This comes from back in the day, when I was still working in Corporate America. Actually it was fairly early in my career, when I was just getting used to the concept of reductions in force and downsizing. We had regular meetings during which we described how we had been spending our time, and what great things we had done to avoid the upcoming layoff. During one particularly stressful week, my colleague Mike put together a pie chart which I have roughly reproduced below. Of course, the pie itself didn’t tell the whole story, you had to pay attention to the labels. The percentages did all add to 100%, but they weren’t as equal as the pie appeared.

Pie charts get a lot of grief, well-earned because of the way people misuse them. But when used in a thoughtful manner, they can be effective. This pie was effective because it relieved some of the anxiety about the upcoming staffing changes.

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Well, I might have expected many of the results. Here’s a table showing types and varieties of watermelon.

Here’s a table outlining the nutritional value of watermelon chunks.

Here’s the definition of a particular color called “Wild Watermelon” from an internet publishing web site.

There was even a needlepoint pattern for a watermelon fan.

But by far the most links returned for “watermelon chart” were for fishing lures. This package of 20 plastic worms from Zoom Bait Company boasts of “The Original Trick Worm Watermelon Chart”.

This is a “Baby Brush Hog Watermelon Chart”.

Watermelon Chart Fish Stalker Finesse Worms.

The Baby Rattlesnake Watermelon Chart.

This little squid-like item gave me my first hint of what I had found: in tiny letters below the squid, it says “Watermelon Chartreuse”. Well, chartreuse is a color in the yellow-green family, which must describe the tail of this fellow. So Watermelon must be the darker green color; it’s the color of the watermelon rind, not the sweet pink juicy flesh inside (and I’ll bet that phrase “sweet pink juicy flesh inside” will result in a whole bunch of other unrelated search results). The trick worms at the top have yellow on one end, the baby brush hog and rattlesnake  have green and yellow coloring, and I guess that finesse worm was misfiled.

Here are some watermelon chart(reuse) bass worms.

And some watermelon candy bass worms. I guess “candy” refers to the speckled pattern.

It turns out that there are quite a number of variations on the Watermelon color scheme besides Watermelon Chart. An inexhaustive list includes Watermelon, Watermelon Seed, Seedless Watermelon, Watermelon Gold Glitter, Watermelon Candy, Watermelon Red Flake, Watermelon Purple Flake, Watermelon Purple Glitter.

Every day I learn something new is a good day.

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2011.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

Last weekend I transferred my email to a new system in the cloud (did I really just say “in the cloud”??) and I came across an old email from my last “real” job. That was my only job ever where I worked in a cubicle, and it was awful for that and for so many other reasons.

Anyway, the email had a Top Ten list from David Letterman, from about September 2003. I hunted for the original list, and I found the list reposted many times, but not the original. And I decided I don’t like people who add a few more items to the list, because their items are never funny.

Without further ado, here’s…

Top Ten Drawbacks to Working in a Cubicle

10. Being told to “think outside the box” when you’re in a freakin’ box all day long.

9. Not being able to check e-mail attachments without turning around to see who’s behind you.

8. Cubicle walls do not offer much protection from any kind of gun fire.

7. That nagging feeling that if you press the right button, you’ll get a piece of cheese.

6. Lack of roof rafters for the noose.

5. The walls are too close together for the hammock to work right.

4. 23 power cords – 1 outlet.

3. Prison cells are not only bigger, they also have beds.

2. The carpet has been there since 1976 and shows more signs of life than your coworkers.

And… the number 1 drawback to working in a cubicle….

1.  You can’t slam the door on your way out when you quit.

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2011.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

In a completely unwarranted statement, John snidely wondered how long until I criticized his chart.

Man. How did I deserve that… Oh, yeah.

Well, he asked for it.

Here’s what I did like about John’s chart:

• He used PNG format for the image file.
• The chart clearly shows most of the data.
• The use of lime graphics was not overboard, in fact, one lime per lime is an appropriate  scaling factor.

Here’s where John’s chart needs improvement:

• His ink to data ratio is way too high: look at that distracting shadow.
• His vertical axis title is tilted 90°, making it hard to read.
• The zero limes harvested in 2007 and 2008 are not clearly shown.
• Time series data is usually more effective on a line chart.

I’ve made the appropriate changes in the following chart.

I guess we should call this a Lime Chart.

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2011.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

What could be causing the hige spike in traffic? Well, a look at the most popular blog posts of the day tells the story. Usually the three highest pages (by far) are Error Bars in Excel 2007 Charts, followed by Clustered-Stacked Column Charts and Installing an Add-In in Excel 2007. On Wednesday, the day I first noticed the spike, the top four posts were:

My top three are there, with their typical midweek numbers, but an unexpected post has climbed to the top, and climbed some more. My Periodic Table of What?? rant from a couple months ago had over 1600 views on Wednesday!

Thursday’s results were much the same, except that Periodic Table of What?? showed almost 2400 views. Here are page view stats for this page:

It looks like the surge in Periodic Table of What?? was also responsible for the high total on Tuesday.

I’m intrigued: What’s causing this sudden interest in my opinions about inappropriate data visualization metaphors?

No particular referring page stood out, and none had any more than the usual count.

The search phrases that send the most visitors to my blog are typically variations of add ins in excel 2007 and error bars in excel 2007. But now periodic table has joined the list.

I Googled periodic table, and I wasn’t in the first several pages. That wasn’t it.

I Googled periodic table of what, and naturally I ranked first. But who Googles for that?

Then I searched Google Images for periodic table of elements, and Periodic Table of What?? made it to the first row of the first page. Google’s crawlers must have noticed this post and ranked the image very high. I guess using the ALT parameter in your IMG tags really is important. And now all those middle school students who have to do a report about chemistry are treated to the marvels of PTS Blog.

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2011.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
 

Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2011.
 
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.