Q: Is it possible to create a scatter plot that is a pleasure to navigate on both a phone and a computer? A: Yes, with some caveats. Using D3.js, Zoom Behavior, and D3-tip, I’ve created a graph that works reasonably well on both a phone and a computer. Each point in the graph is a book from NPR’s Best Books of 2015. Clicking a point brings up a tooltip describing the book....
I like good books. I like short books. But, finding good short books isn’t easy. For most needs, sorting Amazon search results by sales rank or average customer review works well. But, there’s no easy way to filter or sort by book length. Given a book’s ISBN, Amazon’s Product API allows one to download the following characteristics of a book: number of pages, sales rank, price, title, author, etc. I have downloaded this information for the books on NPR’s list of Best Books for 2013, 2014, and 2015....
This is a love story. In stage 1, I fall in love with Google Analytics because it gives me the positive reinforcement I’m looking for. In stage 2, I fall out of love with Google Analytics because its insights are distorted by unreliable data. In stage 3, I begin a long-term relationship with Piwik for its open and accurate feedback. The High of Web Analytics The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge piqued my interest in inbound marketing....
Looking to buy a diamond? This how-to guide describes three steps I took to identify great deals on Blue Nile. “Founded in 1999, Blue Nile has grown to become the largest online retailer of certified diamonds and fine jewelry.” The code used in this analysis is available on GitHub. This guide proceeds as follows: download data from Blue Nile, model price as a function of diamond characteristics, and identify diamonds with extra low prices....
“The real problem is that programmers have spent far too much time worrying about efficiency in the wrong places and at the wrong times; premature optimization is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming.” - Donald Knuth (1974) “At Google, for example, I have found that random samples on the order of 0.1 percent work fine for analysis of business data.” Hal Varian (2014) You have data....