May 18, 2008
NNDB maps relationships between the famous
NNDB (via information aesthetics) calls itself an "intelligence aggregator" tracking activities and relationships of over 32,000 notable people, both living and dead. The database includes a wide range of people from government, corporate boards, television, sports teams, and other organizations. NNDB Mapper is an intriguing visualization tool for illustrating relationships between people. You can also see how organizations might be aligned where people within those groups have connections, multiple roles or historical context.
When first looking at it, I found it hard to see interesting patterns merely by browsing, but they provide a nice video which explains their techniques for setting up a good map and pruning out the irrelevant parts. I still find that you need to come to this kind of site with a question you would like to answer. There are stories behind the data.
It would be cool if this site offered APIs so that the data would be accessible from other projects.
May 11, 2008
October 23, 2007
visualizing time
It is wonderful to see so many personal visualizations of time. It reminds me of the first grade science class when I asked the students to define "time" as an introduction to stop-motion animation. Those first graders sought fairly literal definitions, I wonder what their responses would have been like if asked to draw time.
I didn't take the time to submit anything to this website, but I enjoyed the following abstract representations of time.
"Time to me starts off going extremely slow, days are longer, months and years seem to drag on forever. But once you hit college and start developing a more sophisticated way of life, there is never enough time. Before you know it, you are old, gray and wrinkly."
Personally, as time goes on I feel like the present moment is more expansive, yet fleeting -- more like this next one:
"This is the way I view the passing of time. Many things happen and then time keeps pushing forward adding new events and memories. The newer events seem to take up more space than the old because we "weed" out what we don't really need to remember in order to save space for the new; yet, we never forget the old."
(via information aesthetics)
October 5, 2007
wireframe (really)
Wonder Woman, Your Car Is Ready…
fabulous pictures of a full-scale model of a Subaru Impreza in a real-world settings. This is a literal wireframe. I love when art imitates technology... when art make you look at tired ideas in a new way. I wish I could see this in real life and not just photos. I wonder if it is just as mind-bending or more so.
Below a real scale model of a Toyota Corolla creating using physical wire by artist Benedict Radcliffe. I
more pics here
September 2, 2007
analog video effects
Back in the day when I used to invent video effects, I sometimes looked to the real world (or a chemically transformed view of that world). This video reminds me of the days when we debated whether the "jungle fever" effect would be possible with After Effects 1.0, where once scene blended into the next by splicing in ever longer bits of film and how to make time and sound first class notions.
Ok, maybe there's a loose connection here, but check it out and let me know what this interesting art-imitating-art dramatization reminds you of...
"Grip is a one take, top shot videoclip with professional trampoline gymnasts simulating typical video effects. The video has been recorded live as part of the opening 'Nederclips' at the Stedelijk museum 'S-Hertogenbosch SM'S (curated by Bart Rutten)." (YouTube)
July 31, 2007
San Francisco rent
Ethan Garner has been collecting data on rents in San Francisco based on craigslist postings since Aug 2006. Based on this data, he has created a lovely visualization of where the rental market is hot (via information aesthetics).
Garner claims to have created this project out of boredom, while a grad student in biochemistry at UCSF. I don't believe it. He's clearly got a passion for coding, and with the vast amount data out here on the internet easily mined or already collected, this guy will never be bored.
July 29, 2007
visualization of word frequency
The Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Maryland, presents an interesting OpenLaszlo application for analyzing word frequency in a document (via David Temkin).
click to interact with FeatureLens
It took a bit of poking around to figure out where to start and what to do with this app. (You want to click the "load" button in the upper right.) I explored the "State of the Union" a bit...
Initially, we can see the frequency of words in the speech:
I also looked at words which decrease in frequency throughout the document. By selecting "budget" you can see a graph of how often that word is used through the course of the speech:
In looking at words that increase in frequency, we can see that "Iraq" is discussed more toward the end of the speech:
The selection of trends in the distribution of pattern frequencies allows collecting meaningful pieces of information about the text. FeatureLens is a “provocational” tool as it gives rise to new questions and hypotheses, as well as insights about the text.
July 3, 2007
Simpsons' power of ten
Best Simpson's couch gag ever (via infosthetics) This is a very cool cartoon rendition of the original 1977 powers of ten documentary.
And here's another one that I hadn't seen before, narrated by Morgan Freeman:
April 5, 2007
housing prices roller coaster
Cool data visualization (from Scott Evans who calls it via email "surprisingly great"). I had to watch it twice, since it took me a while to notice the years which fade in and out in the lower-right. I would love to see landmarks on the ride for historical events that may have precipitated sudden drops or increases in housing prices -- could be a neat way to learn history! Whether or not it has practical value, I found this simply wonderful:
February 15, 2004
26 countries
It seems that I've visited 26 countries (11%), but who's counting? This fun visualization of my travels found via confusedkid
create your own visited country map or check our Venice travel guide create your own visited country map or write about it on the open travel guide