You should have received your Census survey by now. Did you fill it out and mail it yet? If not, get to it. Tim Meadows can only do so many door-to-doors.
[via @parterburn]
Category: Miscellaneous
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Christopher Walken and Census
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The everyday in Google Maps
With his usual cleverness, Christoph Niemann illustrates the everyday as Google maps. My favorite is the omelet highway. Oh what a twisty and confusing highway this GPS-less life is.
[Thanks, Tom]
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Weekend Fodder
How to split up the US - Geographic clusters based on social network connections on Facebook. [thx, przemek]
Rise of the Infogeeks - Lots of graphic designers have taken a liking to information graphics.
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) gives augmented reality a go - Point your iPhone at the station and get info on when the next train is coming.
Google Public Data Explorer - Trying to get more mileage out of the Trendalyzer acquisition. [thx, eric]
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Weekend Fodder
Footprints - Every building footprint, and nothing else, in Montgomery County, Ohio. It's interesting how buildings can define an area.
Data, data everywhere - The Economist reports on the explosion of big data and the challenges that come with it.
Q&A With Shawn Allen of Stamen Design - Always interesting to hear from these guys [thx, tim].
The Case For An Older Woman - Another thoughtful analysis from the okcupid group on why men should be more open-minded to dating older women.
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Weekend Fodder
Snake oil? Scientific evidence for health supplements - Some work as advertised. Others are just a waste of money.
Cell phones show human movement predictable 93% of the time - Is this really all that surprising? Work, school, home. Rinse and repeat.
America's Wealthiest Religions - A Good Magazine transparency. Probably didn't need to be circular.
Measuring Tweets - Twitter is now handling 50 million tweets per day i.e. 600 tweets per second.
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Weekend Fodder: Valentine’s Geekery
Tales around the Web for everyone's favorite holiday.
Obligatory Valentine’s Day map - Aww, how sweet. Indiemapper sends its love in what else, map form, and even accompanied by the proper equations.
Science Valentine - Stick man of xkcd writes a valentine with just the data. This is what happens when you only let your brain lead. As they say, lead with your heart... and you won't end up a boring sack of facts who no one likes. [thanks, all]
Love on the (Facebook) wall - It's the greatest love story of all time. Woman gets divorced. Old friend comments on her wall. Comment turns to chat, chat turns to text, and text turns to phone call. Man proposes to woman via comic.
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Weekend Fodder
Here are some links and stuff to chew on as you wait for the Super Bowl, in between the beer, pizza, and wings.
Pink Floyd Timeline, 1960-2000 - A highly stylized timeline of music from Pink Floyd over the years.
The making of the NYT’s Netflix graphic - The interactive showing the geography of Netlfix rentals was a big hit around the Web. Detailed, engaging, interesting, and a great ad for Netflix.
An Interview With Nicholas Felton, Creator of the Feltron Annual Report - It manages to make a bigger splash every month. Felton gets into some of the details of compiling the report [thanks, Mike].
Multiplayer Basketball - Nothing to do with data or visualization. Just pure, simple multiplayer fun [via Waxy].
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Is 10/GUI the Future Replacement of the Mouse and Keyboard?
10/GUI, a prototype interface by R. Clayton Miller, is a new way of interacting with the computer. We're all familiar with touch screens, but what Miller proposes is separating the touch from the screen and bringing your hands back to where you normally would use a keyboard and a mouse.
Here, watch the demo, and it'll be much clearer than my explanation:
Whether this is a viable solution to the next generation of interaction, I have no idea. Some have commented that window layout could be an issue as the line-up doesn't work for all situations, but I think it'd just be a matter of getting used to things.
I mean, I used to think the Mac was impossible when I was forcibly switched over from PC during my first year of grad school, but now I love it.
One thing's for sure though. Miller has great taste in online material.
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Quick Links for the Weekend – 26 June 09
Tufte's Invisible Yet Ubiquitous Influence - Edward Tufte combines a policy wonk's love of data with an artist's eye for beauty and a PR maestro's knack for promotion.
Look at these &$(*@^@# Statistics - It's heavy on the swear words and light on the actual data, but I guess it's amusing. Just don't click if you're offended by potty mouth. [Thanks, j2]
Why Making Maps Guides Us to Be Greener - A picture is worth a thousand words, and that's the case for maps too. Turns out, using some visual mapping helps groups show people their purpose and get the support they need to accomplish their goals.
Financial Responsibility in the United States - In the growing trend of financial applications posting infographics to drive traffic, here's another one.
Is Information Visualization the Next Frontier for Design? - I don't know. What do you think?
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BBC News Explains European Groups with Chocolate Cake
Oh why not, it's Friday. Have a good weekend, everyone. Go have yourself a slice of beautiful chocolate Belgian tart... or some other beautiful treat. You deserve it.
[Thanks, Ian]
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What If We Were a World of Doers?
What exactly is a doer? Feeling much like a segment on Sesame Street, this ad from Honda explains, "Well, doers do things. Things to move us forward, to make stuff better." The ad (below) goes on to imagine a world where people and companies are doers who take an active role in making environmentally conscious decisions.
[via Cool Infographics]
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‘I Love Charts’ from Sid the Science Kid
It's good to see PBS is teaching strong values to grow up with with Sid the Science Kid and this lovely chart song (below). A chart is a handy dandy scientific tool...it gives you information that you can see with your eyes...a chart that you visualize...you get the picture... so do I... Best kid song ever.
Have a nice weekend all.
[via infosthetics | Thanks, Nick]
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Data.
Dear reader,
After much thought and arguments with myself, I've decided to quit data. It's been almost two years writing for FlowingData and almost four years as a statistics graduate student, and data never stops. I think I know what postal employees feel like. Every day is just more and more data. Gimme more. Everyone wants more - but to what end? There's too much of it. Sometimes I just want to curl up in the fetal position in the corner of my office and cry.
Why do we need data anyways? It just makes life more complicated, and educated decisions are overrated. Guesswork is underrated. So - and it pains me to say this - I've decided to quit FlowingData and graduate school. I will be joining a traveling entertainment troupe that eats paper. I just need one of those sticks with the back on the end of it. You know, like the ones that they show on TV... with the hobos. Forget it, I can't remember. I'll just get a garbage bag.
I hope you all understand. Like I said, I've given this a lot of thought, and this is really the best thing to do at this point of my life. Visualization, design, statistics, or computer science will never be able to handle all the data that are to come, so it's best I part ways now before it's too late. Keep an eye out for my paper-eating entertainment troupe. We don't have a name yet... and it's really just me, not so much a group. I also don't have any paper, or actually, I do have a few post-it notes. No, that won't be enough. Maybe I can be the used-napkin-eating person guy thing. I dunno. Well - keep an eye out. It will be the show to watch. Thanks everyone for reading and all of your support. Please do sign the guest book to stay up to date on the
paper-eatingnapkin-eating troupe.All the best,
NathanUPDATE: Just to be clear - happy april 1 :)
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Because It’s Friday: Correlation
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Because It’s Friday: The Trilogy Meter
Dan Meth plots out the trilogy meter - a series of charts that show his level of enjoyment of each movie in the trilogy:
These are rated purely on my enjoyment level on each film and nothing else. Frankly I’m surprised by how many sequels were better than the original. And I’m not surprised that the 3rd movie is never the best.
Perhaps more surprising is that Dan's actually seen so many full trilogies, especially after the second in a series sucking so bad.
[via Dan Meth | Thanks, Chris]
