Monday, December 28, 2009
Pie Chart using Zoho Reports
Seth Godin had a blog post about an article in The New York Times. And how the graphs in the NYT article didn't show the correct picture. He's right. What I found interesting was a pie chart for customer reviews in Amazon for J D Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye' that Seth had posted. Tried improvising that graph a bit using Zoho Reports.
The pie divisions have their respective labels. And mousing over / clicking on each pie makes the chart interactive too - you can see the actual number of users who have rated each of the stars. Hope this adds value to having static images.
ps: Trying to make pie charts of customer reviews as a whole for the Kindle, the iPhone/iPod or books like 'The Catcher in the Rye' may be futile. They are huge success stories no matter how many 1 star ratings they receive.
The pie divisions have their respective labels. And mousing over / clicking on each pie makes the chart interactive too - you can see the actual number of users who have rated each of the stars. Hope this adds value to having static images.
ps: Trying to make pie charts of customer reviews as a whole for the Kindle, the iPhone/iPod or books like 'The Catcher in the Rye' may be futile. They are huge success stories no matter how many 1 star ratings they receive.
Labels: data visualization, pie chart, seth godin, zoho reports
Monday, March 24, 2008
trying to embed kdedson's prezo
letz try
the Zoho Show presentation should appear above ...
the Zoho Show presentation should appear above ...
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Memeorandum's feed
I find it difficult reading tech.memeorandum's RSS feed in Bloglines due to the horizontal scrollbar. Think they haven't wrapped the text around properly. Any workarounds?
Registration Hell
Wanted to post in the ExtremeTech forums but the elaborate registration form put me off :-(
Why the hell do they require such extensive info? When will these guys learn?
Why the hell do they require such extensive info? When will these guys learn?
Thursday, February 12, 2004
been reading a collection o' russell's essays for sometime now. the main essay is his very famous "why i'm not a christian". he's an athiest & the way he attcks the church & religion in general is superb. reasoning is what he believes in & its shows in every line of his writing. think among philosophers, he is more simple 2 unnerstand.
she being Brand
-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having
thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.
K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her
up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and
again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my
lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity
avenue i touched the accelerator and give
her the juice,good
(it
was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on
the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and
brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.
stand-
;Still)
-- ee cummings
its a wide known habit o' comparing an automobile/bike 2 a woman. the poem above is one such example. (there was much furore over a bike advt on our TV sometime ago when the bike & the female body were compared & think the ad was eventually removed)
and a more xplicit one from cummings here
"may i feel said he"
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)
-- ee cummings
about the poet:
Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1894. He received his B.A. in 1915 and his M.A. in 1916, both from Harvard. During the First World War, Cummings worked as an ambulance driver in France, but was interned in a prison camp by the French authorities (an experience recounted in his novel, The Enormous Room) for his outspoken anti-war convictions. After the war, he settled into a life divided between houses in rural Connecticut and Greenwich Village, with frequent visits to Paris.
In his work, Cummings experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly idiosyncratic means of poetic expression. Later in his career, he was often criticized for settling into his signature style and not pressing his work towards further evolution. Nevertheless, he attained great popularity, especially among young readers, for the simplicity of his language, his playful mode and his attention to subjects such as war and sex. At the time of his death in 1962, he was the second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost.
(bio from www.americanpoets.com)
-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having
thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.
K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her
up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and
again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my
lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning)just as we turned the corner of Divinity
avenue i touched the accelerator and give
her the juice,good
(it
was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on
the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and
brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.
stand-
;Still)
-- ee cummings
its a wide known habit o' comparing an automobile/bike 2 a woman. the poem above is one such example. (there was much furore over a bike advt on our TV sometime ago when the bike & the female body were compared & think the ad was eventually removed)
and a more xplicit one from cummings here
"may i feel said he"
may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)
may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she
may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she
but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she
(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she
(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)
-- ee cummings
about the poet:
Edward Estlin Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1894. He received his B.A. in 1915 and his M.A. in 1916, both from Harvard. During the First World War, Cummings worked as an ambulance driver in France, but was interned in a prison camp by the French authorities (an experience recounted in his novel, The Enormous Room) for his outspoken anti-war convictions. After the war, he settled into a life divided between houses in rural Connecticut and Greenwich Village, with frequent visits to Paris.
In his work, Cummings experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling and syntax, abandoning traditional techniques and structures to create a new, highly idiosyncratic means of poetic expression. Later in his career, he was often criticized for settling into his signature style and not pressing his work towards further evolution. Nevertheless, he attained great popularity, especially among young readers, for the simplicity of his language, his playful mode and his attention to subjects such as war and sex. At the time of his death in 1962, he was the second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost.
(bio from www.americanpoets.com)
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Journeys to Mars & Beyond
From time immemorial, humans have been fascinated with space. The urge to know whether there is life in the other planets of our Solar system, and the Universe at large, has kept us probing into space deeper and deeper. The year 1903 signalled the flight of the first man-made, heavier than air vehicle. And by the 1950s, we had artificial satellites rotating the Earth. Soon we started to think of sending space probes to other heavenly bodies. The first try had to be our Moon, it being the closest to us. Initially there were unmanned flights and once they succeeded, it was time for man to set foot on the Moon. In 1969, we just did that. Manned explorations of the Moon confirmed the already arrived at conclusions - that it has got no atmosphere and so no life is possible.
As our interests on the Moon faded *, we shifted our sights to the neighboring planets. Venus was found to be extremely hot with a very high atmospheric pressure of 90 bar. The other neighbouring planet had roughly the same Earth day of around 24.6 hours. False observations of the astromer Percival Lowell concluding that there were canals** all through the planet suggested that there may be intelligent life on it. And this evoked a wide interest. This planet where our focus has shifted now is the red giant Mars. Unfortunately, the planet has been found to contain carbondioxide as its chief atmospheric constituent and its atmosphere is very thin too. Our present interests have narrowed down to knowing whether there was life on Mars in the past.
The recent landing of the American Mars Rover Spirit has caused quite a flutter. Spirit is the second successful probe to land on Mars in the last 27 years since the Viking landers 1 & 2 landed successfully in July & August of 1976 respectively. By the time this article is published, the second Rover Oppurtunity too would have landed (scheduled landing date, January 26). Some 20 probes of different countries have failed inbetween. The last spaceship to land before Spirit was the British Beagle 2 which was supposed to have started sending photoes from Christmas day 2003. (Its silent till now. Its team will again try communicating with it from January 22.)
To journey to Mars is quite a thing. Mars is at a minimum distance of 55 million km from Earth. Thats roughly 140 times the distance to the Moon. A Mars Rover had to travel a minimum distance of 450 million kilometres in about 7 months for reaching Mars.
School physics had taught us of how a rocket is propelled. It simply follows Newton's third law. The rocket that carries the satellite or spacecraft is given a tremendous boost so that it escapes the gravitational force of the Earth. This phase relies mainly on liquid or solid chemical fuels. But what happens once the satellite is put into orbit? Think of a spacecraft like Viking or Voyager. Its not possible and unneeded anyway to have a rocket propulsion system to take a craft all the way to Mars and beyond. Once the gravitational field of the Earth is overcome, then the spaceship has to move in near vacuum. All that a spaceship is made to do is a free fall into the planet of choice. Occasionally, say once in a few months, it is powered by its thrusters for course correction. This is mostly achieved by chemical fuels. Solar power panels, fuel cells and batteries help in the functioning of the other systems apart from propulsion.
Another interesting way a spaceship gets assisted in its journey to distant worlds is by a phenomenon called gravity assist (also known as gravitational assist, fly by or slingshot effect). A planet's gravitational field can be used to help in varying the speed of a spaceship to a great extent. This can be thought of like throwing a ping-pong ball (the spaceship) at the blades of a rotating fan (the planet). While the fan blades lose some speed, the ball's thrown away at a much higher speed with a change in direction. Cassini, the spaceship to Saturn has done flybys of Earth, Venus & Jupiter. It reaches Saturn in July of this year. And Mariner 10 did a slowing down fly by of Venus (by coming in the opposite direction of the Venus' orbit) on its way to Mercury.
Looking at the future of space aviation, other ways of propelling a spaceship can be possible too. Nuclear (fusion) powered spaceships can easily be thought of. But the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forbids nuclear reactions in outer space. Controlled nuclear reactions if allowed can make the spaceships still faster. Ion propulsion is yet another thing. Its key principle is that a voltage difference between two conductors can accelerate ions which then can be used to produce thrust. One more highly discussed option is that of an engine using antimatter. When matter and antimatter collide, a lot of energy is released. The first antimatter to be produced was positron (positive electron, the antimatter of electron) and scientists are now envisaging a anti-proton or anti-neutron engine. If such an engine can be made, it will be possible to travel at amazing speeds and the percentage of fuel as part of the payload can very much be decreased.
Taking all the above into perspective, its clear that we aren't in the real Space Age yet. We may see man landing in Mars in the next few decades. And this leads to the possibility of traveling beyond Mars to the Jovian system. Thats the least one can expect to happen in the near future. Journeying to other stars seems a very distant possibility. Till then, we will be sending unmanned probes into interstellar space and continue scanning the skies with our powerful radio telescopes, expecting some technically advanced civilization in another world to contact us.
* The statement is not completely true. Many nations who are in their space program infancy (including India) will try to send missions to the Moon first. Also, President Bush has recently spoken about creating a Lunar Space Station.
** The Italian astromer Schiaparelli first observed canali across the planet Mars. canali in Italian means channels but got wrongly translated into English as canals, meaning engineering structures and hence intelligent life. This might have prompted Lowell to come to the wrong conclusions. Lowell's contribution to astronomy was discovery of Pluto. The first 2 letters of the planet are got from his name.
From time immemorial, humans have been fascinated with space. The urge to know whether there is life in the other planets of our Solar system, and the Universe at large, has kept us probing into space deeper and deeper. The year 1903 signalled the flight of the first man-made, heavier than air vehicle. And by the 1950s, we had artificial satellites rotating the Earth. Soon we started to think of sending space probes to other heavenly bodies. The first try had to be our Moon, it being the closest to us. Initially there were unmanned flights and once they succeeded, it was time for man to set foot on the Moon. In 1969, we just did that. Manned explorations of the Moon confirmed the already arrived at conclusions - that it has got no atmosphere and so no life is possible.
As our interests on the Moon faded *, we shifted our sights to the neighboring planets. Venus was found to be extremely hot with a very high atmospheric pressure of 90 bar. The other neighbouring planet had roughly the same Earth day of around 24.6 hours. False observations of the astromer Percival Lowell concluding that there were canals** all through the planet suggested that there may be intelligent life on it. And this evoked a wide interest. This planet where our focus has shifted now is the red giant Mars. Unfortunately, the planet has been found to contain carbondioxide as its chief atmospheric constituent and its atmosphere is very thin too. Our present interests have narrowed down to knowing whether there was life on Mars in the past.
The recent landing of the American Mars Rover Spirit has caused quite a flutter. Spirit is the second successful probe to land on Mars in the last 27 years since the Viking landers 1 & 2 landed successfully in July & August of 1976 respectively. By the time this article is published, the second Rover Oppurtunity too would have landed (scheduled landing date, January 26). Some 20 probes of different countries have failed inbetween. The last spaceship to land before Spirit was the British Beagle 2 which was supposed to have started sending photoes from Christmas day 2003. (Its silent till now. Its team will again try communicating with it from January 22.)
To journey to Mars is quite a thing. Mars is at a minimum distance of 55 million km from Earth. Thats roughly 140 times the distance to the Moon. A Mars Rover had to travel a minimum distance of 450 million kilometres in about 7 months for reaching Mars.
School physics had taught us of how a rocket is propelled. It simply follows Newton's third law. The rocket that carries the satellite or spacecraft is given a tremendous boost so that it escapes the gravitational force of the Earth. This phase relies mainly on liquid or solid chemical fuels. But what happens once the satellite is put into orbit? Think of a spacecraft like Viking or Voyager. Its not possible and unneeded anyway to have a rocket propulsion system to take a craft all the way to Mars and beyond. Once the gravitational field of the Earth is overcome, then the spaceship has to move in near vacuum. All that a spaceship is made to do is a free fall into the planet of choice. Occasionally, say once in a few months, it is powered by its thrusters for course correction. This is mostly achieved by chemical fuels. Solar power panels, fuel cells and batteries help in the functioning of the other systems apart from propulsion.
Another interesting way a spaceship gets assisted in its journey to distant worlds is by a phenomenon called gravity assist (also known as gravitational assist, fly by or slingshot effect). A planet's gravitational field can be used to help in varying the speed of a spaceship to a great extent. This can be thought of like throwing a ping-pong ball (the spaceship) at the blades of a rotating fan (the planet). While the fan blades lose some speed, the ball's thrown away at a much higher speed with a change in direction. Cassini, the spaceship to Saturn has done flybys of Earth, Venus & Jupiter. It reaches Saturn in July of this year. And Mariner 10 did a slowing down fly by of Venus (by coming in the opposite direction of the Venus' orbit) on its way to Mercury.
Looking at the future of space aviation, other ways of propelling a spaceship can be possible too. Nuclear (fusion) powered spaceships can easily be thought of. But the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forbids nuclear reactions in outer space. Controlled nuclear reactions if allowed can make the spaceships still faster. Ion propulsion is yet another thing. Its key principle is that a voltage difference between two conductors can accelerate ions which then can be used to produce thrust. One more highly discussed option is that of an engine using antimatter. When matter and antimatter collide, a lot of energy is released. The first antimatter to be produced was positron (positive electron, the antimatter of electron) and scientists are now envisaging a anti-proton or anti-neutron engine. If such an engine can be made, it will be possible to travel at amazing speeds and the percentage of fuel as part of the payload can very much be decreased.
Taking all the above into perspective, its clear that we aren't in the real Space Age yet. We may see man landing in Mars in the next few decades. And this leads to the possibility of traveling beyond Mars to the Jovian system. Thats the least one can expect to happen in the near future. Journeying to other stars seems a very distant possibility. Till then, we will be sending unmanned probes into interstellar space and continue scanning the skies with our powerful radio telescopes, expecting some technically advanced civilization in another world to contact us.
* The statement is not completely true. Many nations who are in their space program infancy (including India) will try to send missions to the Moon first. Also, President Bush has recently spoken about creating a Lunar Space Station.
** The Italian astromer Schiaparelli first observed canali across the planet Mars. canali in Italian means channels but got wrongly translated into English as canals, meaning engineering structures and hence intelligent life. This might have prompted Lowell to come to the wrong conclusions. Lowell's contribution to astronomy was discovery of Pluto. The first 2 letters of the planet are got from his name.
suchi's wedding's been a hectic 3 days. the trip started as planned. the first obstacle - there was traffic diversion near sathya studio. then, the driver refused 2 go via ECR. we had a roundabout trip 2 pondy. nice lunch at hotel mass (brought back memories of me & muthu cing a sickly cabaret there). next stopover was sivashankar mama's house at chidambaram. all the way then 2 thirunageshwaram. we saw 'parthiban kanavu' & 'jay jay' on the way. it was 8 pm when we reached there. another confusion as road relaying was goin on & it took an hour 2 settle down at the AKS lodge. the maapilai veeetar arrived inbetween. we had 2 place them at the other VST Illam which we did quite successfully. another snag - they hadn't taken their dinner. thankfully, sridhar's (the guy we had arranged as the cook) wife agreed 2 make some upma. it was 11 pm when everyone had had their food & we slept by around 12.
next day began with some viradham function. there was some mantram chanting goin on and sriram had 2 fast till 11 am. at around 12:15 pm lunch was served. after a brief lull, there was this discourse on 'seetha kalayanam'. the paati who'd come was very jovial in her speech.
evening, betrothal took place, followed by dinner. the day came 2 an end with another confusion - the key for room 116 was lost. chithappa's friend subramanyam & his wife were in that room. at around 11, we got a spare key from the hotel mgmt. and, outa 17 rooms booked, 1 room wasn't occupied at all till the end.
kalayana naal dawned. frantic getting ready by all & sundry. went 2 the oppiliappan koil & fixed up our place by placing jamakaalams & chairs.
raja had some uneasy stomach. and when raja & me went from the lodge, thaali kattal was already over. we clicked merrily on the other things happening like putting metti & all that.
shek & tush started off immediately 2 b on time for saarang.
again back 2 lakshmi mahal for more fns followed by lunch. sankar mama & kalyanam (a relative of viji chithi's) helped in organising.
today's the reception. hafta 2 go 2 the residency in the evening...
next day began with some viradham function. there was some mantram chanting goin on and sriram had 2 fast till 11 am. at around 12:15 pm lunch was served. after a brief lull, there was this discourse on 'seetha kalayanam'. the paati who'd come was very jovial in her speech.
evening, betrothal took place, followed by dinner. the day came 2 an end with another confusion - the key for room 116 was lost. chithappa's friend subramanyam & his wife were in that room. at around 11, we got a spare key from the hotel mgmt. and, outa 17 rooms booked, 1 room wasn't occupied at all till the end.
kalayana naal dawned. frantic getting ready by all & sundry. went 2 the oppiliappan koil & fixed up our place by placing jamakaalams & chairs.
raja had some uneasy stomach. and when raja & me went from the lodge, thaali kattal was already over. we clicked merrily on the other things happening like putting metti & all that.
shek & tush started off immediately 2 b on time for saarang.
again back 2 lakshmi mahal for more fns followed by lunch. sankar mama & kalyanam (a relative of viji chithi's) helped in organising.
today's the reception. hafta 2 go 2 the residency in the evening...
Monday, January 12, 2004
the past weekend - most of the 2 days were spent roaming the book fair. saturday evening, the first round revealed the presence of british council. got a short story collecion of doestovsky. went again sunday af noon. got enrolled in the bcl, bought 'chemmeen' & also a bharathiyar collection. got registered for the akademi's bimonthly journal too. then 2 ritchi street in search of CDs. no luck. to moor mkt in search of second hand fiction books, again no luck. back 2 office & after some browsing, the weekend came 2 an end.
Monday, January 05, 2004
it was a nice outing on saturday evening. first 2 qwikys & then 2 landmark. meena got me victor hugo's 'les miserables' & shri 420/awara cassette.
sunday, sent off amma by pallavan exp. nice that she got a place 2 sit as there was a maddening rush due 2 some admk thingy as kalazhagakkanmanigal in the typical white & white shirt/veshti were returning back in large numbers. & the reservation coaches were till S7 while normally they stop at S5.
sunday, sent off amma by pallavan exp. nice that she got a place 2 sit as there was a maddening rush due 2 some admk thingy as kalazhagakkanmanigal in the typical white & white shirt/veshti were returning back in large numbers. & the reservation coaches were till S7 while normally they stop at S5.
