When learning a new software or programming language I find it useful to apply it to a specific project, even if the project itself doesn't make much sense.

Multi-Dimensional Scaling

The swedish political parties are positioned in a twodimensional space based on the like/dislike survey questions in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) dataset.

The relative positions of the parties are determined in two stages; first a line-of-sight procedure converts the respondents' preferences into a proximity matrix which is then used for the Multidimensional Scaling.



To learn how to combine PHP, MySQL and Javacript I created a country filtering tool for the countries in the Paradox game Europa Universalis IV.

The country data are stored in the MySQL database and a request is sent every time a change is made to the filters.

Try the Country Selection Tool


To learn Python programming I'm creating a game based on the Swedish board game "När då då?". The aim of the board game is to put historical events in chronological order. The more events you have in front of you - the harder it gets to put the next event in the correct position.

In the Python game there are countries insted of historical events. Also, instead of the chronological order, the players try to put the countries in order from Low to High on some country characteristics, e.g. Life Expectancy at Birth or Average Schooling Years (a random variable from the QoG dataset is being used). The more countries you have in front of you - the harder it gets to put the next country in the correct position. Points are awarded for the number of countries