Comments on: Data Set of the Day: Swine flu vs the regular flu http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/ News and updates from GeoIQ Sun, 20 May 2012 18:37:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Torebki Damskie Allegro http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/#comment-4034 Torebki Damskie Allegro Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:33:18 +0000 http://blog.fortiusone.com/?p=1077#comment-4034 Thank you a lot for providing individuals with an extremely superb chance to read from this website. It's always very enjoyable and as well , stuffed with a great time for me personally and my office peers to visit your site minimum thrice in a week to find out the latest stuff you have got. And indeed, I'm just actually contented with the terrific concepts served by you. Selected 4 tips in this article are unquestionably the most effective we have all had. Thank you a lot for providing individuals with an extremely superb chance to read from this website. It’s always very enjoyable and as well , stuffed with a great time for me personally and my office peers to visit your site minimum thrice in a week to find out the latest stuff you have got. And indeed, I’m just actually contented with the terrific concepts served by you. Selected 4 tips in this article are unquestionably the most effective we have all had.

]]> By: Melissa Heart http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/#comment-1037 Melissa Heart Sat, 13 Mar 2010 01:14:40 +0000 http://blog.fortiusone.com/?p=1077#comment-1037 Love the site! Thank you for the great info :) Love the site! Thank you for the great info :)

]]> By: Rajendra http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/#comment-1036 Rajendra Wed, 13 May 2009 21:41:14 +0000 http://blog.fortiusone.com/?p=1077#comment-1036 Clarification: My blog post may have created a false impression that the 2008-2009 flu death count was entirely due to seasonal flu. Just want to point out that the 24,000 death count for 115 cities combines "flu and pneumonia" deaths and thus one cannot determine how many deaths were caused by seasonal flu alone. Thanks to WSJ's "numbersguy" Bailik for pointing out the folly of attributing all deaths to flu only. The blog does not say that all deaths are due to flu alone but readers may think otherwise. BTW, he has a very interesting blogpost in today's WSJ,titled "Flu's deathtoll" (http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/the-flus-death-toll-689/). Among other things he discusses how the often quoted seasonal flu death count of 36,000 is really CDC's best estimate of deaths due to flu "...given the flaws in the death-registration system." Clarification: My blog post may have created a false impression that the 2008-2009 flu death count was entirely due to seasonal flu. Just want to point out that the 24,000 death count for 115 cities combines “flu and pneumonia” deaths and thus one cannot determine how many deaths were caused by seasonal flu alone. Thanks to WSJ’s “numbersguy” Bailik for pointing out the folly of attributing all deaths to flu only. The blog does not say that all deaths are due to flu alone but readers may think otherwise.

BTW, he has a very interesting blogpost in today’s WSJ,titled “Flu’s deathtoll” (http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/the-flus-death-toll-689/). Among other things he discusses how the often quoted seasonal flu death count of 36,000 is really CDC’s best estimate of deaths due to flu “…given the flaws in the death-registration system.”

]]> By: Sean Gorman http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/#comment-1035 Sean Gorman Mon, 11 May 2009 23:18:48 +0000 http://blog.fortiusone.com/?p=1077#comment-1035 Thanks - Good point on the templates especially when it comes to a uniform way for letting readers know where the links to data and maps are. We'll see what can happen. The embeds work well but if we have too many it makes for slow load times for the blog home page. Hopefully will have a long term fix for that in the future. Appreciate the feedback. best, sean Thanks – Good point on the templates especially when it comes to a uniform way for letting readers know where the links to data and maps are. We’ll see what can happen. The embeds work well but if we have too many it makes for slow load times for the blog home page. Hopefully will have a long term fix for that in the future. Appreciate the feedback.

best,
sean

]]> By: pslarkin http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/#comment-1034 pslarkin Thu, 07 May 2009 19:24:23 +0000 http://blog.fortiusone.com/?p=1077#comment-1034 Ha! Well my tail is between my legs for sure. I drank far too much coffee this morning. Thanks for the concise responses. I understand a bit more why the services are offered as they are. In respect for this interesting post I will attempt brevity as well. I love this blog for the maps and the unique datasets. I hate this blog for hiding maps and data behind links. It is hardly ever obvious as to what link will shoot to Maker/Finder! (This post being a example of good organization) Maybe if in a post writing session an author can use a template that organizes data and links, as to present them in a standard way for readers. What would ultimately be most useful are posts with embedded maps, but might be a nightmare from a technical/bandwidth perspective. Thanks! Ha! Well my tail is between my legs for sure. I drank far too much coffee this morning. Thanks for the concise responses. I understand a bit more why the services are offered as they are. In respect for this interesting post I will attempt brevity as well.

I love this blog for the maps and the unique datasets. I hate this blog for hiding maps and data behind links. It is hardly ever obvious as to what link will shoot to Maker/Finder! (This post being a example of good organization) Maybe if in a post writing session an author can use a template that organizes data and links, as to present them in a standard way for readers. What would ultimately be most useful are posts with embedded maps, but might be a nightmare from a technical/bandwidth perspective.

Thanks!

]]> By: Andrew Turner http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/#comment-1033 Andrew Turner Thu, 07 May 2009 15:42:26 +0000 http://blog.fortiusone.com/?p=1077#comment-1033 Also @pslarkin, to be clear from a technical perspective (putting on my geek hat). You don't need to register a user account to view or embed maps. It's only required for creating new maps or importing new data. Regarding links - GeoCommons is a RESTful service - so all data is available via a direct link depending on the format you want. Also @pslarkin, to be clear from a technical perspective (putting on my geek hat). You don’t need to register a user account to view or embed maps. It’s only required for creating new maps or importing new data.

Regarding links – GeoCommons is a RESTful service – so all data is available via a direct link depending on the format you want.

]]> By: Sean Gorman http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/#comment-1032 Sean Gorman Thu, 07 May 2009 15:29:53 +0000 http://blog.fortiusone.com/?p=1077#comment-1032 Apologies that you found the post and data lacking. The GMU professor who did the post used the Wordpress image support which is not the best, and we are having the team fix those up. Fair point, but to be honest I'm a bit confused on the rest of the criticism. Maker is a free service, and the only reason we require you to register to use it so the system can track your maps. Otherwise we’d have no idea whose maps are whose. It only requires an email and password to get going. If you can suggest another way to solve this problem we’d be more than open to hearing about it. This is why you don’t have to register to download data on Finder. There is not a technical reason for you to need to. It is a good point about having links to the Maker maps in the post. Maybe you missed them, but Raj included links to both of the maps at the end of the post: “Maker! maps: The Flu season: Percent deaths due to pneumonia/influenza in large cities in weeks ending 25 oct 2008 and 25 Apr 2009 Flu season 2008-2009: Total flu/pneumonia deaths” This is also where I’m quite confused about it taking five clicks to get to the source data in a spatial format. The end of the post has all the data in the post as hyperlinks: “Finder! Data: MMWR (CDC), 2008-2009 Flu Season Weekly mortality by large cities, USA, April 25 2009 CDC MMWR, 2008-2009 Flu season mortality for large cities, USA, 2009? When you click on the link it takes you to the metadata page where you can download the data in a variety of spatial formats. We thought about including a data preview on the Finder metadata page, but it ended up being duplicative since if you click “make a map” it shows you the geometries on a map. If your user experience was diminished because this step requires you to register, that is a fair point, and something we can look at for feature requests. Thanks for the feedback and I hope the response clarifies some of the issues you had in reading the post. best, sean Apologies that you found the post and data lacking. The GMU professor who did the post used the WordPress image support which is not the best, and we are having the team fix those up. Fair point, but to be honest I’m a bit confused on the rest of the criticism.

Maker is a free service, and the only reason we require you to register to use it so the system can track your maps. Otherwise we’d have no idea whose maps are whose. It only requires an email and password to get going. If you can suggest another way to solve this problem we’d be more than open to hearing about it. This is why you don’t have to register to download data on Finder. There is not a technical reason for you to need to.

It is a good point about having links to the Maker maps in the post. Maybe you missed them, but Raj included links to both of the maps at the end of the post:

“Maker! maps:

The Flu season: Percent deaths due to pneumonia/influenza in large cities in weeks ending 25 oct 2008 and 25 Apr 2009

Flu season 2008-2009: Total flu/pneumonia deaths”

This is also where I’m quite confused about it taking five clicks to get to the source data in a spatial format. The end of the post has all the data in the post as hyperlinks:

“Finder! Data:

MMWR (CDC), 2008-2009 Flu Season Weekly mortality by large cities, USA, April 25 2009

CDC MMWR, 2008-2009 Flu season mortality for large cities, USA, 2009?

When you click on the link it takes you to the metadata page where you can download the data in a variety of spatial formats.

We thought about including a data preview on the Finder metadata page, but it ended up being duplicative since if you click “make a map” it shows you the geometries on a map. If your user experience was diminished because this step requires you to register, that is a fair point, and something we can look at for feature requests.

Thanks for the feedback and I hope the response clarifies some of the issues you had in reading the post.

best,
sean

]]> By: Aark http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/#comment-1031 Aark Thu, 07 May 2009 15:03:16 +0000 http://blog.fortiusone.com/?p=1077#comment-1031 Thank you for your very thoughtful comments/critique. Indeed the screen shots leave a lot to be desired when it comes to the quality of the original maps on the Maker! and they do nothing as you rightly pointed out to promote "... an awesome service (Maker! Finder!)". Your comments are very valuable to us and I will share them with others at FortiusOne so that we will continue to offer useful and quality data, maps and service to the user community. Thank you for your very thoughtful comments/critique. Indeed the screen shots leave a lot to be desired when it comes to the quality of the original maps on the Maker! and they do nothing as you rightly pointed out to promote “… an awesome service (Maker! Finder!)”. Your comments are very valuable to us and I will share them with others at FortiusOne so that we will continue to offer useful and quality data, maps and service to the user community.

]]> By: pslarkin http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/#comment-1030 pslarkin Thu, 07 May 2009 13:55:31 +0000 http://blog.fortiusone.com/?p=1077#comment-1030 Why is it policy to post poor quality screen shots? In this case the legend is cut in half and the NW edge of the country is less important. Posting screenshots of an awesome service (Maker! Finder!) does nothing to promote the actual service. If anything it makes the service look like an artifact of yesterday’s web. Maker! needs to be accessible as a non-membership service. -OR- Maker! should have the ability to stream map data without authentication in embedded maps. -OR- Authors need to embed google/visual earth maps, post direct links. –DEFINITELY- Finder! Should have a preview window that shows the data in spatial form. Asking viewers to make 5 clicks minimum to get to source data in a spatial format is a poor decision. PS the 'View In' section doesn’t work. File not found at http://finder.geocommons.co.... Why is it policy to post poor quality screen shots? In this case the legend is cut in half and the NW edge of the country is less important. Posting screenshots of an awesome service (Maker! Finder!) does nothing to promote the actual service. If anything it makes the service look like an artifact of yesterday’s web.

Maker! needs to be accessible as a non-membership service. -OR- Maker! should have the ability to stream map data without authentication in embedded maps. -OR- Authors need to embed google/visual earth maps, post direct links. –DEFINITELY- Finder! Should have a preview window that shows the data in spatial form.

Asking viewers to make 5 clicks minimum to get to source data in a spatial format is a poor decision.

PS the ‘View In’ section doesn’t work.

File not found at http://finder.geocommons.co….

]]> By: Paul http://blog.geoiq.com/2009/05/05/data-set-of-the-day-swine-flu-vs-the-regular-flu/#comment-1029 Paul Tue, 05 May 2009 22:02:39 +0000 http://blog.fortiusone.com/?p=1077#comment-1029 A school near me in the UK has closed down for a week.Not even a big city!its coming!! A school near me in the UK has closed down for a week.Not even a big city!its coming!!

]]>