memorial Hall performances, so here are short reviews of the recent ones.
Mark Morris Dance Group
Modern dance, at a level even an unsophisticate could understand. Several pieces using lots of dancers with musical interpretation themes.
Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra
Nice drums.
Russian National Orchestra with Yefim Bronfman
Yefim Bronfman was the pianist and only played for the first set. He and the orchestra seemed to playing at a very high level with lots of very fast, complicated sequences. The musicians in the crowd were very impressed.
Vijay Oyer, Michael C. Ladd and Ibrahim Quraishi
One of those experimental performance art kind of works. Fortunately, they provided lyric sheets in the program and I had time to read some of it before hand, so I had some idea of what was going on. I took it as very interesting presentations of 8 - 10 poems about news events, from the Hindenburg Disaster to Jon Stewart on Crossfire, but mostly about war. I liked most of it, but some parts were too harsh, such as shrieky music, flashing bright lights, and a five minute rant in Japanese.
The stage was interesting. Lowered stage lights served as a suspended stage with live musicians underneath on the real stage.
Brentano String Quartet with Mary Nessinger
Lots of plucking and otherwise atonal sounds made this too harsh for me to even stay after intermission. The program says it best: “as pure a musical portrait of dread and anxiety as one is apt to encounter.” At the next performance we overheard someone who wished they had left after intermission.
Academy of Ancient Music
This British orchestra playing Mozart was a welcome change from the string quartet. Most of the pieces had a single lead violinist playing against the rest of the orchestra, which I found more interesting than the usual synchronized violins. My only complaint was that they were too casually dressed, with outfits only loosely matching.