Category: Resource

Resource, Tutorial

Data News of the Week | Gender Pay Gap: Why and How?

Professor Jordan Peterson has been the center of attention in last few weeks for participating in a number of debates regarding gender wage gap. Unlike the feminists calling for the reduction of discrimination over salary, he believes gender wage gap is an explainable consequence of multiple social factors rather than a problem caused by discrimination. Is he right? After all, why is there gender wage gap? Looking into 3 reports (Why is There a Gender Wage Gap – Our World in Data, Six Key Facts About the Gender Pay Gap – Our World in Data, Gender Pay Gap: the Day Women Start Working For Free – Washington Post) and a  published recently with analytics over statistics regarding gender wage gap will give us a thorough understanding of current gender wage gap. Continue reading “Data News of the Week | Gender Pay Gap: Why and How?” →

Resource, Tutorial

Data News of the Week | What can we, the 20-year-old, do to change the world?

Nathan Ruser, a 20-year-old Australian National University student who is majoring in international security with a keen interest in cartography, discovered a fitness app had revealed the locations of secret military sites in Syria and elsewhere. He posted on Twitter about this, did not expect much response.

But the news ricocheted across the internet. Security experts said the Strave app’s “heat map” could be used by hostile entities glean valuable intelligence. The Pentagon said it was reviewing the situation.

How he found the news?

 “Whoever thought that operational security could be wrecked by a Fitbit?” Mr. Ruser, said in an interview with New York Times from Thailand, where he is spending part of the Australian summer break.

When he looked over Syria on Strava’s map — which is based on location data from millions of users, including military personnel, who share their exercise activity — the area “lit up with those U.S. bases,” he said.

Before publicly sharing his findings over the weekend, he discussed them in a private chat group on Twitter, made up of people interested in intelligence and security issues. “I know about two-thirds of what I know about the world from the group chats,” he said.

Continue reading “Data News of the Week | What can we, the 20-year-old, do to change the world?” →

Book, Resource, Tool, Tutorial

農曆新年學習資料大禮包！Data Journalism Learning Tools

農曆新年伊始，小編在此給各位愛學習的小夥伴推薦一些學習Data Journalism有用的線上課程，資料和工具。希望新的一年，大家學業進步！順順利利！(原文部分轉載自 initiumlab.com, 有部分編輯， 點擊查看更多: 學習資料清單)

  • 系列課程：從查找資料開始、學習解讀資料的意義、資料視覺化到用資料說故事。

1.Doing Journalism with Data: First Steps, Skills and Tools（課程在LEARNO.NET平台開放，一共5節，直接註冊，免費學習）

http://learno.net/courses/doing-journalism-with-data-first-steps-skills-and-tools

2.Data Exploration and Storytelling（數據大師Alberto Cairo & Heather Krause開設）

https://publicmediaalliance.org/free-online-course-data-exploration-storytelling/

Continue reading “農曆新年學習資料大禮包！Data Journalism Learning Tools” →

Article, Resource

Data News of the Week | U.S. Gun Control Debate and the Media

There were more than four months after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, which is the deadliest mass shooting* committed by an individual of the States. As the largest gun-holding ratio (per capita) country around the world, USA has long been debating the gun control, yet, no consensus has been able to achieve. That’s also why media play a huge role in formulating the public debate and policy-making of gun control. We will discuss the two following reports by BBC (America’s gun culture in 10 charts) and The Telegraph (One mass shooting every day: Seven facts about gun violence in America) to illustrate the strengths and limitations of media coverage on the gun control.

*Mass shooting: When an attacker killed three or more victims in an indiscriminate rampage. Before 2013, the number was four. Continue reading “Data News of the Week | U.S. Gun Control Debate and the Media” →

Event, Open Lecture, Resource

Recap of SCMP infographic designers’ guest lecture in HKDI
picture 2
Marcelo Duhalde showcases his research work behind the infographics. Photo: Zhang Ruirong

The first principle of making infographics is clearness because infographics are created for sharing, said Marcelo Duhalde, an infographic designer from SCMP as well as his colleague Marco Hernandez, invited by Hong Kong Design Institute on Feb 6.

Continue reading “Recap of SCMP infographic designers’ guest lecture in HKDI” →

Article, Resource

Data News of the Week | Trump Lies and His Job Promises

It has been more than a year under Donald Trump’s administration. Trump has made a lot of groundless claims and job promises which happen arbitrarily. Some newsagents keep a record of it and visualize the frequency. To criticise the act of the president in a more grounded way, The New York Times compares the lies frequency between Trump’s and the former president Barack Obama. We also dug deeper into one of his promises in his election platform which is job creation and employment enhancement. From which, we adopted a project from ProPublica. The following will discuss the visualization, the use of words and the effects of the two projects. 

Continue reading “Data News of the Week | Trump Lies and His Job Promises” →

Resource, Story

Data News of the Week | Visualising the Blockchain

The Rise and Rise of ICO in late 2017

If you still don’t know what is “blockchain” or what is “bitcoin”, The recent work from Max Galka will assure you this is the high time to do some self-study, or you will miss the birth time of “another Internet”. The idea of ICO, Initial Coin/Chain Offering, is an analogy of IPO. With the inception of “smart contract” capability, fundraising, a process to exchange currency to certificate, can be done in a distributed manner. The “currency” in the chain world can be Ethereum, NEO, BitCoin, … The “certificate” in the chain world is called “token” so the ICO process is also referred to as “token sale”. The convenience of ICO gains rapid growth with crazy capitals pouring into this field. Just check out this interactive/ animated token sale history.

Screenshot: The ICO Market Cap to date (Nov 2017)

Continue reading “Data News of the Week | Visualising the Blockchain” →

Resource, Tutorial

My First Application of FOI in Hong Kong

It was new for me when I heard anyone can acquire almost any data from HK government for legitimate reasons under that Code on Access to Information.

This code is a response to the notion of “FOI” (For Our Information; Freedom Of Information), which calls for citizens’ free access to government information so that the transparency of government management can be ensured and citizen rights can be protected.

According to Wiki, In 2006, nearly 70 countries went through relative legislation. Among these laws are USA’s FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and, of course, Hong Kong’s Code on Access to information.

Despite the code in place, a practical question remains. Will those government officers fulfill their duty and do give reply to every single data request? So I decided to give a try on Accessinfo.hk.

Accessinfo.hk is a website positioned as a platform for citizens to post their information requests to authorities and receive feedback. It was initiated by a group of Open Data activist, including Guy Freeman, who is currently data scientist in HK01. The website publishes every question and answer to everyone, and, at the same time, monitors the process. Before localizing the Alaveteli system ( http://alaveteli.org/ ) to Hong Kong, its sister site WhatDoTheyKnow ( https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/ ) had already seen wide application in the United Kingdom.

accessinfo

Screenshot: accessinfo.hk

Continue reading “My First Application of FOI in Hong Kong” →

General, Resource, Story

Data News of the Week | US Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

On December 22, 2017, President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. How does it matter to the companies and citizens?

Tax is one of the crucial parts of the country’s economic. Under the globalization, US tax policy might relevant to your life. The economic trends could affect you and the steps you might need to take so you can profit from it. Moreover, there are lots of data in the tax policies which could turn into some good data news. This week we will share some Trump’s new GOP tax cut plan data news.

What is the Tax Cuts about?

☞Trump’s Tax Plan and How It Affects You [Link]

The whole tax bill cuts the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and the top individual tax rate will drop to 37%, which used to be 39.6% in 2017.

The following chart shows the progressive tax rate before and after the bill, in one Table. We find that table is an effective way to display data with high density. It seems the tax will be deducted for everyone except for the lowest income bracket.

image1

Read more: Corporate Income Tax: Definition, History, Effective Rate

Continue reading “Data News of the Week | US Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” →

Announcements, Event, Resource

Hong Kong Data Journalism Bootcamp 2018

DNNers, Happy new year!

We are pleased to announce a 3 days data journalism bootcamp at the end of January. This is an intensive training to get you onboard this fascinating battle ship in the new media ocean. You will spend a fruitful weekend with 60 students from all Hong Kong higher education institutions. The event adopts a “startup weekend” format and features hands-on experience. Friday evening will see an overview of data journalism and team formation. Teams can work at any time from Friday evening all through Sunday afternoon to finish a data journalism project. Saturday is composed of three structured workshops including data collection/ preprocessing, descriptive statistics and data visualisation. Sunday morning will see some industry practitioners/ community contributors sharing tips/ pointers to further broaden the horizon of participants. Most training sessions are optional and attendees can pickup the preferred skills as needed.

Event overview:

  • Date/Time: Jan 26 (Fri) evening to Jan 28 (Sun) afternoon
  • Venue:
    • Day 1 (Fri): Cheng Yu Tung Building (100m from MTR University Station)
    • Day 2 (Sat)/ Day 3 (Sun): Learning Garden, G/F, University Library, CUHK
  • Audience: Students in Hong Kong higher education institutions
  • Cost: FREE (with HK$ 200 deposit)

Links:

Continue reading “Hong Kong Data Journalism Bootcamp 2018” →