Work in R and GGobi on the Happiness Index as it compares to the GDP for that country. GDP is “Value” and Y axis, Happiness Index value is “indexvalue” and X axis.
For this work in my “Data” class, I tried to explore whether and how the Happy Index is correlated to the GDP for that country. First I prepared the CSV files to some extent— making sure that the countries were lined up for each source of data— and then imported them into R and GGobi to try to see whether I could use some of the tools we’d explored as a class.
I know that there is much more to do on this assignment before I could trust my hypothesis / analysis of it, but am glad to just get some of the initial steps of understanding the tools.
The overall class “Data” has been fantastic in term of the lecture side of understanding how data can be compared, analyzed, delved into. The lectures opened my eyes to the historic side of our current obsession with data, visualization, representation. I was glad to get a bit of context in R but also want to continue to learn how to use it properly.
Some important points that I learned about during class:
- Analyze as you randomize
- Constraints reduce redundancy (where are you vs. where r u on a text message) I especially enjoyed this lecture on code / morse code / artificial code… the way that the frequency of symbols’ occurrence should predict that symbol’s encoding
- Different rigor of “Data” vs. “Data Representation”
- Really liked the historical examples— especially the Galton explanations
- How Mark figured out the election / prediction tree!
Overall, a subject impossible to condense into 7 weeks, but very glad to have the introduction and exposure so that I can dive further in.
