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About this Website

The story of the site and its tools.

The story of this site

How the site started and how it changed.

  1. 2018

    From SPSS to R

    My move from a program full of limitations to a programming language with unlimited possibilities for statistical analysis. The spark came in my student years, when I was looking for free alternatives. The well-known book R for Data Science played a big part in my choice.

  2. June 2019

    A GitHub account

    Where the code and data of my projects have lived ever since.

  3. Late 2021

    Starting with Distill

    Distill helped me build my first website without knowing HTML and CSS. I wrote in R Markdown, text and code together, and the package did the rest. It is considered the predecessor of Quarto.

  4. July 2022

    Moving to Quarto

    I switched to Quarto, the successor to Distill, which offered more options for the look of the site. GitHub Pages hosted it for free. I also got my first (unofficial) logo, which was a chart from my project on ageing in 2022, made with the ggplot2 package.

    The first Quarto home page, in July 2022: a white page with a line-chart logo and the heading “Hello !”
    The home page, July 2022
  5. September 2022

    My first Shiny app

    Shiny gave me the ability to build interactive applications using only R. The first one counted the possible samples for various sampling methods (simple random with and without replacement, systematic and stratified). The app is no longer available, but its code is on GitHub.

  6. October 2022

    My first public dataset

    Members of the Hellenic Parliament from 1981 to 2019.

  7. November 2022

    30DayMapChallenge

    The 30DayMapChallenge gave me a reason to make my first maps in R. Each day of November has a different theme. I completed 10, but I don’t show them because they were terrible. If you want to laugh at the maps, they are on GitHub.

  8. February 2023

    TidyTuesday

    TidyTuesday provides a new dataset every week and everyone makes their own chart. I took part in several weeks and the charts are in the corresponding repository.

    Map of the US showing the density of haunted places by state, 10,992 in total. The highest concentrations are in Washington DC, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Map of the US showing the density of haunted places by state, 10,992 in total. The highest concentrations are in Washington DC, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
    Haunted places in the US, TidyTuesday 2023, week 41
  9. April 2023

    Registering stesiam.com

    I bought stesiam.com on 11 April 2023 and the site moved there from GitHub’s free stesiam.github.io. Only the address changed. The site continued to be hosted for free on GitHub Pages.

  10. April 2024

    30DayChartChallenge

    The 30DayChartChallenge is a challenge with one chart a day for April, each day with a different theme. I took part on several days and the charts are in the corresponding repository.

    Area chart of vehicles in Greece from 1990 to 2020. The total almost tripled, from 3.57 to 9.93 million. Cars stay around 70%, while the share of motorcycles doubled. Area chart of vehicles in Greece from 1990 to 2020. The total almost tripled, from 3.57 to 9.93 million. Cars stay around 70%, while the share of motorcycles doubled.
    Vehicles in Greece, 30DayChartChallenge 2024, day 15
  11. October 2024

    In Greek too

    babelquarto is an R package that builds Quarto sites in more than one language. With it, the site also got a Greek version alongside the existing English one.

    The home page in October 2024: a round black logo and the heading “Hello 👋, I’m Stelios!” The home page in October 2024: a round black logo and the heading “Hello 👋, I’m Stelios!”
    The home page, October 2024
  12. June 2025

    Finally, a degree

    After years of hassle, and even though they never gave me an A38 certificate, I got a copy of my degree, a certificate of completion and a (crumpled) diploma scroll.

  13. May 2026

    A new site with Astro

    I rebuilt the site from scratch with Astro, a tool for static websites. It gained search, comments and interactive charts, and remained bilingual.

    The site’s home page in May 2026, headed “Γεια σου, με λένε Στέλιο!” (Hi, my name is Stelios!) The site’s home page in May 2026, headed “Γεια σου, με λένε Στέλιο!” (Hi, my name is Stelios!)
    The home page, May 2026
  14. May 2026

    From GitHub Pages to Cloudflare

    The site stays static (no server needed), and its hosting moves from the (free) GitHub Pages plan to the free plans of Cloudflare Pages and then Cloudflare Workers.

  15. October 2026

    Today’s design

    Hard lines, square corners, a yellow highlighter.

    The site’s home page today, headed “Γεια σου, με λένε Στέλιο.” (Hi, my name is Stelios.) The site’s home page today, headed “Γεια σου, με λένε Στέλιο.” (Hi, my name is Stelios.)
    The home page, October 2026

Website Technologies

The frontend stack that builds and serves this site.

What is the site made with?
Astro Static website generation
Which fonts are used?
Commissioner Headings & interface
Noto Serif Body text
Fira Mono Labels & code
How is it made bilingual?
Paraglide i18n - Greek & English
How does search work?
Pagefind Client-side full-text search
What are the charts drawn with?
Highcharts Interactive charts (non-commercial)
D3.js Data visualisation with SVG
How are formulas displayed?
Temml Math formulas (LaTeX) in MathML
Where are the site and its code hosted?
Cloudflare Workers Site hosting
GitHub Site repository

R Packages

The R packages I use to produce the analyses and charts featured across the site.

How do I clean the data?
dplyr Data transformation and filtering
tidyr Data reshaping
stringr String manipulation
What do I make the static charts with?
ggplot2 Static charts with grammar of graphics
What do I train models with?
tidymodels Modelling and ML framework
tidyverts Time series analysis and forecasting
How do I collect data from the web?
rvest Web scraping
RSelenium Browser automation
How are apps made?
shiny Interactive web apps with R
plumber REST APIs with R