Inspiring Ingenuity

Alteryx, Bicycles and Teaching Kids Programming.

Monthly Archives: November 2013


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New Ideas Needed

With the quantity of holidays between now and the end of the year, I am going to be posting a little more sporadically…   I am also looking for ideas for posts.  These can be interesting current event topics to research using Alteryx like the Food Desert post.  It can be difficulties in Alteryx that maybe I can solve like Reading XLSX Directly.  It can be ideas for future product features that I could prototype, like the series on Interactive HTML Visualizations…  It can be new ways to inspire kids to program.

Any and all new ideas are welcome.  Either leave a comment on this post, or if you wish to be more private, email me at ned (at) inspiringingenuity (dot) net.

Thanks for reading,

Ned.

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Alteryx: A Reusable NVD3 Macro

imageAs I am drawing to a close in exploring interactive charting in Alteryx, I wanted to create a macro for the people who say “Can’t I just have it now?”   One of the great things about Alteryx is the macro system and the fact that you kind of can have it now.  Once again, I am wrapping the NVD3 library as a starting point.  The macro has 4 different chart types exposed:  Line, Bar, Area and Scatter Plots.  I produced samples for the 1st three.  NVD3 supports lots more types of charts, but most of the rest take more specific user input or only work for a limited number of dimensions.  For this example I wanted to keep it simple.  Obviously if we were to actually productize a charting system like this, there would be lots more options, and probably not even limited to NVD3.

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Ender’s Game

Ender's_game_coverFirst, let me say that I am aware of Orson Scott Card’s politics and in no way do I agree with them.  John Scalzi said it best.  I may never had read any of his works had I known his views before I read them, but it would have been my loss.  Great art is great art.

I 1st read the Ender’s Game short story sometime as a young teenager.  Sometime after the novel came out, I read it, and then I read it again.  I have read it to both of my daughters.  I am uncertain how many times I have read either the novel or the short story, but it is certainly more than I have read any other book. Continue reading →


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Greatest Generation of Mountain Bikers

imageI don’t think Valmont Bike Park in Boulder was built for kids.  It was somewhat controversial when it was being built because people thought it would only be used by a small niche of lycra clad cyclists.  After being open for a while, I think we can all call it a success. The surprising thing though, is it’s all kids (admittedly some of the “kids” my age).  There’s kids (like ours) that are just starting out in mountain biking, but there’s toddlers on balance bikes doing the pump tracks!  Their moms are out there pushing them! Continue reading →