lab.6.dot.maps

.............DOTS!!!!!!!

Due to being out of town, I missed a lot of the dot map discussion in class, I think. But I did what I could. I realize the flaws of this map - I made my dots so tiny that it was dang near impossible to have any type of coalescing going on to emphasize the density of the data. By the time I realized that the data distribution wasn't going to appear as clearly as I had wished it would, I was way too far in to re-do the whole thing from scratch. Hopefully my realization of this issue will gain me some points *wink wink*. I won't even get into the peculiarity that happened when I tried to print this thing (I got more of a dots and dashes map than a dot map...I promise they're all dots though!). Moral of the story - next time I'll make my dots a little bit bigger. Just a little. And I'd probably use more dots, too. For the record, if I was REALLY making this for the Census Bureau, I'd totally start over and make it perfect, but since I'm not getting paid for this, I gave it all the time I could before I had to focus on things that I actually AM getting paid for.

Surprisingly, I kind of liked doing this map. It gave me time to listen to some good D.C. area music (as much as I complain about Wale these days, his "Mixtape About Nothing" was actually pretty good) while having "fun" moving dots around on a screen. This is probably the most enjoyable blog to date - maybe even just because I didn't encounter any huge problems (except I DID try to add a gradient and failed miserably, as is evidenced by the lack of one altogether.)

MAP OF THE WEEK!
I spent three or four days of the past week in various parts of New York City (mostly Harlem), so why not have a dot map that has to do with the Big Apple? Indeed.


This dot map is mapping a whopping two variables at once. It's a lot more interesting than it sounds. It's mapping the people who make less than 35k per year that also have commute times of more than one hour. Fascinating. I always wanted to move to NYC, but this isn't exactly encouraging. Neither is the swiss cheese-like condition of their roads. Want to see it full size?
http://www.gothamgazette.com/graphics/2008/04/DotDensityLowIncomeCommute.jpg

I *heart* the dots. More dots, please!

To quote Wale..."Out til next time. One."