June 8, 2011
Via Twitter I saw 275,000 Groups Lose Charity Status After Failing to File Paperwork With IRS from the Chronicle of Philanthropy and thought it might make for an interesting choropleth map. I’ve been wanting to set up a very basic workflow for generating simple choropleths in protovis, so this seemed like a good data set and a good opportunity. It took about an hour, but next time it shouldn’t take but a few minutes (in theory). *Update* I’ve updated the map now that CO, CT, DE, and NE are included in the data dump from The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Thanks, Lisa!

Via Twitter I saw 275,000 Groups Lose Charity Status After Failing to File Paperwork With IRS from the Chronicle of Philanthropy and thought it might make for an interesting choropleth map. I’ve been wanting to set up a very basic workflow for generating simple choropleths in protovis, so this seemed like a good data set and a good opportunity. It took about an hour, but next time it shouldn’t take but a few minutes (in theory).

*Update*
I’ve updated the map now that CO, CT, DE, and NE are included in the data dump from The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Thanks, Lisa!

11:44pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWr2Jy5w3xvm
June 6, 2011
Recently, Sunlight Foundation published the story “The Pentagon’s Big Contractors Lobby Big and Get in Big Trouble”. In this short post about the Top 10 Defense Contractors, they included some interesting Lobbying and Contractor Misconduct data. I was curious to compare the # of misconduct cases that were defense related with the total 2009-2010 lobbying figures. I thought perhaps the higher percentage of “defense contract misconduct” might in some way correlate with higher lobbying dollars. To some extent, I suppose it does, but not quite to the degree I thought it might. (full size graphic) Disclaimer: While I used to work for Sunlight Foundation, and have done contract work for them in the past, this was created for fun and is in no way an official Sunlight project/graphic.

Recently, Sunlight Foundation published the story “The Pentagon’s Big Contractors Lobby Big and Get in Big Trouble”. In this short post about the Top 10 Defense Contractors, they included some interesting Lobbying and Contractor Misconduct data. I was curious to compare the # of misconduct cases that were defense related with the total 2009-2010 lobbying figures. I thought perhaps the higher percentage of “defense contract misconduct” might in some way correlate with higher lobbying dollars. To some extent, I suppose it does, but not quite to the degree I thought it might. (full size graphic)

Disclaimer: While I used to work for Sunlight Foundation, and have done contract work for them in the past, this was created for fun and is in no way an official Sunlight project/graphic.

4:43pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWr2Jy5r4DBH
(Notes: 19)
  
June 3, 2011
I’ve been meaning to do this for over a year now. I need to stick the code up on Github, but the gist is that it is a US Map generated using SVG & Canvas and Raphaël so you can do fun things when the user hovers over a state. I’ll probably end up making a smaller version, too. It wasn’t hard, just time consuming.

I’ve been meaning to do this for over a year now. I need to stick the code up on Github, but the gist is that it is a US Map generated using SVG & Canvas and Raphaël so you can do fun things when the user hovers over a state. I’ll probably end up making a smaller version, too. It wasn’t hard, just time consuming.

12:59pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWr2Jy5kJxtH
June 3, 2011
@ftrain tweeted about the use of the word “inveterate” in the New York Times and it reminded me of @blprnt’s Processing code, so I fired up Processing and created this for fun.

@ftrain tweeted about the use of the word “inveterate” in the New York Times and it reminded me of @blprnt’s Processing code, so I fired up Processing and created this for fun.

12:47pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWr2Jy5kIqZO
(Notes: 2)
  
June 3, 2011
I generated this after all the brouhaha over the iPhone caching your tower location data. I finally just got around to updating my iPhone to the new iOS that deletes that cache and in doing so I was reminded of this. Just posting here so I don’t lose it.

I generated this after all the brouhaha over the iPhone caching your tower location data. I finally just got around to updating my iPhone to the new iOS that deletes that cache and in doing so I was reminded of this. Just posting here so I don’t lose it.

12:35pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWr2Jy5kHflg
(Notes: 2)
  
May 21, 2011
Been playing around with Tilemill. Haven’t yet created anything of value, but have been having fun learning the ins and outs. This is a map of DC highlighting the “cycleways” and “paths.” I think the data is out-dated, but it was fun to use CSS to drop out the roads and trunks and highways. I’ve got some ideas for projects, I just need to find the data, and the time.

Been playing around with Tilemill. Haven’t yet created anything of value, but have been having fun learning the ins and outs. This is a map of DC highlighting the “cycleways” and “paths.” I think the data is out-dated, but it was fun to use CSS to drop out the roads and trunks and highways. I’ve got some ideas for projects, I just need to find the data, and the time.

12:23pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWr2Jy5JoAFg
May 19, 2011
Outside Spending - New York 26th

Last year, I started working on a script that would pull the Outside Spending data from the Sunlight Foundation’s Reporting Group site and build simple pie-charts in protovis for all the races. This data from the special election in NY’s 26th reminded me that I really need to finish that project.

12:15pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWr2Jy5GA1O9
May 19, 2011
A while back, I came across this graphic from a joint Open Secrets / Fiscal Times project and thought it could probably be improved a bit.

A while back, I came across this graphic from a joint Open Secrets / Fiscal Times project and thought it could probably be improved a bit.

11:50am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWr2Jy5G81v4
March 16, 2011
I saw a tweet the other day from the Sunlight Foundation’s Political Party Time (@sfpartytime) that mentioned a lot of congressional fundraising events will be occurring in the month of March, so I decided to use that data to create a heatmap. Red are Republican events and blue are Democrat events. When venues/locations overlap, it shows up as purple. Also, I limited the geodata used to events occurring near the US Capitol. To create this, I used the OpenStreetMap option in heatmap.py and output several graphics which I then combined in Photoshop. Disclaimer: While I used to work for Sunlight Foundation, and have done contract work for them in the past, this was created as a learning exercise and is in no way an official sunlight project/graphic.

I saw a tweet the other day from the Sunlight Foundation’s Political Party Time (@sfpartytime) that mentioned a lot of congressional fundraising events will be occurring in the month of March, so I decided to use that data to create a heatmap. Red are Republican events and blue are Democrat events. When venues/locations overlap, it shows up as purple. Also, I limited the geodata used to events occurring near the US Capitol.

To create this, I used the OpenStreetMap option in heatmap.py and output several graphics which I then combined in Photoshop.

Disclaimer: While I used to work for Sunlight Foundation, and have done contract work for them in the past, this was created as a learning exercise and is in no way an official sunlight project/graphic.

10:51am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWr2Jy3ePmjf
(Notes: 4)
  
March 12, 2011
Lobbying Totals by Sector (1998-2009) Created for Sunlight Foundation using Nodebox.

Lobbying Totals by Sector (1998-2009) Created for Sunlight Foundation using Nodebox.

12:35am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWr2Jy3YZ2Tt