I'm really disappointed with Tufte's execution of sparklines, frankly. In Beautiful Evidence he advocates for them heavily, but even in the print book (which is otherwise gorgeously typeset) they look a bit clunky. They are, if anything, violations of his own principles of information clarity, since none of his sparklines include a scale or any other way to correctly read the data.
I went to see him speak recently, and a huge part of his argument for sparklines was that the human eye is capable of distinguishing subtle, tiny differences in shape, so there's no harm in slipping tiny graphs into paragraphs. To prove this point, he relies on images of the letter A in different serif faces -- at about 150pt, where the differences are quite obvious. Sure, someone can see differences in shapes that are two inches tall... but I'd wager that nearly all non-typographers will have to strain to see the difference between two book faces at the same letter size in the same paragraph, and poorly executed sparklines will just be a blur. They lack density, for a Tufte creation, and they're more clutter than explanation.
If you have access to a refrigerator, you can make a jug of iced tea. Brew it with hot water but use a few more teabags than you would for the same volume of hot tea. Don't put it straight into the fridge while it's hot - let it brew until it cools to room temperature before refrigerating, or it is likely to go cloudy. This has a set-up time of about two hours, but is then handy for days. (or the rest of the day, i guess, if you drink THAT much tea.)
The 2-qt plastic jugs with a rotating lid work really well. So does brewing with Earl Grey teabags or throwing a peppermint herbal teabag in with the bunch of regular ones.
This is as close to sacrilege as a secular institution can get. (Leaving all jabs about Texas aside for the moment.)
Much has been made of the argument that e-books are easier to store and to search through, but paper-based texts are more pleasant and efficient to handle. Those are important arguments when you have both formats available, but the most critical issue is the amount of information not available at all in digital format. It's not just "the classics" that would have to be digitized in order for this to be an acceptable move. They would have to convert every title in existence to an e-book.
I'm a double major in a humanities subject (Spanish) and in information science. I am intimately acquainted with the research content available at my school, which has one of the best libraries in the nation. Despite the huge number of online journals and research services we subscribe to, I have often found books to be the most authoritative and complete sources, especially when researching in the humanities. With the digital content base, not only are there thousands of services that a library has to subscribe to (each using their own metadata and query system - attempts to unify them, such as InfoTrac, inevitably miss some sources) but one frequently gets a citation to something the library doesn't have full-text access to. Then it's an exciting romp through a variety of channels to get the article. Often, the citation leads to something that's never been digitized - you must find the paper copy, no matter how sophisticated the digital search was.
If you think this isn't relevant to more technical works... well, the best example I have is from trying to find an article in the Proceedings of the 12th National Conference on Computer Security. CiteSeer had only the abstract at the time. Between me and three reference librarians, I ultimately had to get the print edition through inter-library loan.
Huh. This is neat..not quite my taste but close to it. I'm taking a metalwork class right now, and before I saw this article posted today I had an idea to make a silver necklace or bracelet out of metal imprinted with patterns from printed circuit boards or FCP cables.
I can use either a hydraulic press (a modded car jack) or a rolling mill to achieve the imprint. Both options are destructive to the material. Unfortunately, I'm told that PCB board will just shatter if you put pressure on it. Anyone have any ideas?
I doubt very much that the world would ever turn strictly vegan, but many breeds of livestock would indeed die out - not all simultaneously drop dead, but be gradually consumed or killed for leather or other products. Yep, they'd probably be gone, but livestock are hardly 'natural wildlife'. It's up for debate whether the extinction of a an artificially created breed that's already totally dependent on human care is a long-term ecological loss. It would probably (further) upset local ecosystems for awhile, but they would then return to natural balances if former grazing land were abandoned. (Assuming that other human influences like waste dumping and chemical pollutants hadn't already rendered it unreclamable.)
I'm a veggie. I would not see it as a moral problem to end the breeding of livestock and to use up the herds. But even if the world went vegetarian, some animal products would still be in demand, so the livestock market would become small and high-priced but not disappear entirely.
The website *also* doesn't want to believe I have a valid zip code or email address.
The email address that I used to register my laptop is my university address, ending in.edu.
The web form insisted that this was an invalid address, but it shut up when I supplied my @gmail.com address. What's that about?
Also, it insists that I can't possibly live in this county with a zip code of 98102. Why is the county a required field at all?
I'm not sure I trust these goons to send me a non-exploding battery if they can't write a damn ship-to form intelligently.
I have one of the affected battery models. (Go me.) I tried to fill out their web form for a replacement, and it seems they're being slashdotted.
Bah, can't win.
You've got a pretty narrow view of what women want.
I'm female, I'm an information systems student who's likely going into biomedical informatics, and I don't want kids. Oh, hell no.
I want a decent life. That, to me and most of my female peers, means a home and mate in addition to a career I find interesting. Maybe the trouble lies in convincing girls that a tech career CAN be interesting and rewarding, they don't have to waste away in a cube for 70 hours a week doing testing, and... if we're really lucky... they'll find men who support their intellectual efforts and don't expect them to stay home and change diapers because "that's what women want." I could be cynical about that last one, but I'm dating one of them.
That must be really embarrassing for the poor receptionist. Every time $bigwig_investor walks in, he's got "natalie portman pics" or "hentai anime bukkake" flashing above his head.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm really disappointed with Tufte's execution of sparklines, frankly. In Beautiful Evidence he advocates for them heavily, but even in the print book (which is otherwise gorgeously typeset) they look a bit clunky. They are, if anything, violations of his own principles of information clarity, since none of his sparklines include a scale or any other way to correctly read the data.
I went to see him speak recently, and a huge part of his argument for sparklines was that the human eye is capable of distinguishing subtle, tiny differences in shape, so there's no harm in slipping tiny graphs into paragraphs. To prove this point, he relies on images of the letter A in different serif faces -- at about 150pt, where the differences are quite obvious. Sure, someone can see differences in shapes that are two inches tall... but I'd wager that nearly all non-typographers will have to strain to see the difference between two book faces at the same letter size in the same paragraph, and poorly executed sparklines will just be a blur. They lack density, for a Tufte creation, and they're more clutter than explanation.
If you have access to a refrigerator, you can make a jug of iced tea. Brew it with hot water but use a few more teabags than you would for the same volume of hot tea. Don't put it straight into the fridge while it's hot - let it brew until it cools to room temperature before refrigerating, or it is likely to go cloudy. This has a set-up time of about two hours, but is then handy for days. (or the rest of the day, i guess, if you drink THAT much tea.)
The 2-qt plastic jugs with a rotating lid work really well. So does brewing with Earl Grey teabags or throwing a peppermint herbal teabag in with the bunch of regular ones.
This is as close to sacrilege as a secular institution can get. (Leaving all jabs about Texas aside for the moment.) Much has been made of the argument that e-books are easier to store and to search through, but paper-based texts are more pleasant and efficient to handle. Those are important arguments when you have both formats available, but the most critical issue is the amount of information not available at all in digital format. It's not just "the classics" that would have to be digitized in order for this to be an acceptable move. They would have to convert every title in existence to an e-book. I'm a double major in a humanities subject (Spanish) and in information science. I am intimately acquainted with the research content available at my school, which has one of the best libraries in the nation. Despite the huge number of online journals and research services we subscribe to, I have often found books to be the most authoritative and complete sources, especially when researching in the humanities. With the digital content base, not only are there thousands of services that a library has to subscribe to (each using their own metadata and query system - attempts to unify them, such as InfoTrac, inevitably miss some sources) but one frequently gets a citation to something the library doesn't have full-text access to. Then it's an exciting romp through a variety of channels to get the article. Often, the citation leads to something that's never been digitized - you must find the paper copy, no matter how sophisticated the digital search was. If you think this isn't relevant to more technical works... well, the best example I have is from trying to find an article in the Proceedings of the 12th National Conference on Computer Security. CiteSeer had only the abstract at the time. Between me and three reference librarians, I ultimately had to get the print edition through inter-library loan.
Huh. This is neat..not quite my taste but close to it. I'm taking a metalwork class right now, and before I saw this article posted today I had an idea to make a silver necklace or bracelet out of metal imprinted with patterns from printed circuit boards or FCP cables. I can use either a hydraulic press (a modded car jack) or a rolling mill to achieve the imprint. Both options are destructive to the material. Unfortunately, I'm told that PCB board will just shatter if you put pressure on it. Anyone have any ideas?
I doubt very much that the world would ever turn strictly vegan, but many breeds of livestock would indeed die out - not all simultaneously drop dead, but be gradually consumed or killed for leather or other products. Yep, they'd probably be gone, but livestock are hardly 'natural wildlife'. It's up for debate whether the extinction of a an artificially created breed that's already totally dependent on human care is a long-term ecological loss. It would probably (further) upset local ecosystems for awhile, but they would then return to natural balances if former grazing land were abandoned. (Assuming that other human influences like waste dumping and chemical pollutants hadn't already rendered it unreclamable.) I'm a veggie. I would not see it as a moral problem to end the breeding of livestock and to use up the herds. But even if the world went vegetarian, some animal products would still be in demand, so the livestock market would become small and high-priced but not disappear entirely.
The website *also* doesn't want to believe I have a valid zip code or email address. The email address that I used to register my laptop is my university address, ending in .edu.
The web form insisted that this was an invalid address, but it shut up when I supplied my @gmail.com address. What's that about?
Also, it insists that I can't possibly live in this county with a zip code of 98102. Why is the county a required field at all?
I'm not sure I trust these goons to send me a non-exploding battery if they can't write a damn ship-to form intelligently.
I have one of the affected battery models. (Go me.) I tried to fill out their web form for a replacement, and it seems they're being slashdotted. Bah, can't win.
You've got a pretty narrow view of what women want.
I'm female, I'm an information systems student who's likely going into biomedical informatics, and I don't want kids. Oh, hell no.
I want a decent life. That, to me and most of my female peers, means a home and mate in addition to a career I find interesting. Maybe the trouble lies in convincing girls that a tech career CAN be interesting and rewarding, they don't have to waste away in a cube for 70 hours a week doing testing, and... if we're really lucky... they'll find men who support their intellectual efforts and don't expect them to stay home and change diapers because "that's what women want." I could be cynical about that last one, but I'm dating one of them.
So the 1% of us who go to college because we enjoy learning about our field should just drop out and go drink and screw. I see.
That must be really embarrassing for the poor receptionist. Every time $bigwig_investor walks in, he's got "natalie portman pics" or "hentai anime bukkake" flashing above his head.