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Tamara Munzner

@munzner.bsky.social
182 followers 226 following 6 posts

Visualization prof at UBC CS, author of Visualization Analysis and Design. www.cs.ubc.ca/~tmm and many videos at www.youtube.com/channel/UCnuYznpiC6…. See also mastodon at cosocial.ca/@tamara

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Reposted by Tamara Munzner
Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Good Saturday morning to everyone except StatCan, who decided to break reproducible workflows by disabling programmatic data download for some of their data and put it behind a Cloudflare "human" check. Leaving me to decide whether to remove cancensus package functionality or re-host the data.
github.com
StatCan disabled programmatic download on some census data · Issue #228 · mountainMath/cancensus
StatCan has disabled programmatic download on the attributes file and geographic data and possibly other files. These are now behind a CloudFlare verification that requires manual interactive downl...
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Jay Rosen @jayrosen.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
"Polarization Is Not the Problem." The paragraph below says more about "both sides" journalism than just about anything I have read. By @lilymasonphd.bsky.social It's starting to get attaction. So read the rest, and let me know what you think. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
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Aaron Becker @aaronjbecker.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Every river in North America, every day for two years. The combined flow to the sea sinks as low as 53,000 m³/s in winter and swells past 290,000 by late June, more than quadrupling each spring. Data: GloFAS, @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social #rivers #dataviz #hydrology
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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
It's here, it's here! DATA BY DESIGN is here in my hands, and it is beautiful!!! So much gratitude to @mitpress.bsky.social @chronictanvi.bsky.social and the (not on bluesky) rest of the team for making this book a reality!
A photo of Lauren holding an actual MFing printed copy of DATA BY DESIGN!
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Phil Smith @philsmith26.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
This is a reminder that I have several table viewers and dashboards available, free of charge and with no registration or use authorization necessary. philipsmith.ca/dashboards/
philipsmith.ca
Selected Canadian Economic Table Viewers and Dashboards
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
In light of today’s conversation on academic accommodations, I’m going to revive a thread lost to time when I deleted my Twitter profile. It’s about a bunch of academic accommodations that instructors can offer in lieu of an extension on an assignment. 🧵
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Tamara Munzner @munzner.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Wow, yeah, what a fantastic site for both exploration and teaching, just in time for this term's lecture on Maps in a few weeks! Maybe you think you're already a map geek (a la xkcd.com/977/) - but welcome to the next level down the rabbit hole...
xkcd.com
Map Projections
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Impudent Strumpet @impudentstrumpet.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo!
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Judith Lewis Mernit @robottwyla.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Mine favorite is; “Doc note I dissent: a fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod.” Close second: “Sit on a potato pan, Otis!”
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Evelyn D. R. "Dell" Adams @dell-adams.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Oh, if we're going there: a man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal—Panama!
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Amanda C 🥄 @amandaesque.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Favorite palindrome: “Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog.”
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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 30/09/2026
BREAKING NEWS: “Do geese see God” is a palindrome
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Tristan A.F. Long @thelonglab.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
As I prepare for another early morning #BI393 Biostatistics lecture, came across this deep dive into the history (and errors ?!?) in the well-known "mtcars" dataset! #rstats jengianoulis.substack.com/p/secrets-of...
jengianoulis.substack.com
Secrets of the classic dataset "mtcars"
Back in time to Sunset Boulevard in the 70s
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Carlos Scheidegger @cscheid.net · 30/09/2026
Gm
Fog rolling in Marlboro VT. The trees are turning colors, it’s pretty
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Omigod, this is the most heartwarming story possible! Backpack (bear 89) is the son of the 2019 winner of Fat Bear Week, Holly (bear 435). In 2007, he injured his foot & a practice of riding on momma's Holly's back had a new meaning: he was mobility-restricted while it healed. So Holly moved him.
From DISCVR blog's Facebook page, a momma bear & a yearling cub on her back in the shallow water.  I think the background has been swapped out, and I can't rule out some AI use there?  God, Facebook has become the social media for AI slop : (

The title of the article, which I link below, is "How Bear 89 earned the name Backpack"
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Ashley Kirk @ashleyjkirk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Guardian’s Visual & Data Journalism team is expanding! We have three exciting new roles, and we're looking for people who can help us push the boundaries of how we find, report and tell stories. 🧵⬇️
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Danyel Fisher @danyelf.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This work was directly inspired by Brad Paley's TextArc, and Keim& Oelke's (2007) Literature Fingerprinting, two works which have sat with me for years.
Brad Paley's TextArc places every sentence of a text -- in this case, Alice in Wonderland -- around a circle, and then words at their weighted center of those words, showing both frequency and location.Keim & Oelke's "Literature Fingerprinting" (https://doi.org/10.1109/VAST.2007.4389004) shows different color patterns for texts
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Danyel Fisher @danyelf.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I combined my love of #datavis with a different passion -- the rich text of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh. The Torahmap places every verse of the Tanakh in a fixed spatial position, then plots overlays over it. You can play with it at torahmap.org
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/09/2026
This is another great, approachable explainer on “the rationalist wackos who have managed to take over much of the AI industry, and who now have tons of money and political power.” www.iankduncan.com/personal/202...
iankduncan.com
Sex, AI, and the Apocalypse - Ian Duncan
How a community devoted to thinking clearly incubated salvation stories, abusive experiments, race science, and an affection for autocracy, and why that history matters now that its alumni are asking ...
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Alberto Cairo @albertocairo.com · 29/09/2026
What he said. #DataViz #dataVisualization #infographics #dataJournalism friends. @datavizsociety.bsky.social is worth your attention and your support
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Terry McGlynn @hormiga.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I became a biologist because of a museum exhibit. Real artifacts tell stories that are more powerful than anything we can get from scrolling. They are part of our engine for training the next generation of scientists. 🧪 scienceforeveryone.science/the-awesomen...
scienceforeveryone.science
The awesomeness of museums
Genuine artifacts tell the richest stories that fill our souls. And they fuel the scientific enterprise.
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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This interactive op-ed by Giorgia Lupi on creativity and AI is so good (and Miles Davis also gets a mention) #dataviz
nytimes.com
Opinion | A.I. Shortcuts Are Ruining How We Think
Anything worth remembering came from a person who did not know where she or he was going until arriving.
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Tamara Munzner @munzner.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
algebranch.org is a fabulous new interactive math exploration and algebraic manipulation project from trebor (Robert Harris), www.linkedin.com/in/treboresq... It's the system he wished he had when learning algebra as a dyslexic. And it's designed with full accessibility support, to boot!
algebranch.org
Algebranch - Interactive Algebra
An interactive step-by-step mathematical exploration and algebraic manipulation system.
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
SCOOP: Top researchers at Columbia, Stanford, and others thought they were elected to elite scientific societies alongside Nobel laureates. The catch? The organizations are a sham. I spent the last month diving deep into a massive academic scam spanning continents, for @nature.com
nature.com
Exclusive: Sham scientific societies are misleading star researchers
A Nature investigation reveals a network of organizations that have been building their ranks through deceptive practices.
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Robert Simmon @rsimmon.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Very cool #dataviz touch
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Aaron Becker @aaronjbecker.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
You could find your way along the Nova Scotia coast blind, just by timing the blinks. Every lighthouse flashes on its own rhythm, a set interval and colour no neighbour repeats. Sambro Island off Halifax has burned since 1758, the oldest working lighthouse in North America. #lighthouse #NovaScotia
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Information Plus Conference @infoplusconf.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Information+ 2027 is coming to Milan! Join us on 7-9 June 2027 at Politecnico di Milano for three days of presentations, talks, workshops and exhibition pieces around information design and data visualization. The website is now live: informationplusconference.com #InformationPlus2027
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Observable @observablehq.com · 22/09/2026
Pack four mirrored spheres inside the four walls of a tetrahedron (a pyramid). Paint the walls red, green, blue, and white. Then shoot rays out of your eyes. As they bounce, you find that the regions colored each color all somehow share a coastline. observablehq.com/@nxrix/wada-...
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Lauren Klein @laurenfklein.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Thrilled to welcome @kanarinka.bsky.social to Atlanta to launch DATA BY DESIGN into the world!
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Joey Cherdarchuk - Obumbratta @obumbratta.com · 21/09/2026
So much wonderful mapping by @aaronjbecker.bsky.social Do yourself a favour and browse around for a bit. mapped.earth
mapped.earth
mapped.earth — The Earth, Rendered as Data | mapped.earth
Maps and geography as a way to see the planet — a live 3D wind globe, short-form map reels, and writing about winds, currents, terrain, borders, and the shapes underneath the numbers.
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Kenneth Field @kennethfield.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Small announcement... The forthcoming "Map Wizardry" book I'm writing with @nathancshephard.bsky.social and @johnnelsonmaps.bsky.social is 25% written, and looking fantastic! Further updates over the next few months.
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Tamara Munzner @munzner.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
We're hiring at UBC CS in our tenure-track teaching stream. We're in search of systems expertise: our greatest needs are in operating systems and computer architecture; also networking, distributed systems, database systems, cloud computing, and systems security www.cs.ubc.ca/our-departme...
cs.ubc.ca
Assistant Professor of Teaching in Systems – Tenure Track
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Stephen Turner @stephenturner.us · 08/02/2025
ggalign: Bridging the Grammar of Graphics and Biological Multilayered Complexity 🧬🖥️🧪 Paper: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202… #Rstats Code: github.com/Yunuuuu/ggalign Docs: yunuuuu.github.io/ggalign Book (Quarto): yunuuuu.github.io/ggalign-book
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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
[banging on table] FAT BEAR WEEK FAT BEAR WEEK FAT BEAR WEEK FAT BEAR WEEK www.popsci.com/environment/...
popsci.com
The Fat Bear Week 2026 bracket is here and chunkier than ever
Voting starts September 22 with a final winner crowned on September 29.
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Information is Beautiful @infobeautiful.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Love this idea for quick reference travelling (By Frank Okay www.frankokay.com @frankokay)
This is a map of New York overlaid on the map of Chicago, titled "A New Yorker's Guide to Chicago" by Frank Okay. New York's boroughs (Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bronx, Staten Island) are placed over corresponding areas in Chicago.
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Alex Kale @kalealex.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I’m supportive of trying to reconstitute “vis twitter” here. I’ve been off of these platforms for years because I find them to be miserable and full of ideological bullshit. Bring back the nerd discourse!
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Tamara Munzner @munzner.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
There was a somewhat vibrant community on Discord that first pandemic year, but it all dissipated afterwards - plus discussion was splintered between Discord and Twitter. Your proposal seems like it might give the right mix of immediacy and permanence, and promote cohesion. I'm excited to find out.
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Tamara Munzner @munzner.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Wow, fascinating experiment, and it actively gives me hope on many fronts! I might enjoy social media again, reviving the glory days of vis twitter. It might knit together Boston main event with Paris and Tianjin satellites, and those who aren't there but still care. It might improve post-talk Q&A
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Dominik Moritz @domoritz.de · 18/09/2026
I wrote up what we built and why at www.domoritz.de/blog/2026/09.... Happy to hear your thoughts.
domoritz.de
Paper discussions on Bluesky at VIS 2026
Why and how VIS 2026 puts a Bluesky thread under every paper.
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Alberto Cairo @albertocairo.com · 18/09/2026
Good read:
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Jan Vanhove @janhove.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
New blog post: "Cluster analysis: A skeptic’s guide". In which I ask a few questions that social scientists wishing to identify hidden classes in their data ought to address. janhove.github.io/posts/2026-0...
A two-dimensional scatterplot showing a three-cluster solution.

Caption: "Figure 2: A visualisation of a Latent Profile Analysis fit. Such visualisations may help readers appreciate that the clusters aren’t nicely separated and that the researchers’ notion of clusters may not correspond to their own."Table of contents:

Refresher: What is cluster analysis?
What are the clusters for?
What clusters, exactly?
Does the pipeline work?
What does the solution look like?
When running follow-up analyses, how is the uncertainty in the cluster assignments taken into account?
Was it worth it?
Conclusion
References
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Tan G. @tangandhara.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Only when you put them together do you realise that something so mundane has so much variety
kottke.org
Walking Men Worldwide
Artist Maya Barkai assembled a collection of pedestrian traffic signals from around the world: Walking Men Worldwide. I love all of these lit
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Jer Thorp @jerthorp.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Friends! Can I ask you a favour? My 🐦 + 📊 course starts next week. I'm super excited but registration is worryingly low. Can you share this with your weirdo nature + art + code friends? jerthorp.me/learning
jerthorp.me
LEARNING | jerthorp
Online courses and wokshops about birds, data and creative coding. Binoculars to Binomials is for coders who are interested in cultivating an observational practice, and for birders who want to dive ...
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IEEE VIS @ieeevis.org · 11/09/2026
📢 Announcing the Inaugural VISions Speakers! Zhu-Tian Chen: Will Visualization Help Humans Act on Data or Help AI Act on Humans? Ana Crisan: Ways of Thinking, Ways of Doing, and the Future of Visualization Research 🔗 Details: ieeevis.org/year/2026/in...
ieeevis.org
VISions: Zhu-Tian Chen; Ana Crisan | IEEE VIS 2026
Meet the inaugural VISions speakers at IEEE VIS, Zhu-Tian Chen and Ana Crisan, and read the abstracts of their forward-looking talks.
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Tamara Munzner @munzner.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Hiya! Finally motivated to join thanks to @ieeevis.org nudge when registering for IEEE VIS in Boston. Thanks for curating the visualization starter pack to onboard me into something interesting right away.
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Miska Knapek @miskaknapek.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
... Eg her latest Introduction to Visualisation course page includes lecture videos, notes and code www.students.cs.ubc.ca/~cs-447/26Jan/
students.cs.ubc.ca
CPSC 447: Intro. to Visualization, Jan 2026
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