In this post we show how to create highly aesthetic bivariate choropleth maps, including annotations and a custom legend –exclusively in R.
(Big) Data Journalism with Spark and R
At Swiss Public TV and Radio (SRF) we recently published an investigation of the “Collection #1-5” password leaks. In this post, I show how I searched through 900GB+ of data with Spark and R.
Ist E-Voting in der Schweiz sicher?
Eine journalistische Einschätzung zur E-Voting-Schwachstelle, die er Chaos Computer Club Schweiz veranschaulicht hat.
Categorical spatial interpolation with R
How I used the kknn and ggplot2 packages together with some parallel computation to spatially interpolate several hundred thousand points.
This is what happens when you use different package versions, Larry!
Recently I made a point for “true” RMarkdown reproducibility via checkpointed package versions. Shortly thereafter I learned the hard way how crucial it is to use exactly the same R packages that were used when the script was initially written.
A (truly) reproducible R workflow
Since more than two years I have been preaching reproducibility and transparency in data journalism. My tool of choice: R and reproducible reports with RMarkdown.
But these reports aren’t really reproducible. A solution.
Beautiful thematic maps with ggplot2 (only)
In this blog post, I explain step by step how I (eventually) achieved a nice thematic map with pure ggplot2 – from a very basic, useless, ugly, default map to the publication-ready and (in my opinion) highly aesthetic choropleth.
Why data journalists should start using R in 2016
For me, 2015 was the year of R. The year I finally started to use R productively and on an almost daily basis (after years of learning and forgetting and learning all over again). In this post, I share my experiences and tell you why you should start using it for your next data journalism project in 2016.
Parsing thousands of PDFs with Javascript
Back when I was working at Tages-Anzeiger, I was asked to find a way to condense the content of several hundred PDF files into one spreadsheet. These PDFs contained indicator variables about the performance of nursing and retirement homes, and for some strange reason, they were only available as individual PDFs. I took it as an opportunity to learn new features of Node.js and it turned out to be a really good solution. In this post, I explain what I came up with.
Truth and Beauty in Georeferenced Social Media
As georeferenced data from social media, be it in the form of Tweets, Foursquare Check-Ins, Instragram photos, Flickr pictures, etc., are increasingly available, so do (geospatial) analyses and visualizations done with them become more and more popular. Often, such studies and applications claim to be able to infer social, cultural, and even political insights from these data, spatially fine-grained and referenced down to the level of countries and cities.
I haven’t seen a single one which actually succeeded in plausibly explaining the how to me.
How to install SpatiaLite and SpatiaLite GUI on Ubuntu 12.04
SpatiaLite is an OpenGIS-enabled spatial extension to SQLite, similar to PostGIS. Unfortunately, the packaged version for Ubuntu, especially the GUI, is rather outdated. Therefore, this post shows how to compile and install the latest versions (4.0.0 and 1.6 respectively) and all needed dependencies from source.
Wenn das Handy endgültig zur Wanze wird (Teil 2)
Im zweiten Teil meiner Serie zur Auswertung von Mobilfunk-Standortdaten fühle ich den Schweizer Anbietern auf den Zahn und gehe auf die datenschutzrechtliche Situation in der Schweiz ein. Dürfen personenbezogene Standortdaten überhaupt weiterverkauft werden? Und wieso fallen anonymisierte Standortdaten nicht unter das Datenschutzgesetz?
Anonym auf Twitter?
Anonym auf Twitter seine Meinung kundgeben? Ist dies überhaupt möglich? Eine Replik auf einen Tweet.
Wenn das Handy endgültig zur Wanze wird (Teil 1)
Laut einer Medienmitteilung will der spanische Telekommunikationsanbieter Telefónica Standortdaten von Mobilfunkteilnehmern an Werbekunden verkaufen. Dass dies aus Sicht des Schutzes der Privatsphäre äusserst brisant ist, steht ausser Frage. Im ersten Beitrag dieser zweidreiteiligen Serie stelle ich die zahlreichen technischen Möglichkeiten zur Auswertung jener Standortdaten vor und zeige, wie man vermeintlich anonyme Daten auf einzelne Benutzer rückführen kann.
Was, wenn Facebook deinen Einkaufskorb kennt?
Kürzlich wurde bekannt, dass Facebook mit Dritten kooperiert, um Kaufverhalten von Benutzern auszuwerten. In meinem ersten deutschsprachigen Post fasse ich die technischen Details zusammen und wage eine Prognose, was damit möglich wäre.
Whats Up With WhatsApp? A Summary Of The Recent Security Flaws For The Ignorant User
Over the past few months, tremendous security leaks have been reported for WhatsApp. This blog post gives an updated, easy-to-read summary of how and why the app is vulnerable to certain attacks.
Stunning Examples of The Modern Graphical Web with SVG and WebGL
SVG and WebGL will revolutionize the graphical web, and this blog post shows some impressive examples of what is already happening.
Updated: How Simple It Is To Remove Facebook Ads In All Major Browsers
In this post I will demonstrate how to remove ads on Facebook in all major browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer.