Month: October 2017

Unable to find vcvarsall.bat while installing Python package

Solution to error message above

  1. Upgrade pip  (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15221473/how-do-i-update-pip-itself-from-inside-my-virtual-environment )

on Windows

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

2. Download unofficial window binaries from http://www.lfd.uci.edu/~gohlke/pythonlibs/ then install the local wheel using pip

 

C:\Users\Ajay>pip install statsmodels-0.8.0-cp34-cp34m-win_amd64.whl

3 Other more complicated ways- above two methods work best for me

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pythonengineering/2016/04/11/unable-to-find-vcvarsall-bat/

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27670365/python-pip-install-error-unable-to-find-vcvarsall-bat-tried-all-solutions

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2817869/error-unable-to-find-vcvarsall-bat

Change Python Version for Jupyter Notebook

Three ways to do it- sometimes package dependencies force analysts and developers to require older versions of Python

  1. use conda to downgrade Python version (if Anaconda installed already)
 conda install python=3.5.0

Hat tip- http://chris35wills.github.io/conda_python_version/

https://docs.anaconda.com/anaconda/faq#how-do-i-get-the-latest-anaconda-with-python-3-5

2. you download the latest version of Anaconda and then make a Python 3.5 environment.

To create the new environment for Python 3.6, in your Terminal window or an Anaconda Prompt, run:

conda create -n py35 python=3.5 anaconda

3) Uninstall Anaconda and install older version of Anaconda https://repo.continuum.io/archive/  (download the most recent Anaconda that included Python 3.5 by default, Anaconda 4.2.0)

Lie factor in Gun Deaths Visualization

Edward Tufte in his seminal book talked of lie factor. See image below, and how columbine seems higher than virginia tech thanks to the dotted line even though it had 50% less casualities

http://www.infovis-wiki.net/index.php/Lie_Factor

The “Lie Factor” is a value to describe the relation between the size of effect shown in a graphic and the size of effect shown in the data.

Edward Tufte, Prof. at the Yale University, defined the “Lie Factor” in his book “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” in 1983.

He states the principle that

The representation of numbers, as physically measured on the surface of the graphic itself, should be directly proportional to the quantities represented.
Image from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-will-happen-to-the-las-vegas-shooters-suite-at-mandalay-bay_us_59d6721ae4b0f6eed34ef753?section=us_politics