Author: Alastair Otter
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Remove features from a map with QGIS
There are two small research islands more than 2,000km off the coast of South Africa. When mapping SA data, you generally don’t want to include them. Luckily, it is simple enough to remove the islands in QGIS.
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Creating a grid overlay for a map using QGIS
There are a number of reasons you may want to make a grid of points covering a geographic area. In my case, I wanted to work out which point in South Africa was the furthest from a police station.
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Automating data downloads from a Google spreadsheet
Downloading data from a Google Sheets is usually as easy as clicking file->Download->CSV. But sometimes you need to automate the download. Here’s how.
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DataDesk: a better way to collect data in African newsrooms
Data collection should not be the preserve of the ’data team‘ – everyone in a newsroom should be able to collect and manage data that helps their reporting.
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What’s the buzz about green hydrogen?
South Africa has ambitions to become a “world-leading exporter of green hydrogen”.
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How – and why – we switched from interactive to static data visualisations
Making the change to static charts with limited options has completely changed the way we think about the visualisations we do. The ’constraints‘ we’ve applied remove a lot of the decision-making usually found in design.
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How would you fare against world marathon record holder Eliud Kipchoge?
Eliud Kipchoge has broken the world marathon record again. But how fast is he really? And how would you compare?
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The Outlier’s Grocery Basket: July 2023
An update on our in-store survey of the same basket of basic goods at eight of South Africa’s major retailers, including, Checkers, Shoprite, Spar, Pick n Pay, Woolworths, Food Lover’s Market, Boxer Superstores and Makro.
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The Outlier’s Grocery Basket: A year in review
Here’s a look back at 12 months of collecting prices for basic goods at a selection of South Africa’s major retailers. Since we started this project in June 2022, a lot has changed.
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The Outlier’s Grocery Basket: May 2023
An update on our in-store survey of the same basket of basic goods at eight of South Africa’s major retailers, including, Checkers, Shoprite, Spar, Pick n Pay, Woolworths, Food Lover’s Market, Boxer Superstores and Makro.