I recently came across some links showing readers how to make their own data analysis and graphics from scratch. This is great stuff--spreading power tools to the masses and all that.
From Nathan Yau: How to Make a US County Thematic Map Using Free Tools and How to Make an Interactive Area Graph with Flare. I don't actually think the interactive area graphs are so great--they work with the Baby Name Wizard but to me they don't do much in the example that Nathan shows--but, that doesn't really matter, what's cool here is that he's showing us all exactly how to do it. This stuff is gonna put us statistical graphics experts out of business^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H a great service.
And Chris Masse points me to these instructions from blogger Iowahawk on downloading and analyzing a historical climate dataset. Good stuff.