Monthly Archives: June 2010

Repeated text in Chart Legend

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Excel_201006301350

Repeated text in a Chart Legend: you can see it if you look closely in the Legend Entries.

This was a very unusual scenario. (I have not been able to exactly duplicate it in another file.)

The legend was automatically generated from the Series names. I found that the source for the repeated Series name was a range – $A$4:$B$4. This is not normally allowed in Excel 2007, and it is the situation that I cannot reproduce.

However, I found that sometimes I could see the old legend text remain in place after I changed the source cell. Excel did clean this up when I next edited the Data source.

Excel_201006301349I also noticed that, if there is something in column A on the same row as the column headings, and row headings in column B, Excel will automatically create an explicit legend like this.

  • TopHeading RowHeading1
  • TopHeading RowHeading2

The legend text can be manually edited, and it does not immediately reset when TopHeading is deleted.

Taken together, these clues suggest that Excel copies the contents of the source into some invisible cache, and only updates it under ‘normal’ circumstances.

Avoiding this ‘feature’

  • Complete the table and its headings before making the chart.
  • Eschew Merged-cells in the vicinity of data that will be charted.
  • Simplify problematic charts by saving and reopening the spreadsheet as an Excel 97 file.

These limitations should be ‘in the fine print somewhere’, but I have not previously encountered a description of this problem. It happens in Excel 2007 but not Excel 2003. Guided by these empirical results, I found unofficial advice.

BOTTOM LINE:  Don’t Merge Cells.

Acknowledgement

I thank Margaret for finding this phenomenon.

Facebook murders

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Nona’s murder is the latest in a string around the world to be linked to Facebook. (Jones 2010)

How long is this string?

I was able to find press accounts of 17 deaths and one near-fatal attack that were in some way linked to Facebook. The events spanned 28 months.

Is it around the world?

Most countries have not been afflicted by Facebook murders. England appears to be the most dangerous place to use Facebook!

Country

Deaths

Facebook Users

UK

11

27,145,020

Australia

3

9,300,240

USA

2

125,560,420

Trinidad

1

337,720

Albania

1

729,200

What kind of link?

My list includes press reports about 3 people who were memorialised (or mocked) on Facebook, although their deaths were not related to Facebook.

Stranger danger: The list includes 2 young women (aged 17 and 18) who developed relationships online and by telephone with strangers who, offering casual employment or romance, enticed their victims to a fatal, face-to-face meeting.

Jealous intimates: The other victims were killed by estranged, intimate friends or relatives. Facebook was incidental. Some killers reacted to their victim’s relationships or comments on Facebook. One killer was suspected due to his own Facebook status update. One was approached on Facebook by his victim. One set up a memorial page on Facebook. One killer was lauded on Facebook.

Prevention

Several suggested protective measures would have been futile:

  • Police advice to remove personal details and photographs from Facebook.
  • Police advice for parents to stop kids spending hours online.
  • Mandatory internet filters.
  • CEOP calls for a Panic Button on websites, to make it easier for users to report suspicious pages.

Supt Kerlatec said internet predators searched social networking site profiles for children’s interests then, pretending to share them, struck up a conversation. (Jones 2010)

These murders were essentially attacks on adults: with the exception of one baby, all of the victims were 17 or older. They were committed by men who had already gained the victim’s trust, even if they no longer held it. The particular technology was not significant; a variety of communication methods were involved in every case. Facebook records supported the identification or prosecution of suspects in several cases.

Conclusions

Facebook ‘Stranger Danger’ became a public fear before and without evidence of actual harm. The ‘string’ of murders facilitated by Facebook comprises only two cases. Parental supervision was not at fault. The attention to Facebook in connection with other murders is more intense in UK, where the fear has political and commercial value, than in other countries.  The Panic Button (UK) and mandatory filtering (Australia) proposals would not have reduced risks.

References

Facebook population data is from http://www.checkfacebook.com/ and http://www.facebakers.com/countries-with-facebook/ [Accessed 31/05/2010]

Jones, G. 2010. Cops and family of Nona Belomesoff put out Facebook teen warning, remove photos and schools you attend. The Daily Telegraph. May 17. <http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/cops-and-family-of-nona-belomesoff-put-out-facebook-teen-warning-remove-photos-and-schools-you-attend/story-e6freuy9-1225867440829> [Accessed 31/05/2010]

Data

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