I’m curious how you determine yr ten closest friends. Clearly, the individuals change because the age graph fluctuates about three times. This has probably been asked before.

(and I don’t actually expect an answer)

I like your graphs and charts a lot. Do you use some kind of charting program to make them, or do you put them together manually?

kevin!: I write down the names of the first ten people that occur to me. I don’t keep any record of those names, just of the statistics they generate.

Alan: These are done with the graphing tools in Adobe Illustrator.

And a copy of Edward Tufte’s ‘The Visual Display of Quantitative Information’?

The relative age graph reminds me… I was listening to the local NPR affiliate the other morning and they had a story about someone who had been killed in Iraq. They said, “he’s remembered as a quiet young man who enjoyed spending time with younger kids.”

I realize this is not exactly the most tragic aspect to the story, but I have to say that is not how I would want to be remembered.

The year in review entries are probably my favorite part of this site. I imagine you putting this into a slide show presentation, and reporting your findings in a darkened, smoke-filled room. Lustrous heads of silver hair nod sagely or shake gravely, but no comments voiced.

Presentation concluded, you retire to the sterile fluorescent hum of the outer passageway. You drink coffee from a vending machine. There is sludge at the bottom.

The well-oiled latch of the door clicks. The commitee is undecided. More research will be necessary. You are bid return to your life for the next year.

. . . well, that’s how I see things happening, anyhow.

These graphs are both beautiful and informative. I am jealous of your charting skills, and now have left me wondering what sort of mostly not to useful information I can chart myself.

if it’s not too much to ask, what happened in 2006 to your NY friends? It appears the total’s at 9.

One was living in the New York area, but outside the five boroughs. That’s what he gets for that.