Analyzing Literature by Words and Numbers

"Dan Cohen and Fred Gibbs, the two historians of science at George Mason University who have created the project, have so far charted how frequently more than two dozen words — among them “God,” “love,” “work,” “science” and “industrial” — appear in British book titles from the French Revolution in 1789 to the beginning of World War I in 1914."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/books/04victorian.html

Google Ngram Viewer

"When you enter phrases into the Google Books Ngram Viewer, it displays a graph showing how those phrases have occurred in a corpus of books"

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/

How do we die? The latest death rates

(photograph: Getty)

"The annual mortality statistics published by the Office for National Statistics provide vital clues for health experts - and those who specialise in the prevention of accidents.

It's part of a package of data released at the end of last week, which also showed us that pilots and aircrew suffer from significantly higher rates of skin cancer than other professions.

It gives us a real picture of risk. We may worry about swine flu, for instance - but the big killers of heart disease and cancer are much more significant in terms of public health."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/02/causes-of-death-mortality-rates

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=15096

World Clock

"Sources for data are:
World Population: US Census Bureau
Population growth rate: CIA World Factbook
Death stats: World Health Organization
Abortions: Wikipedia
Earth Temp: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Carbon Emissions: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Species Extinct: National Wildlife Federation
Oil Production: CIA World Factbook
Cars produced: Mation Master
Bicycle Production: Earth Policy
Internet Access: Internet World Stats"

http://www.peterrussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php

Deming Management Method

"Eliminate numerical quotas and goals"

http://members.aol.com/kaizensepg/deming.htm

"a person, to hold a job, meets a quota at any cost with out regard to damage to the company

[...]

* quality is compromised to meet quota "

W. Edwards Deming

"William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900–December 20, 1993) was an American statistician, college professor, author, lecturer, and consultant. Deming is widely credited with improving production in the United States during World War II, although he is perhaps best known for his work in Japan. There, from 1950 onward he taught top management how to improve design (and thus service), product quality, testing and sales (the last through global markets) through various methods, including the application of statistical methods. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming


"Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Deming.27s_14_points


http://www.bvwglobal.com/consulting/downloads_consulting/BvW_White%2520Paper_Deming.pdf&ei=cktaSO6hLqa80QSG_YyLAg&sig2=mEHHmKkiCH5b3Pxb1Quodw&ct=w

Worldometers

"Real time world statistics"

http://www.worldometers.info/

Gapminder

"Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels."

http://www.gapminder.org/

UN Data: Official Statistics for Everythings

"The United Nations has unveiled a new site that serves as a clearing house for all of the data and statistics it collects around the world, called UN Data. Using UN Data, statistical information on populations, demographics, trade, commodities, and more are all a single search away. "


http://www.appscout.com/2008/03/un_data_official_statistics_fo.php

Statsaholic - Website traffic comparisons on steroids

"Statsaholic blends website traffic graphs with a lightweight ajax-enhanced interface to satisfy hard-core traffic chart junkies – aka Statsaholics."

http://www.statsaholic.com/

Numbrary

"Numbrary is a free online service dedicated to finding, using and sharing numbers on the web."

http://numbrary.com/

Wikipedia article traffic statistics

"How have I spent the most recent half-hour of my life? Why, checking Wikipedia stats for pretty much everything and anything that pops into my head, of course. The simply named--and apparently Sweden-based--Wikipedia Article Traffic Statistics doesn't really do much more than its name implies, but honestly, that's plenty."

(review) http://www.appscout.com/2008/03/wikipedia_article_traffic_stat.php

(statistics) http://stats.grok.se/

Freebase

"Freebase is an open database of the world’s information. It is built by the community and for the community—free for anyone to query, contribute to, built applications on top of, or integrate into their websites."

http://www.freebase.com/

"Wikipedia and Freebase both appeal to people who love to use and organize information. The difference lies in the way they store information. Wikipedia arranges information in the form of articles. Freebase lists facts and statistics. Freebase’s list form is good not only for people who like to glance at facts, but also for people who want to use the data to build other web sites and software."

The Miniature Earth

http://216.70.117.172/me_english.htm

Bayesian Rating - how to implement a weighted rating system

"Bayesian Rating is using the Bayesian Average. This is a mathematical term that calculates a rating of an item based on the “believability” of the votes. The greater the certainty based on the number of votes, the more the Bayesian rating approximates the plain, unweighted rating. When there are very few votes, the bayesian rating of an item will be closer to the average rating of all items."

http://www.thebroth.com/blog/118/bayesian-rating

Life Expectancy

"The primary goal for sustainable development is for people to live longer, more productive, more satisfying lives. This is impossible if they do not have the resources to ensure the health and well being of themselves and their families. Poverty has a major impact on life expectancy. When governments and families cannot afford enough quality health care, education, and nutritious food, people cannot reach their full potential, either in productivity or length and quality of life. In addition, extreme poverty increases the likelihood of war and political instability, which threatens lives--and the quality of life-- as well."

http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/

Poodwaddle World Clock

http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks2.htm

A statistician does web analytics

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/%7Ecook/movabletype/archives/2007/11/how_would_a_sta.html

Earth Clock

Stats - as they say, read ‘em and weep. While the figures can’t be taken as absolutely accurate, they are drawn from many sources and do give a ‘best guess’ real time example of some of the issues we’re grappling with (sources include United Nations, EPA and the US Census Bureau).

http://www.celsias.com/2007/11/04/earth-clock/

Milestones in the History of Data Visualization

The graphic portrayal of quantitative information has deep roots. These roots reach into histories of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization, which are intertwined with each other. They also connect with the rise of statistical thinking up through the 19th century, and developments in technology into the 20th century. From above ground, we can see the current fruit; we must look below to see its pedigree and germination. There certainly have been many new things in the world of visualization; but unless you know its history, everything might seem novel.

http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/milestone/