Interesting stats found with Google Refine

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Thad Guidry

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Jan 27, 2011, 1:37:42 PM1/27/11
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Recently, I took some data from UN FAOSTAT and faceted and scatterplotted my way through it.  Hoping to see or find something interesting.

The statistical data I used was Food Supply Crops 2007 kilograms per capita per year.  This is a large table on World food production quantity per capita per year.
I'll save everyone the grief but I was pretty depressed to say the least.

What foods the USA produces the most compared to other countries ?  Awesome Coconuts ? Nah, we know that... perhaps great Potatoes or even Turnips ?  Nope.
This is the Food that the USA produces the most per capita per year to keep us living strong and healthy, and export the hell out of....

Sweeteners, Other
Soybean Oil
Corn Oil
Oats
Sunflower Seeds

Those really healthy vegetables and fruits ?
At the bottom 10% of the USA matrix. (We import most of those...tsk...tsk) (Honey? Can you toss me another beer and are we out of corn nuts?)

On a positive note...
Luxemborg and Ireland are still tops for Alcohol in general. Do they think that is a food !?!? I guess for them it is ;)
Saudia Arabia likes their Dates.

Belarus loves their Potatoes

Tomatoes, of course, Italy....errr  Egypt !?!?  Didn't know they could grow those in the desert ! 


Now go break your own stereotypes with Google Refine.

Thad Guidry

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Jan 27, 2011, 2:27:09 PM1/27/11
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Oops, forgot the link for the table of data as well, in case anyone else wants to play.

Rebecca Shapley

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Jan 27, 2011, 2:37:41 PM1/27/11
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In a Fusion Table!  Oh Thad, you warm my heart!

If you were to go into Edit > Modify columns and set the Country column to type Location, we could even make some cool maps....

-Rebecca
--
Rebecca Shapley
Google Research  |  Structured Data Group
Check out Fusion Tables: http://www.google.com/fusiontables

Thad Guidry

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Jan 27, 2011, 3:15:11 PM1/27/11
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DONE !  I think ?  At least it says so...
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-Thad
http://www.freebase.com/view/en/thad_guidry

Rebecca Shapley

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Jan 27, 2011, 4:39:35 PM1/27/11
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Here's your worldwide tomato production, mapped: 


-R. 

Thad Guidry

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Jan 27, 2011, 5:25:20 PM1/27/11
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N I C E ....

How did you change it from just a bunch of red markers to the actual an actual plot view ?  I tried to do what you have now and couldn't figure it out.

Thad Guidry

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Jan 27, 2011, 5:29:36 PM1/27/11
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Ah... Visualize -> Intensity Map versus Map ... COOL !
--
-Thad
http://www.freebase.com/view/en/thad_guidry

Rebecca Shapley

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Jan 27, 2011, 5:40:10 PM1/27/11
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Yes!  Visualize > Intensity map is a specific visualization that works for country boundaries, and even province/state boundaries in some countries. 

There's also a tutorial on how to roll-your-own thematic map if the Intensity Map doesn't have what you need. 

When?  hard to know...We'd like to be as awesome about your data file as Refine is ;)

-R.

Stefano Mazzocchi

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Jan 27, 2011, 6:05:14 PM1/27/11
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Do we know why Venezuela's data gets mapped where Malaysia's should be and Venezuela has no data instead?

Also, the fact that Uganda has almost twice the amount of alcohol intake per person as Italy sounds suspicious.

(sorry, anal mode on ;-)

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 2:37 PM, Thad Guidry <thadg...@gmail.com> wrote:
Oops, looks like you have to click the real Get Link button on the top.  Again, Europe having FUN !: http://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=127343



--
Stefano Mazzocchi  <stef...@google.com>
Software Engineer, Google Inc.

Thad Guidry

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Jan 27, 2011, 6:27:49 PM1/27/11
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Just finished uploading the 2007 World Food Supply Livestock data set !


It sucks having to type letters A-Z just to see and discover the different values there... like M or B to get Bovine Meat or Meat +(Total)

Thad Guidry

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Jan 27, 2011, 5:37:21 PM1/27/11
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Oops, looks like you have to click the real Get Link button on the top.  Again, Europe having FUN !: http://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=127343

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 4:34 PM, Thad Guidry <thadg...@gmail.com> wrote:
And here's Europe having...errm.... LOTS OF FUN !

So when does Google Fusion get pull down Facets or selectors similar to Refine ?  Instead of typing in values ?



--
-Thad
http://www.freebase.com/view/en/thad_guidry

Thad Guidry

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Jan 27, 2011, 5:34:19 PM1/27/11
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And here's Europe having...errm.... LOTS OF FUN !

So when does Google Fusion get pull down Facets or selectors similar to Refine ?  Instead of typing in values ?

Thad Guidry

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Jan 27, 2011, 9:42:43 PM1/27/11
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Also, the fact that Uganda has almost twice the amount of alcohol intake per person as Italy sounds suspicious.


Stefano,
It's not intake or consumption data or even pure Production data, instead it's Food Supply data, a bit different which is interesting to see how Foods are distributed throughout the world and What those Foods are = I.E. An Abundance.  Uganda has that many Kilograms of Alcoholic Beverages per Person Per Year.  But Uganda also lacks a bit behind the world in available Protein, which is another dataset along the same lines available on FAOSTAT.

--
-Thad
http://www.freebase.com/view/en/thad_guidry

Randall Amiel

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Jan 28, 2011, 6:16:32 PM1/28/11
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Thad:

* Agribusiness finance and management
* Soil science
* Agronomy
* Animal breeding
* Plant science
* Crop production
* Irrigation systems
* Agriculture marketing

Have any tips on the global communities market?


I love how you find random datasets and correlations!

-- Randall

Randall Amiel

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Jan 28, 2011, 6:23:04 PM1/28/11
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Rebecca:

In your dataset, is milk missing from food? I tried Food= [ Milk,
Dairy, Cows ] maybe I'm missing a term relating to the semantic
meaning of milk? I ponder about the data of chicken vs egg, or maybe
they would be 2 different distinct commodities, or maybe they are the
same (most likely not, because in the world today, farmers feed the
chickens with egg producing hormones! so then Egg > Chicken!


--- Randall

On Jan 27, 2:37 pm, Rebecca Shapley <rshap...@google.com> wrote:
> In a Fusion Table!  Oh Thad, you warm my heart!
>
> If you were to go into Edit > Modify columns and set the Country column to
> type Location, we could even make some cool maps....
>
> -Rebecca
>

Rebecca Shapley

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Jan 28, 2011, 7:05:02 PM1/28/11
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A partial solution to your frustration: aggregate on the Food column


-R. 


On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Thad Guidry <thadg...@gmail.com> wrote:
Just finished uploading the 2007 World Food Supply Livestock data set !


It sucks having to type letters A-Z just to see and discover the different values there... like M or B to get Bovine Meat or Meat +(Total)



Rebecca Shapley

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Jan 28, 2011, 7:10:44 PM1/28/11
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On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Stefano Mazzocchi <stef...@google.com> wrote:
Do we know why Venezuela's data gets mapped where Malaysia's should be and Venezuela has no data instead?


Yes and no.  Yes, I can see that several of the rows for Venezuela have geocoded to Malaysia.  No, I don't know why this is the case, since Google Maps doesn't make the same mistake. 

Thad, is it possible for you do go and try File > Geocode once more?  Also, what country are you located in? 


Thanks, 

-Rebecca


 

Thad Guidry

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Jan 29, 2011, 1:39:55 PM1/29/11
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Rebecca,

I've made you owner as well on both World Food Supply datasets.  I tried Geocoding again and it went to 100% and I closed the panel successfully.

I'm in Dallas, TX as noted on my freebase url.

Thad Guidry

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Jan 29, 2011, 1:50:49 PM1/29/11
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Randall,

If you meant commodities and not communities, then UN Stats also is a great starting point.  However, many don't read the disclaimer carefully to understand the knowledge and limitations within :

The http://comtrade.un.org site which is part of http://unstats.un.org/unsd/trade/default.htm is a wealth of information, but you should read the user guide !!! : http://unstats.un.org/unsd/tradekb/Knowledgebase/Comtrade-User-Guide

Best of Luck !
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