Source: Press X to Jason (Heavy Rain / Music Video) – YouTube

One happy memory from my Freshman year is watching someone play “Heavy Rain” in my friend’s dorm room with 10 other people. It is a mystery game that has the lead character searching for his son. During an opening scene you notice your son is missing, and you call out to him “JASON!!!” The Press X to Jason meme was born. Watch here for more information.

This happy memory was triggered as I’ve gone further down the rabbit hole of data science. JSON for the uninitiated is one of the most common and friendly file formats a majority of API information is sent back in. APIs are how information is requested and distributed by major companies. My new goal is to learn how to press x to JSON.

A few weeks ago as I was watching videos on proper data visualization, I stumbled upon a recent high-profile data visualization. For the full visual, go here. In this visual, Mike Barry and Brian Card show patterns and interesting features of a data set they built from the Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA). I have been wondering how huge data sets are created by individuals and this answered my question. The two creators assembled this data by repeatedly requesting the information from the MBTA API. They stored this information in giant data frames. They knew how to press X to JSON.

One of the best communities of programming I have found is the open source world. I can see how amazing projects are built. This allows me to learn so much faster than I could. The MBTA VIZ projects github repository can be found here. The data, java, html, and css files are all there.

I’ve spent the last week learning how to showcase work on the internet by building websites. Now I want to learn to press X to JSON and build something. It may not be as good as what Mike and Brian created, but it’ll be mine.

First step: Find an API. The best place to find APIs is programmableweb.com.

Next: Analyze the data to find something interesting to talk about.

Finally: Publish using R Markdown for a technical audience.

Extra Effort: Publish something pretty and interactive similar to the MBTA visualization.