July 24, 2008Big trees: Data with bark and bytes
So, you can guess what I did when Roanoke Times Metro Editor Brian Kelley told me about a the database at the Virginia Big Trees Program. I looked up Roanoke to find the biggest sucker in there. The program, as the website itself puts it, "relies on volunteers to search for, nominate, and verify the measurements of big trees in Virginia. When a big tree is reported to the program, it is put into the Virginia Big Tree Database maintained jointly by the Virginia Forestry Association, the Virginia Department of Forestry, and the Virginia Tech College of Natural Resources." The big winner turned out to be a 90-foot crack willow (Salix fragilis, for you Latin lovers out there) at 6311 Blacksburg Rd, "on right side of house in a field. Visible from road." That's in the picture. You can search by locality, by the common or Latin name of a species, or other ways in the advanced search option. This is terrific data partly because it's fascinating for what it documents, and partly for the way it documents it: by hand, by people out in the field with tape measures and cameras and pencils and paper. Many entries include hand-drawn maps to the locations. In some ways, this is like the DataSphere's own black bear sightings map. It invites you to add to the database yourself by reporting what you've seen. That's one of the best ways the Web works these days: the best content is created by the users themselves. Think YouTube for the most obvious example. YouTube for trees? For bears? This is data doing what it can do best: becoming a conversation. Ok, that's nerdy, but then this all started with my own glee over a database of big trees. I'm more of a data dork every day. Lucky I'm married, because at this rate, I'd never get to kiss a girl again. July 17, 2008Bonus crime data: What goes down at the Salem Fair?The Roanoke Valley and Salem crime maps are updated again, and we’ve also got a bonus for you crime data junkies – a summary of crime stats from the Salem Fair, which ran July 3 to July 13. It’s courtesy of the Salem Police Department. You can imagine the fair keeps the police busy. Take a bunch of people eager for fun, put ‘em in a confined space in the heat of summer, throw in long lines for the Typhoon and the Cliffhanger, and some people are bound to, well, get out of line. In all, this year, the Salem Police report they arrested 28 people on a total of 38 charges. “The small number of those charged compared to the huge numbers of people who come through the Fair over 11 days … is great as far as we’re concerned,” said Lt. Mike Green. “I’ve worked all 21 of the Fairs and the last couple of years’ have been mostly ‘non-eventful’ from a police perspective.” Still, there are lessons to be learned by the less than law-abiding folks among us, and here are a few: Continue reading "Bonus crime data: What goes down at the Salem Fair?" » February 8, 2008Bartender (hic) I'd like another...Another view of that liquor sales data. Alert reader Jay wondered what this liquor sales for Virginia look like when you rank our favorite distilled spirits by gallons sold, rather than dollars spent. Unfortunately, I haven't found the 2007 data by gallons yet, but I do have 2006. What you'll quickly see is that the picture's different when you look at it by volume. We might spend more on good whiskey, but what we drink the most of is good ol' knock you on yer butt and wake you up with cotton mouth cheap-o vodka. See for yourself. The numbers represent thousands of gallons sold. Yep, that's 450,000 gallons of Aristocrat vodka, comrades. So, if you were an enterprising feature writer for a big city rag like The Roanoke Times, what's the "Hey, Martha!" tidbit you'd pull out of this data? February 7, 2008What's yer poison, Virginia?The answer to that one is Jack Daniels. As in Old No. 7. As in Tennessee whiskey. Virginians spent over $21 million on Jack Black last year, making it the favorite distilled spirit in the Commonwealth in terms of dollars in sales. You can see the top 50 for 2007 in a new bubble graph I just posted. (I know this is only two, but I'm already in danger of becoming obsessed with these bubble graphs.) Turns out we have some pretty refined taste in spirits. Grey Goose vodka. Crown Royal. Jim Beam. But not everything we bought in quantity goes down as smooth. Well up on the list is Aristocrat brand vodka, which, well, doesn't exactly live up to the image suggested by its name. We bought more bottles of Aristocrat than any other liquor. As a former bartender, my guess is that's because it's the house vodka in all manner of bars from Richlands to Reston. The one that surprised me is Jagermeister at number 6 on the list. This is a dirty-motor-oil dark liqueur that tastes like black licorice soup and brings on a kind of intoxication that feels more like a narcotic than a drink. (Or so I've been told.) Popular with the regular bar set, which is to say younger folks. Generally swilled as a shooter, and lately mixed with Red Bull energy drink. The kind of thing everybody buys you on your 21st birthday, as if you weren't already on your way to embarrassing behavior without the help. Most of these top shelf liquors, you buy because they are smoother and more drinkable. Jagermeister, that stuff ain't about the taste. It's about the punch. November 6, 2007Who says data isn't funny?Comedian Dave "Gruber" Allen knows a good database when he sees one. Allen opened the Nickel Creek show at Roanoke's Jefferson Center last night with his stand-up act. At one point, my fellow Roanoke Times staffer Christina Rogers reports, he mentioned that Tuesday is election day, and gave a shout out to our voting database. This teriffic little tool allows you to enter your address to find out where your polling place is, and also tells you exactly what's on the ballot for you. It was put together by RT web producer Meg Martin and Luda Nichols and Dana Rose Bailey in our online IT department. Very handy stuff. And apparently fully-appreciated by Allen. Yeah, but who's he? From Tad Dickens' review of the show in Tuesday's Roanoke Times: He played guidance counselor Jeff Rosso on the lamented "Freaks and Geeks," and is the Naked Trucker on "The Naked Trucker and T-Bones" show. Here, he played another character: Todd Carlin, who will soon be seen in the movie "Largo," according to imdb.com. That movie, inspired by a favorite Nickel Creek haunt, the Los Angeles dinner, music and comedy club Largo, will also feature the band. |
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A while ago an editor from USA Today who was teaching me about some software offered a truism about journalists with data: we always go straight for the biggest and baddest thing in a database.
