This right here is why I refuse to partake in this crap; the game is fucking RIGGED against them.
I don’t have to play, and neither do you. pic.twitter.com/Ypq6li5rJw
— Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) September 28, 2017
It doesn’t matter what you do; it will never be enough.
Edward Tufte’s first text, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, introduced standards for graphical representation. It is considered the definitive guide for visual display of complex data.
Visualization of Edward Tufte visualizing data
I found this while surfing Flickr. Austin Kleon of Austin, Texas is the artist. The image represents the cognitive process by which Edward Tufte transformed raw data into digestible information while writing Envisioning Information, one of his many follow-on publications to Visual Display. It is a mind map.
IEEE Spectrum’s Innovation blog featured the topic of data visualization, profiling Edward Tufte as a practitioner. The emphasis was unusual for IEEE. “Tufte-isms” explores how Tufte’s ideas have influenced language:
Tufte, it turns out, is not only a doyen of data visualization but also a neologist par excellence. His most famous term might be chartjunk, which refers to chart elements that not only serve no purpose but may in fact hinder understanding. In Tuftese, when chartjunk takes a cartoonish form…the result is a chartoon.
PDF is a formal open standard, ISO 32000. It was invented by Adobe Systems 17 years ago.
PDF = Portable Document Format
History of the PDF by Adobe Systems
The image links to a pleasant interactive timeline of Adobe Systems and its role in the development of the PDF. The chronology is in Flash, and thankfully free of any video or audio. Read more about Adobe Systems role in the history of PDF file development.
PDF files are more versatile than I realized, and
Additional PDF file types exist, including PDF/A, PDF/E and U3D. All are supported by Adobe software. (more…)
Internet users by country in 2010
This is the first of five graphics in a series, State of the Internet 2010. All are hand-made graphics by Jose Duarte. He is exploring new and simple ways to represent information. With his handmade visualization tool-kit, he provides the technology to rapidly create any kind of graphics including
abstracts maps and diagrams, area graphs and charts, arrow diagrams, bar graphs, Venn diagrams, time line charts, bubble graphs, circle diagrams, proportional charts, organization charts, and really, whatever you want.
Do you want your own kit? Follow the link embedded above, and follow the instructions. It can be yours, free of charge, no-strings-attached. Just send an email to Jose Duarte as instructed in the text accompanying the “handmade visualization tool-kit” link.
Twitter influence is subtle and difficult to capture
Twitter influence ranges beyond measuring followers, @ replies and re-tweets. It isn’t trivial to calculate the true reach of an individual’s Twitter updates. Such are the challenges encountered in quantifying influence (perhaps even value) of Twitter users’ activity.
Actual percentage of Twitter content read
This chart shows the percentage of tweets read in relation to the number of people followed. As could be expected, the more people you follow, the smaller the percentage of tweets you actually read.
Both images, Twitter Influence EcoSystem and Percentage of Tweets Read are original work by John V Lane, via Flickr, and reproduced here under Creative Commons License/by-sa/2.0.
Enjoy Josh Duck’s delightful Periodic Table of HTML5 elements!
Each of the 104 107 elements of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) working draft of HTML5 are present. There is even a combined lanthanide-and-actinide series insert. Josh refers to it as the “Embedding content” section. I annotated a small partial screen shot.
Rare earth HTML5 elements
The dusty rose-colored block includes some of the most novel and appealing of the elements that differentiate HTML5 from HTML4: map, canvas and video.
Here is a chart of the evolution of early 20th Century modern art, as represented by Mr. Alfred H. Barr, Director of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), from 1929-43. It is an example of data visualization, art deco-styled, during a time when art deco was not retro, but very current. It is also unusual by virtue of its subject matter. This is not merely an aesthetically appealling graphical image. It is artful data visualizaton, whose subject matter is also art!
I would like to consider this more than an infographic, although I am admittedly on thin ice. However, this is a flow chart representing the evolution and associated taxonomy stucture used to categorize the inception of Modern Art as many of us think of it, as Cubism and Abstract schools developed after the post-Impressionism that ended around the time of World War I. It demonstrates how each independent style was a reaction to past style. Excerpts from Alfred H. Barr’s catalogue for the exhibition “Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1936”, see www.madamelamb.com for source data and further details of exhibit.
Are we losing the means to preserve an enduring research trail? The premise is that due to the multiple forms of communication between academics and developers, and a lack of digital preservation standards, the steps leading to past scientific discovery and technological innovation will be lost.
Why is this re-creation, even documentation, so important? First, for history of science and secondly, for innovators to be, coming through the pipeline. Not-yet-arrived scientists will want to study the development process. Sometimes what appears to be a flash of inspiration is preceded by months, or years, of reading, analysis or experiments. Documentation is important for understanding creative research design. Relatively easy access to successful examples from the past is a necessity.
The pace of innovation is wonderfully fast!
Representations like Alan Warburton‘s video, Format: A Brief History of Data Storage always makes me feel a frisson of delight, shiver of awe. It has great music too, Short Like Me by Beni (Kitsuné Maison).
Data deluge swamps science historians is an eyebrow-raising news story about the collected research materials of the world’s leading evolutionary biologist, William Hamilton, following his demise. This is more than a problem of information overload. When the British Library received Hamilton’s working papers, they were faced with assembling the contents of
It was enough to convince me that we need better digital preservation and archival standards.
Gift ideas if you're feeling generous?
Ellie Asks Why 