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theodp writes: As part of its 'Iron Viz' data visualization contests that lead up to its annual conferences, Tableau Software ($4.8B market cap) has awarded $500 gift cards to 'Twitter Crowd Favorites', contestants whose data viz draw the most 'votes' (tagged Tweets) on Twitter. But no more. As it expanded Iron Viz eligibility to China, Tableau said it 'just didn't seem fair' to allow popular voting in its worldwide contests since the Chinese government blocks citizens' Twitter use. "As Chinese authors join the contest," the Tableau Public blog explained, "we have to say goodbye to the Twitter Crowd Favorite. Twitter is blocked in mainland China and it wouldn't be fair for our Chinese contestants." And the latest Iron Viz Contest FAQs confirm the change: "Q. I heard there won't be a Crowd Favorite prize, is that true? A. Absolutely true. China is among the new countries who can take part in the Iron Viz, and Twitter doesn't work in mainland China. The usual Twitter Popular Vote just didn't seem fair."
This XKCD comic still has my all-time favorite data visualizations.

theodp writes: As part of its 'Iron Viz' data visualization contests that lead up to its annual conferences, Tableau Software ($4.8B market cap) has awarded $500 gift cards to 'Twitter Crowd Favorites', contestants whose data viz draw the most 'votes' (tagged Tweets) on Twitter. But no more. As it expanded Iron Viz eligibility to China, Tableau said it 'just didn't seem fair' to allow popular voting in its worldwide contests since the Chinese government blocks citizens' Twitter use. "As Chinese authors join the contest," the Tableau Public blog explained, "we have to say goodbye to the Twitter Crowd Favorite. Twitter is blocked in mainland China and it wouldn't be fair for our Chinese contestants." And the latest Iron Viz Contest FAQs confirm the change: "Q. I heard there won't be a Crowd Favorite prize, is that true? A. Absolutely true. China is among the new countries who can take part in the Iron Viz, and Twitter doesn't work in mainland China. The usual Twitter Popular Vote just didn't seem fair."
This XKCD comic still has my all-time favorite data visualizations.

theodp writes: As part of its 'Iron Viz' data visualization contests that lead up to its annual conferences, Tableau Software ($4.8B market cap) has awarded $500 gift cards to 'Twitter Crowd Favorites', contestants whose data viz draw the most 'votes' (tagged Tweets) on Twitter. But no more. As it expanded Iron Viz eligibility to China, Tableau said it 'just didn't seem fair' to allow popular voting in its worldwide contests since the Chinese government blocks citizens' Twitter use. "As Chinese authors join the contest," the Tableau Public blog explained, "we have to say goodbye to the Twitter Crowd Favorite. Twitter is blocked in mainland China and it wouldn't be fair for our Chinese contestants." And the latest Iron Viz Contest FAQs confirm the change: "Q. I heard there won't be a Crowd Favorite prize, is that true? A. Absolutely true. China is among the new countries who can take part in the Iron Viz, and Twitter doesn't work in mainland China. The usual Twitter Popular Vote just didn't seem fair."
This XKCD comic still has my all-time favorite data visualizations.

theodp writes: As part of its 'Iron Viz' data visualization contests that lead up to its annual conferences, Tableau Software ($4.8B market cap) has awarded $500 gift cards to 'Twitter Crowd Favorites', contestants whose data viz draw the most 'votes' (tagged Tweets) on Twitter. But no more. As it expanded Iron Viz eligibility to China, Tableau said it 'just didn't seem fair' to allow popular voting in its worldwide contests since the Chinese government blocks citizens' Twitter use. "As Chinese authors join the contest," the Tableau Public blog explained, "we have to say goodbye to the Twitter Crowd Favorite. Twitter is blocked in mainland China and it wouldn't be fair for our Chinese contestants." And the latest Iron Viz Contest FAQs confirm the change: "Q. I heard there won't be a Crowd Favorite prize, is that true? A. Absolutely true. China is among the new countries who can take part in the Iron Viz, and Twitter doesn't work in mainland China. The usual Twitter Popular Vote just didn't seem fair."
This XKCD comic still has my all-time favorite data visualizations.

America is changing the way it teaches computer science. "There are now 31 states that allow CS to count towards high school graduation," according to an announcement this week by the White House, while a new Advance Placement course "will be offered in more than 2,000 U.S. classrooms this fall...the largest course launch in the history of the AP exam." But what's the best way to teach coding? theodp reports: Tech-backed Code.org, one of the leaders of the new CSforAll Consortium that was announced at the White House on Wednesday, took to its blog Thursday to say "Thanks, Tim [Cook], for supporting the effort to give every student the opportunity to learn computer science," giving a shout out to Apple for providing "resources for teachers who want to put Swift Playgrounds in their classrooms. (A day earlier, the White House said Apple developed Swift Playgrounds "in support of the President's call to action" for CS for All).

Curiously, Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi argued Friday that "the Wolfram Language has serious shortcomings for broad educational use" in an EdSurge op-ed that was called a "response to a recent blog post by Stephen Wolfram" on Wolfram's ambitious plan to teach computational thinking in schools. Partovi's complaints? "It requires login for all but the simplest use cases, but doesn't provide any privacy safeguards for young children (required in the U.S. through legislation such as COPPA). Also, a serious user would need to pay for usage, making implementation inaccessible in most schools. Lastly, it's a bit difficult to use by students who struggle with English reading or writing, such as English language learners or early elementary school students."
The submission ultimately asks how should computer science be taught to teenagers. "Would you be inclined to embrace Wolfram's approach, Apple's Swift Playgrounds, Microsoft TEALS' Java-centric AP CS curriculum, or something else (e.g., R, Tableau, Excel+VBA)?"

theodp writes: Just days after it came under fire for dismissing a call for diversity as "unduly burdensome and not necessary," Apple quietly released its 2015 EEO-1 diversity report (dated 10/6/2015, reflects the 8/1 payroll). Like other tech companies' diversity disclosures, Apple's EEO-1 raw numbers can't really be reconciled to the percentages based on undisclosed raw numbers that grace the infographic-heavy diversity progress narrative CEO Tim Cook spoke to last August. As to why they keep two sets of diversity books, Apple explains, "The EEO-1 has not kept pace with changes in industry or the American workforce over the past half century. We believe the information we report elsewhere on this site is a far more accurate reflection of our progress toward diversity." Taking this stance allows Apple CEO Tim Cook to boast that "in the United States, we hired more than 2,200 Black employees — a 50 percent increase over last year," while ignoring Apple's EEO-1 report, which indicates that Black employees showed a year-over-year net increase of only 1,475 employees and accounted for only 1.9% of the 4,333 YOY net increase in "Professionals" at Apple (White employees accounted for 50.6%, Asian for 42.1%). If you want to check the math, Apple's EEO-1 data (typed in from the content-copy-not-allowed 2015 and 2014 PDFs) and additional charts can be found in this Tableau workbook.