This confection showed up in my email this morning as a data visualization treat. Good kindergartner that I am, I find I have enough to share:
<a href=”http://epicgraphic.com/data-cake/”> <img src=”http://epicgraphic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/data-cake-graphic.jpg” alt=”data cake” width=”550″ height=”521″ /></a><br />Image by EpicGraphic
And as long as we’re on the subject of visualization, here’s a lagniappe. The inestimable and inexhaustible Bora Zivkovic, major-domo of the Scientific American science blogging network, recently wrote a long post on future forms of science journalism.. I agree with some of what he says, though not all, and there is a slim chance I’ll actually find the time to argue with him in public.
But in the meantime, let me share with you this little number from Bora’s post that to me makes the point that there are stories within stories within stories, if only one chooses to look — even in the midst of the most familiar tale.
<div align=”center”><iframe width=”560″ height=”349″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/lELy1gJT-kg” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
Consider this an I-can’t-stand-any-more-tea-leaf-reading-on-the-debt-ceiling open thread.
Update: per commenter Matt F @22 — this video is actually a reference/response to this one, “Remind Me.” The maker of the LRRH clip above writes on the Vimeo posting of the piece that he made the cartoon to satisfy a school assignment to reinterpret the fairy tale, and he acknowledged that it was inspired by Röyksopps’ original.
wesindc
Umm cake meanwhile…
dr. bloor
The Teatards called–they refuse to authorize funding for the flour and eggs, and want to know where the hell their cake is.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
PurpleGirl
Yes, I can’t take any more writing/commenting on the debt ceiling and the gutting of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.
I’m sitting here trying to decide if I want to order a bunch of books from Borders today or wait to see what I can get in a store tomorrow. (Will relatives understand my spending or not, hmmmm, probably not?)
It’s absolutely too hot to go to a store today. Maybe I’ll go and see who’s in the cooling center in my development — there are residents who don’t have A/C so they open the community center.
Rosalita
carrot cake? mmmmmmm
jeffreyw
Presentation
Mike Goetz
Data-Information-Presentation-Knowledge
These things have no place in our politics.
wesindc
Perhaps I’m being insane but a bombing of a large European city takes precedence to cake? Sorry for the rant but the Danes are good people.
Amanda in the South Bay
Umm…wasn’t it Norway and not Denmark?
Citizen_X
Meanwhile, some wingnuts in in Arizona are upset over the use of the word “haboob” to describe the recent giant sandstorm (AKA as, well, a haboob). (Note: the NYT article only quotes two people, so I don’t know how widespread the “outrage” is.)
I say let’s give ’em this one. We can call it “God’s wrath on the idiots,” instead.
MikeJ
@wesindc: When did the Danes take over Oslo?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
I want to know what’s in this data; and I want the precise algorithm for turning it into information.
Presentation and knowledge will take care of themselves.
wobblybits
@wesindc: The Danes? Didn’t the explosion happen in Norway? I always thought the Danes referred to people from Denmark?
Citizen_X
Oh yeah? Why’d they just bomb Norway, then?
Amanda in the South Bay
Meh, nice video, I guess some people with good video making skills have way too much time on their hands.
Blah, just in a bitter mood this morning. I guess that video reminds me of the superficial faux intellectualish type people who’d read Gladwell or something.
wesindc
LOL my bad. Had Danes on the mind. However…why not an issue enough to interrupt the non stop chatter about how important the US is?
NonyNony
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko
One of the most awesome things about living in the future is that if we want an algorithm like that all we have to do is ask.
Sometimes I resent that I live in the future and I don’t have a flying car. But more often living in the future has more subtle benefits than a flying car could give.
Citizen_X
Right now the “bombing” in Oslo is just being reported as an explosion, cause unknown.
Quackosaur
The explosion happened near the PM’s office in Oslo, so most certainly Norway and not Denmark, unless we’ve managed to travel back in time 200 years.
chopper
the cake is a lie.
MikeJ
@wesindc: GYOFB
slag
Quelle que “choses”?
But it’s still a great point!
MattF
That video is just a ripoff, IMO. The original is this.
Tom Levenson
Re Oslo: I don’t know anything about it other than what you can read at sites that have actual reporters on the ground. I can’t speak for the other FP folks here — but I’m not writing about the explosion/bombing because I literally have nothing useful to say about it at this time.
slag
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Are we really going to get into a smackdown over Malcolm Gladwell? It is Friday, after all. And isn’t there some Mac v. Microsoft action happening already? Sometimes, there really can be too much of a good thing.
wesindc
What the hell does GYOFB mean?
jeffreyw
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: algorithm
LGRooney
Thanks to their knowledge of geography, Fox news must have gotten a graphic wrong somewhere, the teahadists hit the wrong capital!
We’ve been discussing their ability to become violent…
slag
@wesindc: Get Yoda Out For Brunch.
MikeJ
@wesindc: Get your own fucking blog.
If you want to inform people that something just happened, that’s a nice thing to do. If you want to shit on a thread because people aren’t discussing what you want to discuss, that’s whining. There’s way to get people to discuss what you want. Go to your own fucking blog where you set the agenda. Don’t whine because other people don’t want to panic or talk about shit that nobody actually has any information about yet.
Gin & Tonic
Get Your Own F’n Bourbon.
Or not.
Litlebritdifrnt
As usual the Telegraph has live updates.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8655175/Oslo-explosion-live-coverage.html
Tom Levenson
Re Slag @21. Well yeah.
Fixt
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
NonyNony – mmmmmm, carrot cake…
thanks!
wesindc
Now wonder ABL is all up in arms. If one makes one simple mistake attack ensues. WTH? I rarely comment and when I do I am nice. I think Tunch looks good for his size.
Surly Duff
“…major-domo of the Scientific American science blogging network recently wrote a long post on future forms of science journalism..”
Does it also claim all science writing is just boring climate change and global warning articles like Argle Bargle whines?
Tim F.
From your graphic, I conclude that knowledge is the process of converting useful information into shit. Too often true.
Davis X. Machina
You thought that the Danes were going to take that Fortinbras business lying down? Hell, no.
Of course, they had to wait. But that’s what the wily Danes are good at… waiting. And butter cookies. And Lego™.
Yutsano
@Davis X. Machina:
And wind turbines. But no one mentions that because Algore is fat.
slag
@MattF: You’re right. That video is very much a ripoff. But that’s also why the eaten cake isn’t the best metaphor for knowledge. Knowledge is regenerative.
wesindc
Yumm butter cookies…
gocart mozart
murbella
that looks delicious.
stuckinred
gocart mozart –
Someone beside me knows it!
as it applies to you and me
there ain’t no great society
Yutsano
Ican’t also help but notice the data side of the equation is missing a few critical points. Which makes the metaphor even more apt.
ET
lagniappe is a great word
gocart mozart
Stuckinred Johnson is right!
Blow your harmonica, son!
More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/f/frank_zappa/#share
Bill Murray
MikeJ – July 22, 2011 | 10:46 am · Link
@wesindc: When did the Danes take over Oslo?
1536-1814, after the fall of the Kalmar Union
DFH no.6
Citizen_X @ 9, re: “haboobs” in AZ,
Not really much outrage in these parts that I’ve noticed at the use of Islamofascist term “haboob” to describe the recent dust storms.
Just the typical Abe Simpson types yelling at clouds (literally, in this case). Fuckers gotta complain about something.
The local rightwing rag (The Arizona Republic) even had the term in large font on its front page. Proving, I suppose, to Teabag Nation around here that the paper really is part of the liberal media.
Have to say, it’s the first time in my 30 years here that I’ve ever heard the term “haboob” used for a phenomenon that occurs pretty regularly. Maybe someone used it here before, but I never heard it myself till last month’s monster that made the news. “Dust storm” has always been the common (and, truly, perfectly adequate and accurate) term used before.
I don’t care, we can call them “haboobs” instead from now on. Have to admit, it sounds somewhat humorous to us English-speakers (making it more fun to say than the pedestrian “dust storm”). And if it pisses off a few cranky rightwingers, all the better.
gocart mozart
DFH,are the haboobs more well-developed in Arizona. Do they bounce around from place to place? Please keep us abreast of the situation.