Well done to the data team at The Economist, having to visualise a 12-year journey of a space probe as it makes a flying visit to eight different asteroids. They’ve made a very complicated journey look quite straightforward and elegant. A probe intended to study the Trojan asteroids takes off – The EconomistLucy, as this […]Lucy … Continue reading Lucy in the sky with asteroids — Miscellaneous Details
Lightweight Excel DND Dice Roller
To compliment my lightweight offline Excel DND character sheet, I've created a dice roller to be used when playing the game. It can be used completely offline, and should run on basically all versions of Excel (provided macros can be enabled). Please feel free to use this and share as required: offline-dnd-dice-rollerDownload DND Dice Roller … Continue reading Lightweight Excel DND Dice Roller
Micro How to… Format Data as a Table
How Example Data, Unformatted Step 1. Highlight the data table Data Table Highlighted Step 2. On the Ribbon, open the Insert tab, and select 'Table' (Shortcut CTRL + T). Insert Table Button Step 3. Hit Ok on the Create Table dialogue box. Create Table Dialogue Box You should now have a table that looks like … Continue reading Micro How to… Format Data as a Table
Lightweight Excel DND Character Sheet
Last year, after starting an online Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition campaign with friends to get through the lockdown, I made an Excel Character Sheet so that my players could keep track of their in-game character stats and items. Please feel free to use this and share as required: dnd-character-sheetDownload Need a dice roller to … Continue reading Lightweight Excel DND Character Sheet
Patient Pathway Analysis Tool – Update
Update on my Patient Pathway Analysis work for NHS England RightCare.
Data Science Project – Patient Pathway Analysis
This is a short piece on a project I'm developing at NHS England, using Python to analyse patients' inpatient care and determining where a Clinical Commission Group's (CCG) patients are being treated significantly differently to those patients in its peer group CCGs (similar 10 CCGs as determined by NHS Rightcare Methodologies). While not traditional 'data … Continue reading Data Science Project – Patient Pathway Analysis
Quick Steps to Make Effective Data Visualisations
This is an example of the default settings for a bar chart in Excel. This is functional but could be far more effective; here are my main steps I use to create quick, effective data visualisations. Remove chart borders. Show data in a useful order (alphabetically, or ranked, or some other important order). Keep gridlines … Continue reading Quick Steps to Make Effective Data Visualisations
HOW TO… Excel: Create a hierarchical series of drop down boxes
As a result of prodding around the excel subreddit I found a query from user innocuous_gorilla about creating drop downs that are dependent upon each other. Due to working at NHS England where we have a massive array of organisation types and hierarchies, I quickly learnt how to do this! For example, in NHS England … Continue reading HOW TO… Excel: Create a hierarchical series of drop down boxes
HOW TO… VBA: Compare VBA Combo Box Values with Their Lists
Preamble So, a recent issue I’ve had using VBA to create UserForms to handle data input is data validation. Throughout my UserForm I’ve included a variety of Combo Boxes that contain lists of information the user can select. In most instances I would like the user to have inputted exactly one of the options within … Continue reading HOW TO… VBA: Compare VBA Combo Box Values with Their Lists
Analytics and Ethics
Upon the enlightening release of the Cambridge Analytica exposé that revealed the company's underhanded tactics it utilises to influence and manipulate people with a combination of data analytics, espionage, and 'honeypotting', I think it's incredibly important to discuss how the analytical community needs to ensure a commitment to honest and unbiased analytics, and ethically sourced … Continue reading Analytics and Ethics
Static Interest 