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Would love to try coding with these libraries this weekend.

A Sample of 20 JavaScript Libraries for Data Visualization
By Alex Williams / March 19, 2011 2:00 PM / 2 Comments
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This post is part of our ReadWriteCloud channel, which is dedicated to covering virtualization and cloud computing. The channel is sponsored by Intel and VMware.
Timeseries of English monarchs I am a sucker for data visualization. I am less enamored with infographics these days as I have noticed some hijacking of the medium for public relations stunts. Taking a few anecdotes and drawing some arrows does not cut it in my book.
 
I did find this excellent post this morning by Jacob Gube on Six Revisions that gives an overview of 20 JavaScript libraries.
Gube says the JavaScript libraries “turn boring numerical data into beautiful, interactive and informative visualizations.” I can agree with that.
Here are five libraries that I picked out from Gube’s post:
via A Sample of 20 JavaScript Libraries for Data Visualization – ReadWriteCloud.

But never mind; just consider the tone.
Greenspan writes in characteristic form: other people may have their models, but he’s the wise oracle who knows the deep mysteries of human behavior, who can discern patterns based on his ineffable knowledge of economic psychology and history.
Sorry, but he doesn’t get to do that any more. 2011 is not 2006. Greenspan is an ex-Maestro; his reputation is pushing up the daisies, it’s gone to meet its maker, it’s joined the choir invisible.
He’s no longer the Man Who Knows; he’s the man who presided over an economy careening to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression — and who saw no evil, heard no evil, refused to do anything about subprime, insisted that derivatives made the financial system more stable, denied not only that there was a national housing bubble but that such a bubble was even possible.
If he wants to redeem himself through hard and serious reflection about how he got it so wrong, fine — and I’d be interested in listening. If he thinks he can still lecture us from his pedestal of wisdom, he’s wasting our time.
via Rantings of an Ex-Maestro – NYTimes.com.

These are the sins of the generation in power to the generation just trying to begin their careers. What happens when the tables are turned?
 

Although unemployment remains very high, at this point that’s mainly due to lack of hiring; layoffs are quite low. This means that people who still have decent jobs aren’t feeling much at risk of losing them. So any urgency would have to come from concern about those who don’t have jobs — those who lost them in the slump, and of course young people trying to get started on their working lives.
And those people — at least one in six workers, judging by U6 — don’t seem to have much political or psychological visibility. In effect, they’re being written off.
via No JOLTS to Complacency – NYTimes.com.

Laughed real hard when I was reading this.
 

Ultimately the campaign’s biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow “define themselves” with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that “says something” about your personality, don’t bother. You don’t have a personality. A mental illness, maybe – but not a personality.
via Charlie Brooker on why he hates Apple Macintosh computers | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Using a United States Geological Survey estimate for how the fault responsible for the earthquake slipped, research scientist Richard Gross of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., applied a complex model to perform a preliminary theoretical calculation of how the Japan earthquake-the fifth largest since 1900-affected Earth’s rotation. His calculations indicate that by changing the distribution of Earth’s mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).
via Japan Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days, Moved Axis.

Forgotten some of these things!

 
Unreasonable
It’s unreasonable to get out of bed on a snow day, when school has been cancelled, and turn the downtime into six hours of work on an extra credit physics lab.
It’s unreasonable to launch a technology product that jumps the development curve by nine months, bringing the next generation out much earlier than more reasonable competitors.
It’s unreasonable for a trucking company to answer the phone on the first ring.
It’s unreasonable to start a new company without the reassurance venture money can bring.
It’s unreasonable to expect a doctor’s office to have a pleasant and helpful front desk staff.
It’s unreasonable to walk away from a good gig in today’s economy, even if you want to do something brave and original.
It’s unreasonable for teachers to expect that we can enable disadvantaged inner city kids to do well in high school.
It’s unreasonable to treat your colleagues and competitors with respect given the pressure you’re under.
It’s unreasonable to expect that anyone but a great woman, someone with both drive and advantages, could do anything important in a world where the deck is stacked against ordinary folks.
It’s unreasonable to devote years of your life making a product that most people will never appreciate.
Fortunately, the world is filled with unreasonable people. Unfortunately, you need to compete with them.
via Seth’s Blog: Unreasonable.