Jason Schock RSS Feed

Wordle: Prettier tag clouds

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:27:35 GMT

I’ve been interested in information design for a long time, have read most of Edward Tufte’s books and recently started playing with data visualization. The idea of taking a heap of data that is otherwise meaningless in its raw form, making sense of it in some visually meaningful way, and especially making it beautiful, is really cool.

I came across Wordle while reading Beautiful Visualization. Wordle basically creates a tag cloud, then makes it a lot prettier:

How to make Google's AJAX Slide Show randomize your photos

Thu, 13 May 2010 09:36:31 GMT

I added a handy Google Slide Show widget to my site, which pulls images from an RSS feed from my photo site. Radical like Zinka, but there was no photo randomization. With a little 1337 h4x0ring I was able to do it. You, too, can get the chicks.

Facebook-ified!

Tue, 11 May 2010 08:15:12 GMT

I have an unnatural affinity for “Liking” stuff on Facebook — especially my own stuff (why? because I can).

With Facebook’s new Open Graph initiative, they’ve made it easy for me to stick Like buttons all over my personal Web site, too. When you click one, a little man will carry your display of approval through some tubes to the Facebook, whereupon a trained monkey transcriptionist will bang away at a typewriter until something makes sense, finally sneaking into my house late at night to glue your message to the inside of my monitor.

Amazing stuff. Get your Like on.

PowerPoint makes you stupid

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 22:41:09 GMT

Information design expert Edward Tufte has long railed against PowerPoint and its mind-numbing cognitive style, and the chartjunk – bright, happy graphics with little informational content – that almost always accompany a presentation.

Chartjunk is a clear sign of statistical stupidity. Poking a finger into the eye of thought, these data graphics would turn into a nasty travesty if used for a serious purpose, such as helping cancer patients assess their survival chances.

So would waging war be considered a “serious purpose”?

New York Times: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint

Apparently the Pentagon didn’t get the memo on chart junk. Good times!

Further reading: PowerPoint Does Rocket Science—and Better Techniques for Technical Reports

Velocity TextMate bundle

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 22:32:32 GMT

In case you’re looking for the latest & greatest Velocity TextMate bundle, Thomas Aylott was nice enough to quickly update the old one (hosted on the Macromates svn repository) for me after I emailed him with a bug.

It’s available here: http://github.com/subtleGradient/Java-Velocity.tmbundle

A quick ProStores review: Do not recommend (strongly)

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:34:38 GMT

So a while back, I used these Prostores dudes for some e-commerce stuff for a client.

“An eBay company”, it says. They have to be pretty legit, right? Well, I thought so.

Most emasculating sport ever?

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:43:43 GMT

My Tracks: Handy app for Android

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:30:26 GMT

My Tracks is a nice Android app for effortlessly recording your route via GPS and then uploading to Google Maps. It’s probably not as quite accurate as something like a true bike computer, but definitely a close second for cool GPS features and handy data for your ride, run, walk or hike. Here’s one leg of my ride today:

View Bike Ride from downtown to UCSB in a larger map

Click on the end point and see all the nice data.

My Life

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:34:09 GMT

Pretty accurate description of life as a designer: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

Movin'

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:57:29 GMT

Moving some server stuff. Compelling content to return.