DiDoesDigital

Hi, I'm Di, a data visualisation engineer in Australia. I write books to help people make better websites. I also built Typey Type for Stenographers to help people practice typing over 200 words per minute. #introduction #DataViz #FrontEnd #Steno

About 5% of the dogs in the Sunshine Coast region are Border Collies, the greatest of doggos. #30DayChartChallenge

Sanctuaries help protect bilbies from cats and foxes, giving the vulnerable marsupial a chance to survive. And it's working! #30DayChartChallenge

On the topic of "mosaic", I wanted to share a bit about the Tessellated Pavement in Tasmania, a naturally fractured marine platform that look like tiles of a mosaic floor. But I could find no numbers about it! So I made a chart of tessellated marine animals instead. #30DayChartChallenge

To celebrate the safe return this week of Wilson the stowaway glider, here's a chart about sugar glider babies! #30DayChartChallenge

The High Seas Biodiversity Bill 2026 passed the Australian Parliament yesterday. This clears the way for Australia to ratify the UN’s High Seas Biodiversity Treaty. Closer to home, this chart shows what part of Australia's oceans were Marine Protected Areas. #30DayChartChallenge

Dogs! This is a celebration of the goodest dogs in the Sunshine Coast region: didoesdigital.com/dogs-of-the-... Which doggo has the best name? - Lenny Leonard Alfonso the 3rd? - Poochini? - Wally Womble? - Indiana Bones? - Tubgoat? - Muddy Smuckers? - Bat Dog? What is the best dog name you know?

Pretty crazy that this thing I've been working on in my spare time for the last 9 months is launching in a few days 😊 Check out Fragments, a kickstarter for your creative coding journey → https://www.fragments.supply/ #tsl #creativecoding #threejs

What's the longest place name in Australia? What's the longest personal name ever used? What's the best text to use to try out a font? I cover them all in my latest post! The most ridiculous test data I use to stress test designs and web implementations: didoesdigital.com/blog/stress-...

I wrote a blog post about the #fragments collection I've been making. Lot of stuff about what's in it, who its for - all that good stuff. Starting to get back into writing again, feels good 😊 Check it out here → www.fragments.supply/writing/2-co...

Australians are deeply concerned about misinformation online. More so than any other country among the 42 compared. As usual, Facebook is a horrendous source of misinformation. If you use Facebook, have a think about verifying posts before sharing. www.canberra.edu.au/research/cen...

Building a nice little collection of sketches here. These are all links to live webgl or webgpu sketches that eventually will have code and process breakdowns (within reason, haha) #buildinpublic #webgl #webgpu

Today I discovered Safari's "Distraction Control" feature, which lets you hide distracting items. It'll be handy for removing elements that cover the content or have looping animations. Most importantly, it's fun to dissolve them out of existence. Poof! ‪‬https://support.apple.com/en-la/120682

The 30 day chart challenge is complete! You can now see all my recent charts and their stories in 1 place: didoesdigital.com/30-day-chart... #30DayChartChallenge

One mangrove tree can remove 0.3 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere over its growth life. Mangrove forests can hold nearly 400 tonnes of CO2 per hectare in their living biomass and in the top metre of soil. #30DayChartChallenge

The Parkes Observatory is national heritage listed in Australia. Apparently "Australia was an international leader in the ground-breaking field of radio astronomy research in the post-World War II period" #30DayChartChallenge

Public libraries around Australia run "digital inclusion" sessions. Find a public library to join. Even if it's not nearby, they may have online resources. And definitely tell the older folks in your life about them: www.nla.gov.au/apps/librari... #30DayChartChallenge #libraries #DigitalInclusion

I'm delighted that the Queensland government measures the height and direction of waves along the coast. You can use it to plan surfing, fishing, and the like! www.qld.gov.au/waves #30DayChartChallenge

Apparently grey/charcoal/black shades of cars are less likely to be seen on the road and thus involved in more crashes. #30DayChartChallenge

To help stamp out trachoma, you can donate to the Fred Hollows Foundation to treat it directly or donate to a charity that helps communities emerge from poverty and break the cycle of infection and re-infection. #30DayChartChallenge

These days you can look up hourly air quality measurements online for a bunch of places, but those numbers won't help you with your cooking. #30DayChartChallenge

Down under, you can use the Southern Cross to tell time and direction. Aboriginal Australians are among the world's first astronomers. The southern cross forms part of the Emu in the Sky, a dark constellation, which has featured in storytelling for thousands of years. #30DayChartChallenge

Are you also pleased to know that the Tassie geo database has 97 results for "fossiliferous"? #30DayChartChallenge

One thing I enjoy about this social media chart challenge is that I can sneak in silly choices I wouldn't usually make. Behold my gradient, lack of data point circles, and use of curvy lines! I also don't have to spend time making it work at all the screen sizes and ratios. #30DayChartChallenge

I went on a lot of side quests in pursuit of a more complex and interesting chart than this but they mostly didn't pan out. Here's a simpler but shinier visualisation instead. According to the ABS, lots of Aussie businesses cease trading in the December quarter each year. #30DayChartChallenge

Will we do better this year? #30DayChartChallenge

Look, they weren't all going to be winners. #30DayChartChallenge

Sense8 came out ten years ago, but I still enjoy rewatching it. #30DayChartChallenge

The meaning of "mateship" can be positive or a bit spicy and has changed over time. Have a read of the Wikipedia page, especially the section on "mate": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mateship Mate. #30DayChartChallenge

The ACT threatened species site tells you where to find them. Supposedly the Gang-gang Cockatoo can be seen at Black Mountain and Mount Ainslie, which are both beautiful spots in (long) walking distance of the CBD. Let me know if you spot one! www.act.gov.au/environment/... #30DayChartChallenge

The Australian World Heritage List has 20 places, including entries like "Australian Convict Sites" that actually encompass 11 individual places in Australia like "Port Arthur Historic Site" and "Cockatoo Island" so there are really 39 individual places. #30DayChartChallenge

Numbats used to be all across mainland Australia but by the '70s there were only about 300 individuals in Western Australia. We've done well to control predators and improve fire management but they still need our help! www.numbat.org.au #30DayChartChallenge

Auslan (Australian Sign Language) is a natural language and visual language using hand shape, orientation, location, movement and expression. Apparently Australian Indigenous sign language is not only used by people with hearing loss: many Indigenous languages are multi-modal! #30DayChartChallenge

You can tamper with Git history by using `--date=<date>` to change the "author date". For example: git commit --amend --date="Wed Apr 9 22:00 2025 +1000" --no-edit My commit dates are usually skewy from interactive rebasing. #30DayChartChallenge

Thankfully category 5 cyclones are uncommon, but did you know cyclones Monica (2006) and Marcus (2018) reached rather terrifying sustained winds of 250km/hour? Thank goodness they don't generally make landfall at category 5! #30DayChartChallenge

Lismore (NSW, Australia) doesn't usually get as much rain as I imagine it does. The memorable floods of recent years are striking anomalies. The highest flood on record in Lismore was on 28 February 2022, when the flood level reached 14.4m. #30DayChartChallenge

The latest theme for the 30 day chart challenge is "Florence Nightingale". I gave the "Nightingale rose chart" a whirl and I don't like it! While it may be fun to look at, it's not particularly effective for reading. I certainly like it better as data art without labels. #30DayChartChallenge

I began creating this visualisation about data breaches affecting big and small Australian organisations before hearing about today's cyber attack on Australia's superannuation funds. What an awful coincidence. #30DayChartChallenge

Macadamia fun facts for the "Circular" theme of the #30DayChartChallenge

It's all I could manage… #30DayChartChallenge

Four in five of us (adults in Australia) reckon: "The spread of misinformation on social media needs to be addressed." And "People need to be taught how to identify misinformation." So let's share the SIFT method! Stop. Investigate. Find better coverage. Trace the original. #30DayChartChallenge

My visualisation of Australian fruit and veg seasonality made the Information is Beautiful awards longlist. As the food bowl of Australia was flooded thanks to cyclone Alfred, the information in the guide may be off for a bit until we recover!

I wrote up some thoughts about the effect of AI on programmer salaries: seldo.com/posts/ai-eff...

The missing guide to Zod! didoesdigital.com/blog/zod-ove... This TypeScript validation library is convenient for checking data like web form data. Define your schema once and enjoy the confidence of legit data and legit types! I found the docs lacking, so I wrote this guide to fill in the gaps.

In Gracefully Retiring a Website, I wrote about the maintenance of side projects, archiving websites, and making ideas more resilient. didoesdigital.com/blog/gracefu... Thought it would be a quick post, got a bit philosophical.