Wireless network SSIDs in residential areas are typically left on default router names like Belkin or LinkSys, but some people use them as a subtle way to broadcast a message. Sometimes it’s simple like “DontStealMyInternet” or “Big Bob’s playhouse.” Others use their SSIDs to make a political statement. With that in mind, James Robinson, a developer for OpenSignalMaps, wondered if political allegiance could be inferred from assigning sentiment to SSIDs.

According to this eccentric measure of sentiment Obama is much more popular outside of the US than within. Why is this? It may be that Obama is genuinely more popular in the rest of the world but maybe it is because outside of the US people are less likely to express negative sentiments towards politicians in this manner. We can’t answer this definitively but looking at Argentina, at least, does suggest this is the case.

I’m surprised it was so evenly split in the US between negative and positive since in a way it’s like putting a sign up on your lawn. Usually you see signs in support of a candidate rather than one that says an opposing candidate sucks.

Anonymity probably plays the main role in this case. You can’t put up a mean sign in front of your house and pretend it’s not yours, but you can make an insulting SSID, and no one would be the wiser.

By Dan Piraro of Bizarro Comics. This is what happens when you don’t label your axes. Also this. [via Laughing Squid]

From Take Part, a short video on how a virus spreads and its possible global effects. Apparently one million deaths could be prevented every year if people would just wash their hands regularly. Too bad there’s that temporary allergy to soap and water people get after doing their business in public restrooms.

[via Brain Pickings]

During a one-week visualization course at the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, Kat Zorina, Ruben van der Vleuten, and Kostantinos Frantzis put together a working prototype that makes smoothies based on mentions of fruit on Twitter.

Using the Twitter API, it collects tweets containing mentions of specific fruits such as blueberry, pineapple, apple and carrot and creates a smoothie that represents the blend. The smoothie is created based on the same proportions of fruits collected from the tweets. Because twitter trends change quickly, each smoothie has a unique palette of flavors.

Next steps: a blender that provides variable consistency like chunky versus completely blended, a scoop of sherbet, and free energy boost. Oh, the possibilities.

[via @golan]

After noticing the Obama campaign was sending variations of an email to voters, ProPublica identified six distinct types with certain demographics and showed the differences. It was called the Message Machine. Now ProPublica is taking it a step further, hoping to dissect every email from all 2012 campaigns.

Today, we are relaunching the Message Machine, and expanding it from handling just one mailing to handling every email from all of the campaigns in the 2012 election. It will seek a broad understanding in real time of the new and sophisticated ways modern campaigns are targeting voters.

It’s a big puzzle, and to solve it, we need a big sample of political emails, and an understanding of who received them. That’s where you come in.

If you get campaign emails on any subject — donation, get-out-the-vote, volunteering, events, etc. — just forward them to [email protected] using your email program’s standard forwarding feature. Nothing fancier than that needed.

Way cool. Although I bet there will be a lot of noise, especially from the smaller, less data-savvy campaigns.