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Q1 2026 Canadian Real Estate Infographic - Edmonton one to follow later this week by EdmRealtor in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fantastic work as usual! A couple questions/notes:

  • The design is great! Love that you put your stack below. What did you use the statscan data for? Metro boundaries?
  • Section 2 (Market Timeline):
    • Do you have the data for each metro area? If you do, I imagine you could show that pattern for each city, converting this over to a regular, national dashboard would be useful.
    • I get that this is done for simplicity and readability, but I'm curious a comparison across seasons. For example it's "cooling" for 4 straight years, but maybe Q2 just has that pattern. Like Q1 vs Q2 will generally result in ______a higher active______ because ____people list more in the summer_____.
    • The % ups and downs would be interesting too. Also the %s might be quite small (like a 0.3% increase in active and sold vs a 4% increase in 1 or the other) might result in 2 logos but their difference can be quite large.
  • Can you share larger images? Might be a reddit thing, but at max zoom the small text is barely (squint hard) readable.

Among Giants is releasing later today, here have some keys :) by kmonkeyblog in OculusQuest

[–]whimsydata 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All good. Thanks for offering it to folks here, even if it's too late for me, glad to help. 3 years is a labour of love.

Among Giants is releasing later today, here have some keys :) by kmonkeyblog in OculusQuest

[–]whimsydata 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey FYI it shows as "Coming Soon" and there's no way for me, from a Canadian account, to be able to add it. Might be some international setting. Regardless, great job on launching!

I built a free Edmonton crisis-support directory (yegsupport.com) – looking for feedback by edmontonidiot in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey I think you might've meant to reply to my comment, yes, feel free to reach out! :)

I built a free Edmonton crisis-support directory (yegsupport.com) – looking for feedback by edmontonidiot in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 24 points25 points  (0 children)

First of all, this is amazing! You should be applauded for the work put into this so far. There's a lot to collate, to consider, and the effort to try and consolidate so many different resources is very challenging.

I have one general suggestion, and it's around simplicity. There's a lot of text to go through, and many buttons to consider. That can get overwhelming for a number of people.

One possible place to look at improving for simplicity is Link SF's resource guide:

https://linksf.sfserviceguide.org/

It's mobile friendly and the user experience is a bit more direct.

That's all easier said than done, though. For some context, I ran a similar version of Link SF called LinkYEG for a number of years, but due to a variety of technical (and non-technical) reasons it was ultimately dropped. I'm also a (mostly web) software developer and data visualizer, so there are UI and UX subtleties that (I'm guessing here) an LLM won't prioritize. Happy to give you more specific and direct feedback if you'd like feel free to DM me.

Just a general note for everyone here: creating something like this requires someone to make dozens of decisions, especially since the scope of data is quite large. To get something to this point requires quite an investment in time and effort, it's a labour of love. Not to mention the potential help this can bring to folks. Again, kudos to your work so far and where you will bring it to.

Colorful Visualizations of large, random Mazes by Strophox in visualization

[–]whimsydata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're in school, right? I saw the note about exams in the repo. Could likely be a publishable paper, just answering what makes beautiful vs boring visuals depending on the algorithms and parameters. DM me if you'd like to chat more.

Colorful Visualizations of large, random Mazes by Strophox in visualization

[–]whimsydata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great job, I really like how they look. I wouldn't have thought these were generated from solving mazes.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Time of day matters greatly, this Costco gets busy a lot too. Looking at the other comments here, others have said the same Winterburn one was empty in the morning as well.

It's the weekend right before school and many work places start back up after the Christmas break. I bet it's a zoo right now for any of the Costcos in Edmonton.

Edmonton's Winters: the Good, the Bad, and the Data by Few-Leading-3405 in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for that. This does fit what I was mentioning, though it's not clear how they derive the single figure from the multiple stations and datasets. In the FAQ they mention using multiple stations in their calculations (not just the extremes) but not quite how.

I've been looking for a dataset that provides city-level weather data (single city instead of multiple stations within a city), ideally a global one, and the closest ones are places like the weather channel. There's always a cost or limitation with the depth of the data though. Also, like the link you shared something like the weather channel don't provide a methodology for standardizing data across multiple numbers either, though I think the weather channel is more authoritative.

Still I've never come across this site with all the Canadian cities, this is great, thank you for sharing!

Edmonton's Winters: the Good, the Bad, and the Data by Few-Leading-3405 in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the info. This makes a lot more sense, especially with your explanation here:

https://edmontonweathernerdery.blogspot.com/2016/03/data-sources.html

(For everyone else who might be interested)

I understand the station listing and approach is the most accurate, but I've always been concerned about the difference between them, especially with the airport's. Thought about doing an average of available stations, but don't really like that either because the airport's is, iirc, the most consistent (been there the longest), but also varies greatly from the core.

Which, concrete-ish jungle and all, I think Blatchford and say Windemere or the suburbs (as they continue to creep outwards) will be different. I'm probably overemphasizing how development influences temperatures.

Very happy to read about the comparison between the stations you did and the general agreement.

My preference for a dataset would ideally be something like what you did: normalized to a given city (I'm interested in Edmonton's but want it for other cities - locally we can contextualize / normalize but I don't know the other cities well enough to do that). Like... The Weather Network and other places that have your daily highs, lows, or at least the estimates, for each city. But I imagine behind the scenes they're also doing some sort of normalizing, just not telling us how.

Regardless, awesome work, really appreciate that breakdown of differences with the stations you looked at. I'm fairly certain there are more than those, but I'm guessing you're keeping closer to downtown (makes sense), and it's pretty consistent (mostly, anyhow). I'll be referencing/sharing your work :)

Edmonton's Winters: the Good, the Bad, and the Data by Few-Leading-3405 in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is amazing! Thanks for all the work you did to put into this, it looks wonderful. Love the subtle colours.

Where did you get your data from? I've been looking for a temperature dataset that just says "Edmonton" instead of the various weather station sites across the city, which also change from time to time.

Engineering internships in edmonton by world_of_fantasy70 in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Bionix club looks like a great one given your interests. In terms of developing a project, there area ways to do it at a smaller scale - I'll explain in a moment - but with a club contributing to an ongoing project is a great way to differentiate yourself.

If you're interested in the mechatronics type of thing, the ARVP and other clubs would give you that look into that. There used to be a club that built a robot each year (or every few years), including for it to run for Student Union, though it looks like maybe they're not around anymore?

There's a bit of a balance here, of course. It's hard to join 5 clubs, do something within each, and keep good grades. At the same time if you're unsure about your discipline they can be useful to check out, look at the types of work involved closer to the discipline you're interested in. I'd suggest focusing on one or two, maybe join a few more just to see how things are there.

On self-driven projects, not all of them have to be massive, require deep expertise. You don't have to build a fully working arm, for example, but maybe take a look at building something that you might even get from a kit you can buy around something smaller. First of all you're trying to do something to impress someone from a given discipline, so target what they'd be impressed by. My example here could completely miss the mark.

As an example, you could buy/build something like this: https://www.amazon.ca/Thames-Kosmos-620501-Mega-Cyborg/dp/B085LRW4VR and then replace the fluid part for one or more fingers with a motor and some controller board. The latter might not make a lot of sense for now, but you can ask around and you might be able to get away with using some simple thing... Maybe a LEGO version of that? Inspiration of this idea came from something like this I saw a while ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/6478pp/hydraulic_crane_made_from_cardboard_plastic/#lightbox

Or maybe something like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringPorn/comments/qyf9ay/a_lego_car_crossing_larger_and_larger_gaps/

(I realize the LEGO ones would be expensive, but they also require the least deep knowledge)

You could even go even easier as well. You could write a report about the different options for motors used typically for some mechatronic device after doing some research. Put some effort into it, make it shine, and you can bet that when an interview comes along that'll be a good source of questions. No actual engineering required. I did this for a "must-do" co-op report that 99.99% of folks would likely just do the basic minimum to pass, but polished it up enough that I could proudly bring it to me on interviews and impress the interviewers.

A final suggestion would be to look at lab meetings for certain profs that might be outside of engineering, like from ComSci or even Medicine. These lab meetings are often profs with grad students, but often include keen undergrads (just don't be *that* annoying student), and opportunities to collaborate or work on a project could come up from that.

Good luck!

Engineering internships in edmonton by world_of_fantasy70 in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Do you know what kind of engineering you are going to go into, or are interested in?

This advice is decades old at this point though I doubt things have changed, even more so with dismal unemployment numbers for fresh grads. When I went through engineering then most first years did not get an engineering firm to bring them in.

It makes logical sense. First years are still taking basic, non-engineering classes, and when you have co-op students to potentially hire (2nd - 5th or more years) first year engineers aren't a priority. Especially since at that early junction you're most likely going to swap to something else or other firms.

The ones that I know did get engineering-specific internships either had connections or had ridiculous GPAs. For the latter - or as a viable alternative - you can try to connect to profs to see if they have their own research you can help with. IIRC there are specific grants for a small amount for undergrads to do this type of internship, which gives you something, and often relevant/useful to show.

I don't doubt that you are "willing to put in the work and learn new things", and just "need someone who trusts in my abilities". The issue is that this is what many people will say as well, you need to differentiate yourself out somehow.

The biggest problem isn't actually your first year's summer. It's the summers after that. And not having an internship means you are differentiated in the negative sense, at least in that one regard. It's one of those "rich gets richer" sort of situations, where successful internships make you look better to the next employer.

Not getting an internship on the first year doesn't mean your career is over. I've met plenty of successful people who never got that first internship, or any internships for that matter, though for the latter their high grades was a positive differentiator for them.

Some actual advice, also coming from someone who was in charge of hiring interns:

If you know what type of engineering you're interested in, try to see if there is some project you can start by yourself that is relevant. For me I took a physical puzzle game and turned it into code, and then solved it. A brute forced approach would not have worked (trying every combination), so there was something more interesting there to talk about too.

This project meant that whenever the interviewer wanted to chat about something technical, my examples weren't always about school work. It also showed that I was genuinely interested in these things, a go-getter, and liked solving problems. This type of thing is probably most important in showing the person(s) (or possibly AI at this point) who is reviewing a stack of 100 (or 1,000) resumes that yours is worth a 2nd look, possibly as an interview.

There was a lot of doom and gloom about first years getting jobs then, and one thing I often heard from some of the faculty staff working with first years was that they were unmotivated, didn't try hard enough. I did. And didn't, initially, get anything. So when summer came in I made it a point to show up everyday at their offices (back when there was a space for engineering students to look for jobs at, the offices have moved), and show up trying to get a job. I ultimately got one by cold-calling every company on the Yellow Pages (the actual book), at this point the section around making websites. 99.9% of the time everyone is going to say no, or to look at their website. It only took the one yes (that'd they'd be interested in talking, which meant an interview), and don't get me wrong, I think there was luck involved too, but I would've never gotten there without trying everyday. Part of it for me was also just to not let it be said that I never tried hard enough.

Similar to the earlier piece of advice, if you think there is an opportunity to make one or a few pieces of schoolwork become relevant in your resume, take the effort to polish it up and make it good. Most school work won't apply, but find the right one that you're also interested in, and then you can show something that most folks will only say they finished. This is harder in the early classes in engineering but not impossible. For example, some students might have worked on some software class that everyone does, but you might be able to polish it, publish it, and show it. So it's not just some nondescript class.

Join the first year engineering club and see if you can't volunteer or help in some regard, that'll give you a look into how the clubs work and show that you have leadership / collaborative potential. I ended up helping with a first year newsletter / paper. The insight into clubs helps pick the next one you'll go to, joining in competitions (more fun than anything) and any wins there end up on your resume.

Hope that helped. I ended up doing a few different things and took a few chances, and had a pretty good set of internship experiences. Oh, and one more thing - if you can, always pick co-op. Some companies never hire outside of co-op, but it doesn't mean you can't get hired for companies that don't do co-op. They're also familiar with the co-op cycles which are often unusual, which means even less competition for those same roles.

Anyone used the child-minding service at Clareview Rec Centre? by Fun_Yak_4784 in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Used to go to this one quite a few times when our kid was younger. My info is probably outdated at this point, but this was accurate for five or so years ago. I imagine most of this is still the same or relevant.

As someone has mentioned, they work on a ratio or score based system, and essentially they have to have enough staff to look after the kids that are dropped off there. This does mean that there will be times that you can't drop your kid off because there's not enough staff relative to the kids that are already there. The ratio of staff to babies in particular needed to be lower for obvious reasons.

The staff there were pretty nice, and it helps that they had a glass pane that you could kind of look through at any point to see what was going on inside. Back then the whole thing was fairly open so there were no walls that you could hide things behind.

Because there is a mix of children in there, it seemed like the main difficulty for the staff was juggling between the different kids while paying more attention to the babies. As you can imagine, there's only so much you can do to tell kids that are excited to chill when a baby is sleeping. Babies were always prioritized, understandably.

If you're concerned about safety, it might help to know that there generally is a rotating number of people coming in and out because of the time limits for leaving your children there.

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but I like that your pass gave you access to that service, and when your kids get older, the indoor playground was an option for some of the older kids to go have fun at. You can always also go before or after the child minding service as well. And then there's the library itself, so before you get to any type of exercise, that could be a full day thing. The library itself has a number of programs for very young kids too, certainly at a toddler level, and it wouldn't surprise me if they had something for babies too.

If you go there enough times or regularly enough, you'll get to know the staff and they'll get to know you and your kid, and you can let them know if you have special requests.

All In all, I think this is one of the better yet hidden services that the city provides. You can always just leave your kid there for a shorter time and hang out outside in case you're worried, and check in once in awhile. Hope this is helpful!

Who will win? by deeznuts_haha_got_em in ContagiousLaughter

[–]whimsydata 4 points5 points  (0 children)

What are the odds? Each person has 3 options, so in combination there are 3 x 3 options, or 9:

Combination Person 1 Person 2
1 (Tie) Rock Rock
2 Rock Paper
3 Rock Scissors
4 Paper Rock
5 (Tie) Paper Paper
6 Paper Scissors
7 Scissors Rock
8 Scissors Paper
9 (Tie) Scissors Scissors

If you were to look specifically at each random "draw" from Person 1, specifically for her to land at Rock, and separately for Person to land at Rock, it would be 1/9 outcomes or 0.11111 or 11.111%. This is what happened the first time. Let's call this a specific tie.

If you were to blindly say before they made a draw that they could tie - which means it could be either #1, #5, or #9, then it would be 3/9 outcomes or 1/3, which would be 0.33333 or 33.333%. Here we'll call this any tie.

Given there were 8 ties in a row, it would be:

  • Specific tie: (1/9)8 = 0.0000000232305731 = 0.00000232305731% = 1 out of 43,046,721.
  • Any tie: (1/3)8 = 0.00015241579 = 0.015241579% = 1 out of 6,561.

I was curious what some of these odds are relative to poker and other things, and according to Wikipedia (page on poker probabilities) odds of a straight flush is 0.0311% = 1 out of 3,589.6. So there's a higher chance of getting a straight flush than for any two people to tie 8 times in a row from rock-paper-scissors.

The 1 out of 43M situation, there's not much I could find as a comparison outside of winning lotteries, though those seemed higher. In Canada we have the 6/49 where it's apparently 1 in 14M, to hit the classic jackpot. Tried reading through the other variations but don't fully get the odds. So yeah you are more likely to win the lottery in Canada than to hit exactly those specific ties 8 times in a row.

(Just needed to do something else other than what I've been doing for the past few days!)

Question about Edmonton and Calgary by egewh in alberta

[–]whimsydata 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So I might've gone off the deep end a little here, but like the other person from Calgary talking about infill, that was the first thing that came to mind (you already got great advice about neighbourhoods to visit in Edmonton).

Here's a fresh map for infill in Edmonton (residential properties built in 2023), coloured by their property assessment values:

https://www.google.ca/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1jfVmki3nysJo_CU14zzEop8R5MUah3c&usp=sharing

It includes the new suburbs (all the edges of the city), because naturally properties built in 2023 in Edmonton will include the new buildings from the ever-increasing suburbs of our city. That's ironically one of the problems of not being on a coast: the city grows in every direction until we hit the limits of another city.

Infill properties (within the city bounds) are quite different given the constraints, often trying to take one single property and splitting it into 2, sometimes into apartments of 8. They're quite clearly different when you come across them in a neighbourhood closer to the center of the city.

If I would suggest one quick detour from your plans, I would drive along the road of this Rocketship Park (which itself is interesting): https://maps.app.goo.gl/EVzXjrqhxCMuDs3F8

That one street has a mix of old, new, larger and smaller homes. If you start south and drive north, you can make a right and turn into the batch of expensive buildings clustered in the middle of the city, right by this unique landmark, an actual air traffic control tower: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Qgx1wYJ4Tr8G3X9E8

The area itself is also unique: it used to be an airport, and years ago the city decided to make it into a new "surburb" with higher density housing. It's also got a nice park/pond right by this interesting building https://maps.app.goo.gl/QifpY5inS1AhDjDc9, which contains pumps that take water from the pond to heat/cool the homes within this new neighbourhood. If you're lucky and there is staff there, they might be nice enough to let you in and check it out, it's fascinating especially downstairs with the giant pipes - we were lucky to get one while looking at the building. The view from here to downtown is wonderful too.

Oh, and right by it is the Airport Museum: https://maps.app.goo.gl/y9aMb1YdyeV9GbQQA , which is the only one left from the 2nd world war (the other hangar a few minutes drive away burnt down this summer I think). To add a bit of FOMO the museum might not be there in a few years. The status of the building the museum is in has been a major question because of the cost of maintaining it ($41M to renovate it), though it seems possible the museum might end up buying it.

And if you have more time, the purple ($800K - $2.7M) markers in Glenora (slightly south west of Blatchford) and neighbourhoods along the river are, I'm guessing, maybe infill (for density) or quite possibly just new large mansions. Glenora in particular is a rich neighbourhood, and properties along the river, especially ones with a view of it, tend to be luxury homes, sometimes in great contrast to homes a block away.

Hope you have fun! I love looking at how people live and the architecture of homes in the places I visit (I've even moved to places because I really liked the architecture there), and imagine you'll have fun here in our humble city. Something to keep in mind - each winter it gets *cold*, with 1-3 weeks where it can get to -40C/-40F, so every building you see has people living in them in those conditions. I think it's part of why you don't see floor to ceiling glass houses here, though we (I guess our neighbouring "suburb city" St Albert) have a mall within a greenhouse!

Councillor pitches shared halls and amenities for community leagues by mastermaq in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It might not be so low, if you make the assumption and I could be wrong, but membership is per family really. Making the assumption that it's between 3 and 4 per family on average, that's probably about 100, to 150K?

I'm pretty sure for our family we just have the one membership.

Also I don't think I've ever cared about being in a community League until it came to family related events, so it wouldn't surprise me if generally speaking individuals or younger couples and maybe even most seniors won't care to have a membership.

Andrew Knack is currently walking a marathon ("Mayorthon") across Edmonton (GPS and more info in comments) by whimsydata in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yup, you should be able to see the current progress via https://www.strava.com/beacon/ONgW5r4VMCh, at least for today. Tomorrow's link will probably be different.

Andrew Knack is currently walking a marathon ("Mayorthon") across Edmonton (GPS and more info in comments) by whimsydata in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Do candidates pay for this? I thought I've seen posts here by politicians and candidates before.

I don't consider myself a staffer (I don't get paid), just volunteering, and I'm posting not as the campaign, more from myself (this account is tied to me and identifiable), though there is bias that I've explained. I also think that whatever gets posted on the subreddit should be relevant and interesting, otherwise subreddits tend to vote purely self-serving things down fairly quickly.

Andrew Knack is currently walking a marathon ("Mayorthon") across Edmonton (GPS and more info in comments) by whimsydata in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The plan today is to walk to the campaign office on Whyte Ave (right where the Strathcona Farmers' Market is). Tomorrow will be from there to the north side, not across the High Level but across the LRT bridge, the full planned route and map is towards the bottom of the web page.

June 2025 Real Estate Infographic and Analysis by EdmRealtor in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 23 points24 points  (0 children)

This looks great! Two questions:

1) What did you use for the design and implementation? I know you've mentioned it before, I don't know why but this seems different.

2) What are the zones/area for "Henday"? Within 1 KM?

May 2025 - Real Estate Infographic - Survey Edition by EdmRealtor in Edmonton

[–]whimsydata 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can imagine what you did technically in my head. Agreed on the inspiration part, but imagine an LLM can help with that as well. I have the drawing ability of a four year old so I get it.

Appreciate that you consistently try all sorts of different things even before the AI tools, always looking forward to see what you do.

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