{"id":50,"date":"2016-03-05T00:14:16","date_gmt":"2016-03-05T08:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engaging-data.com\/?page_id=50"},"modified":"2025-01-21T15:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T23:53:11","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"

Engaging Data is the product of me just sitting on the couch and messing around with my computer when I have free time (which luckily I have a fair amount of these days).<\/p>\n

I enjoy looking at data, creating models and spreadsheets to understand and learn about the world. It’s a big part of what I do in my day job. To present data on the web and reach a wide audience, I am focusing on finding interesting datasets and fun, interesting and interactive ways to present it.\u00a0 Hopefully these things will be engaging to others. In turn, it is also a good chance for me to learn some new skills and refine existing skills: web programming (javascript, server stuff, python, web scraping), and data visualization skills (data wrangling, graphing, mapping, animation, and interactivity).<\/p>\n

If you have any ideas for interesting data sets, educational tools or any other general suggestions or requests, please let me know. I’m especially interested in hearing from educators and others who work in the public sector as I may be able to help out with projects, etc. .<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My current tech stack and workflow:<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I use Python mainly for automating data acquisition from web resources and APIs and data processing, \u00a0manipulation and calculation. \u00a0I use the Pandas python library<\/a>\u00a0primarily for this as it has got pretty good tools for dealing with tabular data and doing calculations and manipulations.<\/p>\n

I generally use javascript to make the interactive data visualizations and interactive web programming. \u00a0I often use the open source Plotly javascript graphing library\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0as the basis for my web graphs, though if it’s not already made in Plotly, I will use the d3 data visualization library<\/a> which is more flexible (it’s what Plotly is built from) but also requires a bit more work to make things.<\/p>\n

In some cases, when I need to continually extract data from a website or API, I will create a python script that can parse the website or talk to the API and then process that data. It then will write the outputs to a text or javascript file which is then able to be used by the javascript code with runs in the browser. \u00a0If the data download is a one time thing (like reading a table off of a wikipedia page), I may often use Excel just because it’s faster and easier for me to process the data.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

send inquiries to ch***<\/span>@***********<\/span>ta.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

follow me on twitter: @EngagingData<\/a><\/p>\n

subscribe (below) to be notified of new content by email<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Engaging Data is the product of me just sitting on the couch and messing around with my computer when I have free time (which luckily I have a fair amount of these days). I enjoy looking at data, creating models and spreadsheets to understand and learn about the world. It’s a big part of whatRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"spay_email":""},"yoast_head":"\nAbout - Engaging Data<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"About - Engaging Data\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Engaging Data is the product of me just sitting on the couch and messing around with my computer when I have free time (which luckily I have a fair amount of these days). I enjoy looking at data, creating models and spreadsheets to understand and learn about the world. It’s a big part of whatRead More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Engaging Data\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-01-21T23:53:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@EngagingData\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Engaging Data\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EngagingData\"],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/logo.png\",\"width\":635,\"height\":617,\"caption\":\"Engaging Data\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/\",\"name\":\"Engaging Data\",\"description\":\"Exploring interactive data and visualization\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/\",\"name\":\"About - Engaging Data\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-05T08:14:16+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-21T23:53:11+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"About\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"About - Engaging Data","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"About - Engaging Data","og_description":"Engaging Data is the product of me just sitting on the couch and messing around with my computer when I have free time (which luckily I have a fair amount of these days). I enjoy looking at data, creating models and spreadsheets to understand and learn about the world. It’s a big part of whatRead More","og_url":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/","og_site_name":"Engaging Data","article_modified_time":"2025-01-21T23:53:11+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@EngagingData","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#organization","name":"Engaging Data","url":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/","sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/EngagingData"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/logo.png","width":635,"height":617,"caption":"Engaging Data"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/","name":"Engaging Data","description":"Exploring interactive data and visualization","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/","name":"About - Engaging Data","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-03-05T08:14:16+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-21T23:53:11+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/about\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"About"}]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3912,"href":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/50\/revisions\/3912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engaging-data.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}