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As Singapore rejoices over the cool weather brought by the monsoon surge at the beginning of 2021, so do our six-legged neighbours, the female Aedes aegypti mosquitos. What other shifts to a "new normal" are exposing us to a greater risk of dengue fever?
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Data vis spotlight: Changing moon phases
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To celebrate the mid-autumn festival last year, we visualised a week's worth of moon phases to let people know when's the best time to moon gaze and eat mooncakes.
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Collecting the data was simple enough: I went to this site to calculate the projected moon phases of my desired date and location, and recorded the percentage of the moon which is visible and nonvisible.
Then came the unexpectedly tricky part: creating the moons! Turns out creating spheres based on set percentages is more science than art. Our trusty designers Griselda and Joceline told me that the different moon phases are irregularly shaped, so the Adobe software requires an area of the spheres.
Our eventual solution—with help from an architect friend—was to use a genetic algorithm to solve for the moon's area via the Rhino program and Grasshopper plug-in. The algorithm runs consecutive tests to find an optimised solution, based on parameters that you feed it and your desired outcome. In this case it was the circle's radius, the percentage of the sphere, and area of the moon we want shaded.
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The output churned out by the computational program was these moons with the exact area of shaded and unshaded parts! Then, it was just a matter of colouring the moons and arranging them into an Instagram post on Figma.
- Bella
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1. Speaking at Outlier! 🎉
Happy news! We'll be speaking at Outlier on 4 February, at 6.10pm SGT! We'll be sharing how we translate cultural phenomena into data stories, citing examples from our stories on chilli sauces, queuing, instant noodles, and more! We'll be answering any questions you have afterwards, so register for the event if you haven't already :-)
Sharing our hard-won data vis knowledge like this is part of Konti's 2021 commitment to contribute to the community through more open collaboration. Another big part of this is learning from you and facilitating knowledge-sharing and solidarity in the Asian data vis community. So stay tuned for more updates on this front, and shoot up any ideas you have!
2. Hajj story shortlisted at the New Media Writing Prize 🏆
The year got off to a hopeful start when the New Media Writing Prize shortlisted our Hajj story for their Writing Magazine Digital Journalism award, alongside great works from Egypt and Portugal. You can hear from our teammates behind the story here!
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3. Developer wanted! 👩🏻💻👨🏻💻
Also, we're hiring! Want to be part of the development team that makes cool things like this and this happen? You can stalk us at Medium, Instagram, and Twitter!
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We need all the help we can get. Here are some links related to surviving the new year:
- Wise people before us have tried to answer this question: How many slaps does it take to cook a chicken? 3D rendering artist Aden takes it a step further by visualising how one powerful slap can cook—and eviscerate—your dinner should you find yourself out in the wild.
- @theweirdandwild is a climate activist who produces engaging content on Instagram, weaving in adorable illustrations with news articles, research, and crowdsourced knowledge.
- Pet adoption and sales have surged during the pandemic, as people turn to our furry friends for companionship. If that sounds tempting, perhaps use these floor plans to gauge if your future best friend can comfortably reside in your abode, first.
- @FrankElavsky rightfully calls out the data vis community at large for associating accessibility mostly with colour blindness when there are a whole lot of disabilities to consider. You can read his wonderful thread or attend his talk at the Outlier conference!
- In case anyone was not done with the unfortunate events of last year, The Game about the Mad Year 2020 lets you relive the major episodes of 2020 all over again: Australian bushfires, COVID-19, the rise of TikTok, and the United States presidential elections. Will you survive again this time?
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