I recently came across some links showing readers how to make their own data analysis and graphics from scratch. This is great stuff — spreading power tools to the masses and all that.
From Nathan Yau: How to Make a US County Thematic Map Using Free Tools and How to Make an Interactive Area Graph with Flare. I don’t actually think the interactive area graphs are so great–they work with the Baby Name Wizard but to me they don’t do much in the example that Nathan shows–but, that doesn’t really matter, what’s cool here is that he’s showing us all exactly how to do it. This stuff is gonna put us statistical graphics experts out of business.
And Chris Masse points me to these instructions from blogger Iowahawk on downloading and analyzing a historical climate dataset. Good stuff.