Inauguration Day Message - Jan. 20, 2021

Kindness

Sunset Cliffs

Sunset Cliffs  San Diego, CA 

Merry Christmas!

 

 For my Christmas Tree fractal, I used IFL Labs software. 

 Jasc Animation Shop was used for the animation. 

 

Merry Christmas!

A Few of My Fractal Animations

Testing

Mind-Boggling Fractals has been around for 12 years! 

Developed by Paul W. Carlson. 

I've used it to create some amazingly beautiful designs. I love it.

My Favorite Look-alike

Maybe it's just me, but I see a resemblance between Heidi Klum and my sweet Vicki. 

Cover of Heidi Klum

My Many-Eyes Data Visualizations via Infomous

Hmong-Lao Slideshow on the Circumference

See the beautiful hmong-lao slideshow on Deanna Pagnan's the Circumference. My photo of two Hmong girls is in it.

Selected Internet Users Worldwide

Competition for Data Visualization - The Winners!

Select this link to see The Winners and their Entries.


The data covers the ethnicity of students attending major UK universities.


Thanks to David McCandless and postgrad.com for sponsoring this data visualization competition.

California Prison Populations

The data visualization below shows the occupation rate of California's prisons in 2007. Many of the prisons were over 200% capacity. 

Today's Fox News about the U.S. Supreme Court decision indicates the problem of overcrowded California prisons hasn't been resolved.

Prison reform is a serious issue for the U.S.

Country Debt to GDP Ratios

I certainly don't understand the implications of external vs. public debt and ratios to GDP but the below data visualization via Many-eyes shows the following: 

• UK has an external debt ratio 5 times larger than its public debt ratio.
• Spain has an external debt ratio 3 times larger than its public debt ratio.
• Japan has a public debt ratio about 5 times more than its external debt ratio.

External debt (or foreign debt) is that part of the total debt in a country that is owed to creditors outside the country. 


Public debt (also known as government debt, national debt, sovereign debt) is money (or credit) owed by a central government.    

PokerBuddy - Poker Training at its Best

I haven’t been blogging regularly, and I blame it all on Texas Hold’em Poker. Until about 3 years ago, I rarely played poker and never played poker online. Then I started playing poker using Zynga Poker on Facebook and MySpace.   Being into data visualization, I was naturally inclined to keep weekly statistics.

I started playing with an open mind and wanting to learn. I was surprised with issues including gaming systems, cheating, breaking rules, violating regulations, collaboration, social relationships, team challenges, etc . I soon realized that my opponents would range from beginners like me to highly skilled poker players. Also included were moochers, cheaters, sociopaths and degenerates. Still, I was highly impressed with the potential lessons to be learned through poker. Strategy, competition, discipline, patience, logic and statistics were all part of this fascinating game.

Karen, a PokerBuddy Advisor

Just six months ago, I ran across PokerBuddy Pro in beta. It's a free downloadable poker application that provides real-time advice as you play.  I signed up immediately, and quickly became impressed with the many features and helpful tips. Color coding, video playback and a choice of advisors all became useful learning tools for me. Sometimes I had to upgrade with new versions two or three times within a few days, but I liked PokerBuddy's efforts and determination for new and better ideas. Using Get Satisfaction, they welcome and encourage feedback and quickly respond to suggestions.

Has PokerBuddy made me a better poker player? The data visualization below is via Many-eyes and shows my poker statistics of seven IDs for one year from May 2010 to April 2011. Midway on the graph (Oct. 19, 2010), the six-month time period begins when I started using PokerBuddy. My analysis isn't too scientific, but it definitely indicates to me the benefits of learning poker with PokerBuddy.

If you play Texas Holdem using Zynga Poker, you should give PokerBuddy a try. It’s free and works through Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo. It's a one-of-a-kind training tool in the form of a trusted buddy.


Last year, this TechCrunch article also featured PokerBuddy.

Drug Offenders in U.S. Federal Prisons

The U.S. Federal prison population for drug offenses is . . .

• Over three times any other type of offense
• More than all other types combined
• Increasing by 4% in percentage of total over the last two years

This data visualization was done via IBM's Many Eyes. It shows the change of federal prison population over a 2-year period (2008-2010).

My Favorite Quotations

Being normal is overrated.
Clint Townsend
Students for Liberty

My other favorite sayings:

Garry's Favorite Sayings (blog)

Garry's Favorite Sayings (web site)

Candy Heart Message Generators

Just in in time for Valentine’s Day are these Sweetheart message generators:

Cryptogram's Hearts is a generator that helps you make bite-size romantic heart messages as quick as a wink. It allows for up to four lines of 10 characters each.

Heartmaker is another candy heart message generator. Put out by Acme Labs, it allows for one or two lines with 4-characters per line. It's easy to use, and the resulting image is very realistic.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Greatness of America

Today we will hear President Obama's 2011 State of the Union Address. The following is an appropriate quotation:

"The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults."

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French historian and political scientist.  1805-1859

Happy Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day. Thank you to all our Veterans.

Vicki's Blog says it best with this post.

Social Networking Update

In the social media world, Facebook continues it's impressive climb towards 150M unique visitors. istrategylabs breaks down Facebook's 2009-2010 demographics here.

U.S. Unemployment Rate (1990 - 2010)

Google's Public Data Explorer customized to show trends over 20 years of U.S. unemployment rate for California (highest state), New York, Texas and North Dakota (lowest state).

Social Networking Sites and Their Trends

YouTube.com is having an impressive increase in unique visitors, especially towards the end of a 12-month period.

Twitter increased hugely in the first few months of 2009, contributing to a 294% annual increase in unique visitors.