How to build trading algorithms in Python, why we need more people between design and development, and MIT’s finest minds get on exactly how Chinese regional cuisines are related to each other… this week’s data roundup.

TOOLS, COURSES AND EVENTS

Is your data bullet-proof? Keep a log of what you do, check with a random sample, avoid false precision in reporting. A handy guide to bullet-proofing your data from Propublica is published here.

Are you a journalist or activist looking to brush up on the basics of statistics? Here’s an easy-to-read primer with examples drawn from baseball on the key principles from Dave Stanton, designer/developer and Poynter Technology Fellow.

Wondering how to run a financial analysis using Python? Thomas Wiecki of Brown University provides a tutorial taking you through data analysis tools relevant for financial analysis in Python, from scraping data from Yahoo Finance to building state-of-the art trading algorithms.

Matching up data scientists with charities and social enterprises, Data Kind UK is bringing top-notch data expertise into the voluntary sector with a data drive this weekend in London. Look out for the tweets as charities delve into the potential of the data they hold.

Got some software that needs documenting? Want a bunch of experts to help you in an all expenses-paid week at the Googleplex in Mountain View? Apply for the 2013 GSoC Doc Camp, open to proposals now. The camp aims to improve free documentation materials and skills in free software projects.

Women in Data is holding a meetup in London in August with a tutorial on how you can get Hadoop and R to play together nicely to crunch huge datasets and end up with a map. Open to sign-ups now.

DATA STORIES

Do we need more people with skill sets that straddle design and data? Yes we do, says Nicholas Felton at Wired.

Washington Post configures the world’s demographic future in 9 charts… and it’s all about Africa.

How do members of the EU parliament vote? Who is the most popular one? Here’s a catalogue of MEP voting records from the current parliamentary term. And a poll by the site’s members reveals the most popular MEP..

Chinese food: just how is the kind of soup you get in Sichuan province different to what you’d get in Beijing? The great minds at MIT have been comparing Chinese cuisine by pooling information from recipes and working out how they are related. The results are here.

DATA SOURCES

The Guardian has taken data on every registered refugee since 1960 from the UNHR and visualized it in a map that shows what years suffered the worst displacements and who has moved where. They have also packaged the data up and made it available to download.

Here’s the US 2010 census data in an easy to use format, aggregated to a Zip code level. Developing company Gilt Tech, has gone in and organized data from the US Census – putting the parsed and ZIP-code aggregated file on public release.

Is the statistical data from the Czech Republic’s 2011 census online? Yes it is.

We’re rounding up data news from the web each week. If you have a data news tip, send it to us at [email protected]

A freedom of Information machine goes on Kickstarter, NPR investigates the advantages of mapping a slum for its residents.. this week’s data roundup. Read the rest of this entry →