It's important to understand and appreciate "the other guy's" technnical acumen. How often have you thought … I can do that! Working in the software field for years, it's sometime too easy to not grant enough credit to what your peers or competitors have accomplished!

On to the "Headless Downey Woodpecker" story, and you'll understand what I am talking about. Ever since I was a little boy I have enjoyed watching birds, and can name more birds by sight or sound than most people, other than true "birders". For my birthday a few weeks ago, my wife less me pick out my own gift. I chose a Canon SX30 Powershot Camera. This camera edges me into the world of advanced phtography. While not a digital SLR camera, it's close. 

Thus, I decided to become John James Audubon. Two weeks ago I started hiking through the leftover snow in the northwoods. My goal was to take some wildlife photography of birds. After chasing many birds through the woods, my only photo was of the dreaded headless downy woodpecker (see below … click to expand).

My realization … there is a good reason wildlife photographers spend hours building blinds, and then wait days if not weeks for the local residents (birds and animals) to grow accustomed to the new part of the landscape. The idea … let the animals and birds come to you … have the camera set up and waiting. After all, birds move fast through a 360 degree spectrum.

I now have a good bird feeding station outside (deer proof!), and I'm starting to get better photos. Enjoy some new efforts which include two decent photos of Blue Jays, but also include the Headless Junco and Tailless Tree Sparrow. Craig Blacklock has nothing to fear from me at this time! He is a well know nature photographer in the Lake Superior region, and I now have a much greater appreciation for his work!

Click upon any image to view full sized!

First the headless Junco and tailless Tree Sparrow …

And my Blue Jays during a light snow shower!

I love data visualizations. However, that fact is obvious to my long time readers who remember my being interviewed by the NY Times about ManyEyes. Since that interview back in the Summer of 2008, I've continued to work and do research with data visualization. You may ask why the subject of visual data is exciting? Quite simply, done properly the visualization can help one better understand what may appear as disparate data. However, done poorly, it can be misleading (how many of you remember Ross Perot's run for president? Charts and Percentages!)

Here are some data visualization sites and services which I particularly enjoy. First two blogs:

• Flowing Data (if a new visualization is out there, Nathan Yau will find it!)
  and
• Patrick Cain's Map Blog (a journalist who creates data visualization maps) 

As a fyi, I learned of these two blogs via Google's new online journal, Think Quarterly. Google's online journal also reminds me to call out Google's great online tool named Ngram Viewer. You can read a Google blog post from last Christmas on their relatively new service, or just accept my explanation that Ngram is a great tool for comparing how key words (and thus ideas, and philosophies) have appeared in books since the year 1800.  Are some ideas becoming more common in literature, or is the opposite true? It can be fun exploring via nGram. Remember if you decide to run some Google Ngram data visualizations, words and your thus your results ARE case sensitive.

Click any of the images shown below to view some of my own nGRam research. In closing, visual data is fun!

nGram Google Charts

Sex vs. Religion
This Ngram intrigues me. Is there a relation with the fall of organized religion and our societies fixation with sex? 

 

England vs. United States vs. China
I call this Ngram the fall the English empire, but will the United States be next? 

 

Plato
Kind of makes you wonder what causes the peaks and valleys of Plato and the discussion of certain philosophies! 

Batter up! A new baseball season has begun; and like any good techno blog, let's take a look at some newer technology now combined with America's favorite pasttime, baseball! Let me introduce you to Fieldf/x. However, I warn you, if you don't like data, you'll hate Fieldf/x from Sportvision.

Imagine object recognition system software which interacts with multiple cameras placed around a baseball diamond. The cameras in conjunction with the software record each players movement, and the ball as it leaves the bat (i.e. via a hit). This information is then fed into a database which then can over time determine the probablity that a given player will make a given play. Pretty cool!

Some of the data recorded includes: a fielder’s reaction time, his path the ball, the baserunner’s speed, or the arc of a fly ball.

Learn more via this web link! Here are some excellant images from Business Week which show some of the data and analysis in action.

Play ball!

Do you know if your web site is optimal? How much testing did you perform? Can you be sure? After all, if you are the web developer, didn't some of your own biases enter into the design?

I assume the answer to the last question has to be "yes". No matter how hard we try, it is hard to be 100% objective. Thus, why not let your web visitors be your testers? Welcome to the field of mutlivariate testing. Although the term sounds difficult, the concept is simple:

• Create a duplicate of any web page
• Change something small
• Measure both web pages
• Which page optimizes the desired action?
  • Is a page more likley to now be visited?
  • Is a web form more likely to be submitted
  • Is a video more likley to be watched
  • You get the idea …

The process is easy to set up using Google's free web site optimizer tool. Here is all you have to do:

• Create a Google account if you don't already have one
• Use Google Web Site Optimizer
  • Decide what page you want to test
  • Create a page which is very similar
  • Decide your desired action (a destination page)

All you do is provide Google the three urls, and the tool in return gives you some Javascript which you paste in the top of each web page's html. You then activate the experiment and wait (i.e. Google will randomly serve up your original page, and it's options … and record the analytics).

You will find to screenshots given below from my experiment. I've blacked out some items because I don't want to bias my results (i.e. if you read this post). When my test has run I will post the results on this blog.

If you wish to participate, just click upon my name (Rich Hoeg) in the banner at the top of the page. Once redirected, click through to at least one additional page.

Finally, here are some videos which explain the concept in more detail.

Want to view either of these images at full size? Just click upon either image!

When I was a young boy in 1964, my family flew out to the New York World's Fair. For our airplane trip to the Big Apple from Duluth, our entire family dressed up. Each of us three boys wore sport coats and ties. We were expected by my parents to be on our Sunday school best behavior.

Earlier today, I flew the same trip from Minnesota to the New York City area. The experience was a cattle rush. There were very few smiles on the faces of my co-passengers, or the airline staff. What have we lost?

Enjoy this video from Encyclopedia Britannica titled "Airport" (circa 1948). This experience is much more akin to my own. In fact, on another trip back from visiting my grand parents, I remember my Mom dragging her little son (i.e. me) by the arm as we ran between two planes on the Minneapolis airport concourse! Passengers running outside between planes?! It would never happen today.

In fact, here is a photo of me all dressed up for my first plane trip (taken in 1958 at the Duluth airport)