For all you Excel and stat weenies

[drwex]

Look it's another content-free linky post. Again courtesy of my friend docbug:

Swivel (http://www.swivel.com/) is trying to be YouTube for data. You can post data sets, graphs, visualizations, etc. Long description in Datamining Blog (http://datamining.typepad.com/data_mining/2006/12/swivel_the_futu.html).

I think this is interesting but my thoughts are too scattered to write coherently about it right now. There is something going on here about public science, the ability to put stats and graphs and such into blogs the way people put videos now, and just maybe the ability to give new communication tools to people who can put them to interesting uses.

What is the stat equivalent of the Rodney King video?

Comments

WWFD?

[brianmulloy.livejournal.com]

Feynman would dig Swivel.

Brian Mulloy
CEO & Cofounder
www.swivel.com

Re: WWFD?

[drwex]

I'd be interested in your answer, as a co-founder, to my question.

Here's the underlying hypothesis: the Rodney King video was a seminal event in changing how we (as the general American public) thought about video creation, publication, and authenticity. Partly it was able to do that because of the dramatic events it showed.

So what's the equivalent for data?

Re: WWFD?

[brianmulloy.livejournal.com]

The stats equivalent to the Rodney King incident might be the Rodney King incident. The data analysis from that episode and the riots is still happening.

2 years after
The Rodney King Verdict (http://www.youth.net/nsrc/ejournals/ejournal.003.html)
STUDENT RESEARCHER: Craig Chapman
SCHOOL: Mandeville Middle School - Mandeville, Louisiana
GRADE: 6

10 years
CNN: Rodney King reluctant symbol of police brutality
"Parks said some government officials have promised studies of racial profiling, but he is doubtful that will help because there is no protocol to assess the raw data. The chief believes citizen complaints are the best way to indentify and handle the problem."

12 years
LAPD Racial Profiling Data Raises Questions That Need Answering (http://www.aclu-sc.org/News/OpenForum/100443/100450/)

Wikipedia Today
1992 Los Angeles riots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots)
"According to census data, in the historically black areas affected by the riots, the Hispanic population increased 119% over the decade leading up to the violence." () ()

[(Anonymous)]

the pump-handle stats in that famous london disease case (cholera, i think...)?
--desert_born, posting from work

[sykotropic.livejournal.com]

I sent the swivel link to my stats professor -- he thanks ye for ensuring that he will never again be at a loss for data while teaching. So, hopefully one useful interesting use will be to help make intro stats courses more accessible to number-phobic people like me, which may assist in long term success and possibly convert a few number-phobes in to number aficionados.

[jo-yaffe.livejournal.com]

Great links there, Wex! I'm wondering about the Cochrane Collaboration as the stat equivalent of the Rodney King video, except that they keep adding....

J

[drwex]

Jo! Holy smokestacks! How'd you find me? And your bio says "getting divorced?"

on getting divorced

[jo-yaffe.livejournal.com]

Wex:

I found you idly following links this morning. Blossom found me on LJ... I'd forgotten I'd even set up an account there. My more formal nod to blogging is at brainygurl.typepad.com.

I am emerging from my shell. The marriage was a BAD IDEA. But I learned a lot from the experience and I think I am a better person for it.

Let's keep in touch.... I love still getting invites to your parties ;)

j

Re: on getting divorced

[drwex]

Let's keep in touch

You know where to find me.