Data Visualization using Sankey diagrams

Sankey diagrams are a great way of visualizing the flow of data, where the width of each flow is based on its quantity or relative weight. Like a picture that speaks more than a thousand words, a Sankey diagram speaks more than a thousand pie charts. Perfect use cases of these diagrams are to visualize the flow of materials and money, but there is no limit on how creatively they can be used.

Here is a sample Sankey that shows the vacation budget flowing into different heads.

Sankey diagram for a vacation budget

The example below shows a monthly budget split into multi-level heads.

Sankey diagram for a monthly budget

The example below shows inflation-adjusted revenue from music sales based on media format from 1973 till 2019. Data source RIAA.

Sankey diagram for music revenue based on media type sales

Below are some resources where you can create Sankey diagrams.

SankeyDiagram.net

Sample at SankeyDiagram.net

I kept this in the beginning of the list because it is the simplest to use. Creating Sankey diagrams at SankeyDiagram.net is very easy to use and free. Just go to the website, enter your data and see the diagram evolve in real time. It has a simple input format, a few settings and the ability to export the diagram in various formats like PNG and SVG. It automatically selects colors for you and also lets you specify colors for each flow. A useful feature here is that you can use a '?' for the program to automatically calculate the value based on the lower nodes. Thanks to Jonas Lorenz for creating and publishing this open-source tool.

SankeyMATIC.com

Sample at SankeyMATIC

SankeyMATIC.com has a UI which is loaded with lots of customizations to choose from. There are controls to help customize the size of the canvas, margins, heights and spacing of nodes, default colors, opacity, curviness etc. The data input format is simple and it provides you a choice to select predefined coloring themes. With this tool, also have total control of the opacity, font positioning, size and highlighting. It lets you export the diagram as a PNG at a size of your choice. I really miss the ability to let it auto-calculate the values of higher nodes based on the values in the lower ones.

Sankey Diagram Generator by Dénes Csala

Sample at Sankey Diagram Generator

This free Sankey diagram generator at sankey.csaladen.es provides a lot of control on the configuration part. Each flow can be defined more definitively in terms of colors and layers. The nodes can be freely moved around the canvas by dragging with the mouse pointer. The application lets you save the diagram as a PNG image. Thanks to Dénes Csala for creating and publishing this open-source tool.

Sankey using Google Charts

Sample at Google Charts

If you are okay with a bit of HTML and JavaScript programming, Google Charts has a chart library that you can embed in your web page and display interactive charts. The Sankey diagram will be rendered using HTML5/SVG technology to provide cross-browser compatibility (including VML for older IE versions) and cross platform portability to iPhones, iPads, and Android. There are loads of options to customize which I will cover in a later post. Head over to Google Charts' Sankey Diagram for more details on how to create these charts.

The simple Sankey diagram below was made with Google Charts and depicts the top 10 Wikipedia pages and their source based on page views for the year 2022. Hover your mouse pointer, or tap, over the nodes and flows to see the data. [Data source: Wikipedia] [static image sample]

The Sankey diagram below, which was made with Google Charts, shows UK studio albums released by The Beatles grouped into genres. [Data source: Wikipedia] [static image sample]

You will come across many other tools to create Sankey diagrams. The ones I chose to write about here are the ones that are freely accessible and fairly easy to use. Sankey diagrams can be used to depict much more complex scenarios of data or materials flow. If you have a comment, please drop it in the comments section below.

Today I Learned about the Peter principle

The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another. Read more.

Sling TV Rapidly Losing Subscribers

Live streaming television provider Sling TV has been rapidly losing its subscriber base over several quarters now. In its latest press release here and here, parent company DISH TV reported a subscriber base of 2.003 million in 2023 Q2 for Sling TV, which is a loss of 97,000 over the previous quarter. This makes it 3 quarters in a row where Sling TV has lost subscribers with 234,000 in 2023 Q1 and 77,000 in 2022 Q4. In a similar trend, it had also lost subscribers for 3 quarters in a row starting 2021 Q4 during which it lost 359,000 subscribers.

Among popular streaming live TV providers in the market today is YouTube TV whose subscriptions run at $72.99 per month and includes 100+ live channels. Other popular ones are Hulu, Fubo, Philo, and DirecTV Stream. As of August 2023, Sling TV is available only in the US and packages start from $40 a month.

TechCrunch writes, Sling TV struggles to keep subscribers, drops nearly 100K users in Q2 here.

Music I am listening to in 2023

Here is a quick log of the music albums that I have been listening to this year.

1. 4 Pieces: A Tribute to Ludovico Einaudi / Jacob's Piano
2. ÷ (Deluxe) / Ed Sheeran
3. A Scandinavian Thing / Peter Sandberg
4. Ain't No Mountain High Enough / Mark Maxwell
5. All the Little Lights (Deluxe Version) / Passenger
6. Anthology / Grover Washington, Jr.
7. Appetite For Destruction / Guns N' Roses
8. Bar Jazz Masterpieces / New York Jazz Lounge
9. Blue Train (Expanded Edition) / John Coltrane
10. Breezin' / George Benson
11. Bright Future / Peder B. Helland
12. Chet Baker In Tokyo (The Complete Concert) / Chet Baker
13. Coltrane's Sound / John Coltrane
14. Dance of Life / Peder B. Helland
15. Dark Night of the Soul / Philip Wesley
16. Delirium (Deluxe) / Ellie Goulding
17. El Paraiso Músical / Geova Eucarin
18. Feels So Good / Chuck Mangione
19. Funky Jazz Masterpieces, Vol. 3 / New York Jazz Lounge
20. Homecoming / David Hazeltine
21. I Put A Spell On You / Nina Simone
22. Idle Moments / Grant Green
23. It Might As Well Be Swing / Frank Sinatra
24. Jazz - Instrumental Pop Jazz / Smooth Jazz Sax Instrumentals
25. JORDI (Deluxe) / Maroon 5
26. Kabir Singh / Various Artists
27. Kind Of Blue (Legacy Edition) / Miles Davis
28. Love In The Future (Deluxe Edition) / John Legend
29. Method in the Madness / Nocturnal Spirits
30. Moanin' (Expanded Edition) / Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
31. MTV Unplugged In New York / Nirvana
32. My Brazilian Heart / Joyce Partise
33. My One and Only Love / David Ehrlin & Razz T
34. Nostalgia / Annie Lennox
35. Nothing But The Best / Frank Sinatra
36. On Golden Pond - Relaxing Piano / Relaxing Piano
37. Only Human (Deluxe) / Calum Scott
38. Rainy Days / Peder B. Helland
39. Rang De Basanti (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) / A.R. Rahman
40. Rising Son / Takuya Kuroda
41. Say Something / A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera
42. Shape of You / Ed Sheeran
43. Standing By / Ben E King
44. Sunny Mornings / Peder B. Helland
45. Takin' Off (Expanded Edition) / Herbie Hancock
46. The Best - Reminiscent 10th Anniversary / Yiruma
47. The Best of Soul, R&B, Smooth Jazz / Denise King & Massimo Faraò Trio
48. The Light of Day / James 'PJ' Spraggins
49. The Nova Collection, Vol. 1 / Nova
50. The Situation Five to Nine / Stevo Rap Guru
51. Time Out / The Dave Brubeck Quartet
52. Trilogy: Past, Present & Future / Frank Sinatra
53. Triple W / ThaMac10
54. You Are Not Alone / Kim Waters
55. Winelight / Grover Washington, Jr.
56. Shree Hanuman Chalisa / Lata Mangeshkar
57. Simple Pleasures / Bobby McFerrin
58. Somethin' Else (Rudy Van Gelder Edition) / Cannonball Adderley
59. Sunny Mornings / Peder B. Helland
60. x (Deluxe Edition) / Ed Sheeran

X taking away Twitter handles

X, formerly called Twitter, has taken away many handles to the dismay of its long-time users. Some of the handles that are knows to have been taken away are below:

@x

@twittermusic

@twittersports

@twittermovies

@twittertv

@music

@sports

@tv

@movies

Sarah Bregel writes in details on Fast Company here. Mashable writes about it here.

Sweet Home 3D for Home Interior Design

Sweet Home 3D is a free open-source home interior designing application which you can use to draw floor plans and design the interiors of your home. It has a drag-and-drop user interface with a built-in searchable furniture catalog to add living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and furniture to your designs. And it is very easy to use.

I have played around with this application on several occasions since 2013 and it has always been an interesting experience with its ease of use. The application lets you import a floor plan which helps as a guide to draw a 2D plan of the walls and rooms after which you can start adding elements like furniture and appliances. Side-by-side, the plan can be previewed in 3D with all the object that you put in there.

The application provides two points of view to preview the design: the top point of view in which you can view the house from above and the human observer point of view which lets you render a realistic view of the interiors.

Sweet Home 3D can be installed on a Windows, macOS or a Linux computer. It can also be used online with a supported browser.

Here I am putting out some simple illustrations of the design capabilities that this application has to demonstrate the look and feel of the online version of the application. Remember that it can create very simple to very complex floor plans including plans that consists of multiple floors.

Set 1

Set 2

The application is located here at sweethome3d.com.

The development project is located here at SourceForge.

 

Meta blocks news on Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada

Facebook and Instagram, which are owned by Meta, is preventing users in Canada to post or view news content. In June 2023, the Canadian government passed its Online News Act, Bill C-18, which requires big tech giants like Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms. Darren Major writes about the event here on CBC. Here is a full text of the act.