ubertakter
First you said, "I can't count the number of times I've looked at a data visualization and wished I could sit down with the person who made it and read an Edward Tufte book to them."
I was and am 100% on board with this comment. I think the same thing often.
Then you said "There's just so few good examples out there of data visualizations that respect basic principles of visual communication, like the ones outlined in this article."
I agree, the article does a pretty good job.
Then, "They generally seem to aim more for visual impact (like the useless 3D display in the article, which you've gotta admit is striking) than for clarity, which I guess is understandable but is still too bad."
I was uncertain about this statement. The previous sentence you start by stating "There's just so few good examples..." and end with "...like the ones outline in this article", which made it a little unclear if the one's in the article were good or not, but as I was reading it I was leaning to the good side. Then this sentence started with "They generally seem...", and since the end of the previous sentence ended talking about the "ones outlined in the article", I associated "They" with "the ones in the article". And this sentence that started with "They generally" was negative.
Then I contributed some miscommunication. When I used "you" in the sentence I was thinking in general terms (including myself) and not you personally. I think that might have been better stated as "If one reads the article...".
Anyway, I was initially confused by your statement. Now I see what you were going for.
Edits: grammar, missing words
For the 3D one specifically, right under the graphic, the article says: "3D has a time and a place. It can be a really useful way to encode thematic data on the z-axis and make something useful. But extruding Hubei compared to the rest of the areas just doesn’t work. It’s gratuitous and adds nothing. It’s really hard to make any sense of relative amounts and that’s before we even deal with foreshortening and occlusion."
Perhaps a review of telescope design is in order: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telescope
Building large telescopes is hard enough. Putting them in orbit just adds to all the costs. Look at the James Webb Telescope (which still hasn't been launched). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope
It seems possible to launch multiple small telescopes and operate them as one large scope using aperture synthesis. I don't know if there are any existing designs or plans for this.
Also: somewhat ninja'd, see other replies as well.
I feel like information overload is like this sometimes. Which is probably why I try to reduce information that shows up automatically on my phone...
By the way, my wife is a "planner", so this drivers her crazy, not that she is going with us anyway. So a conversation might be like this: Wife:"What time are you going to the brewery?" Me:"Eh, after lunch" Wife:"So what time?" Me:"Maybe 1300?" Wife:"After that?" Me:"We'll get dinner somewhere" Wife:"Where? When?" Me:"Somewhere, whenever we get hungry. We'll decide on-the-fly." Wife:"Arrrggghhh!!" I have to confess I get a lot of amusement out of her reactions.
Anyway, the point is, people may not want to use Qt without being absolutely certain about how the licensing works and they (like me) probably don't have the time to try to understand the poorly organized information on the Qt site.
Related to CLU: It introduced a lot of concepts together in one language. "Key contributions include abstract data types,[6] call-by-sharing, iterators, multiple return values (a form of parallel assignment), type-safe parameterized types, and type-safe variant types." [1]
Liskov also has other contributions[2]. Per the article, she says herself in the early days there were a lot of big problems to solve, so it was somewhat easier to make a "big" contribution.
It's interesting to look at where many modern concepts came from. It would be interesting to dig in to these a little more. Time is the one resource that's hard to come by though.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLU_(programming_language) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Liskov
One particular error in the article stood out to me: the Trinity test site is in White Sands, New Mexico, not Nevada. This was immediately noticeable because I've been to the Trinity site.
Von Neumann probes pop up in sci-fi. One of my favorite uses of them is in the Bobiverse books: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32109569-we-are-legion?f...
I suppose we've made progress since then...
Also, look in to "ground potential rise", which I learned all about after a lightning strike in my yard (while I was standing on the second floor of my house). Basically, the charge dissipates in the ground around a strike. This means that radially from the strike outward there is a voltage potential. And of course if you connect two points across the potential with less resistance than the ground, you get current flow. Incidentally, this is why you keep your feet as close together as possible if caught outside in a storm. And of course crouch so you aren't the tallest thing around.
Think of it in terms of a risk assessment[1]. If you are engaging in an activity, you should look at the probability of injury and then the consequences if that occurs.
For example, I'm going mountain biking by myself. The area I'm riding in has a loose surface, but no extreme hills or other features. So it's somewhat likely I'll fall, but the consequence of that won't be extreme. Conversely, I'm riding in a hilly area with a rough but grippy surface. Relatively, the probability of a fall may be lower, but the consequence could be much higher.
Using this type of not-exactly-quantitative reasoning, depending on what you are doing (and the consequences of something going wrong), it may be very reasonable to buy a smart watch or something similar just for this purpose.
[1]A not exactly good article on risk matrix use. Also search for "5x5 risk matrix" (NASA probably has a good reference). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_matrix
Edited to add this effect is likely due to the amount of blood flow to the brain and the short path (relatively) between the brain and the heart.
[1] https://www.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.012...
"Following this, a series of orbit maneuvers will be performed on Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft to enable it to enter its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon’s surface.
Subsequently, the lander will separate from the Orbiter and enters into a 100 km X 30 km orbit around the Moon. Then, it will perform a series of complex braking maneuvers to soft land in the South polar region of the Moon on September 7, 2019."
Down a steep hill on my road cycle I can easily get to 45-50mph.
Rolling resistance doesn't change that much with speed[1].
Rolling resistance energy balance at 18mph is on the order of 10-15W[2]
Drag increases with the square of velocity (D=0.5 * <drag coefficient> * <representative cross sectional area> * <air density> * <velocity>^2).
The drag energy balance (plus some rolling resistance) at 10, 20, and 30mph is on the order of 10, 100, and 300W, respectively[3].
[1]https://www.schwalbe.com/en/rollwiderstand.html (see section "what exactly is rolling resistance")
[2]https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/road-bike-reviews
[3]https://www.exploratorium.edu/cycling/aerodynamics1.html (see the calculator)
Worked on a tool that used 3D trajectories in an analysis. Some of the output looked strange, but not exactly incorrect (there was no obviously correct answer). Looking at the trajectories used in the analysis, we started thinking some of them had to be wrong. We isolated the "most" incorrect ones and dug in to the code. After looking at the x, y, z components, that pointed us to a few functions. We found a function call with a typo. Instead of f(x,y,z) it was called with f(x,y,y). That one took a day or two to figure out.
Working on a tool that plotted satellite trajectories as part of results visualization, there was a strange jump in the orbit plot. Orbits before and after were fine. We eventually narrowed down the jump to crossing a specific date and time, and not at an obvious boundary (some day in the middle of the year if I remember correctly). There was no obvious reason for it to occur (no errors in our calculations or the input data). Eventually, we discovered that a leap second had been added on that date. The libraries we were relying on did not include that leap second since it had only been added recently, but the input data did. That was... frustrating. If I recall correctly, leap seconds are no longer added to time information (thankfully).
...
I once had a pair of bugle boy pants
and I wore them into a gas station
and this story has nothing to do with waffles
but the lady at the gas station said,
"By any chance are those bugle boy pants you're wearing?"
and I said "Why yes they are"
And that's the real story of this song
You gotta wear pants to get waffles
You gotta wear pants to get waffles
they said no shoes, no service
but if you don't wear pants
you'll get thrown out on your ass
https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data?category=residenti...
If you stop in on a Thursday between March and October, a biergarten is set up under the rocket in the evenings. Food's not the best but having sausages and beer while sitting under a Saturn V is a truly unique experience.
Being in an employee-owned company, I'm very aware of how much the company pays for insurance. It never goes down, it always goes up. The company has to switch to plans where employees pay larger and larger deductibles, just to keep the insurance cost increases down in the 10% per year range. Usually the reason costs go up is because we "use it too much", people need to use generic drugs, etc. Of course, it's hard to determine actual costs in such a convoluted system, but orders of magnitude cost increases for medicines obviously plays a significant role.
For example (when she was younger), I have a four-wheeled cart for moving things which she wanted to ride in the driveway. I pointed out that she definitely would fall off and land on the concrete at some point, which made her understand she needed to wear protective gear (knee/elbow pads, wrist guards, and a helmet... basically skating/skateboarding gear). Of course, one time I came home from work and my wife told me my daughter needed to tell me something. That something was that she rode the cart without the gear and fell off and injured her hands and her chin by falling face first into the concrete (luckily it was only a minor injury). I don't think she ever tried to ride the cart again, though I wasn't opposed to it (with the proper gear of course).
This is just an anecdote to sort of "illustrate the process" I suppose. I hope it is at least moderately useful. And this makes it sound easy, which it is definitely not. It's tough, but so far it seems to have worked well.