election 2008

Stunning visualization of red and blue states

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

A colleague sent me this link from an NPR Science Friday story. It’s a story based on the voting pattern as seen through cartograms -maps that have been ‘density equalized’ by Michael Gastner and Mark Newman at the University of Michigan.

Being in the business of scientific visualization at the Decision Theater it’s fascinating to see science take a crack at politics, and why the red-state, blue-state concept trivializes the voting pattern.

The TV news networks, of course love the red-blue metaphor. We saw CNN‘s use of the ‘magic wall’ which was a recent creation by a company called Perceptive Pixel (it  sold similar walls to ABC and Fox).  MSNBC set up a 3D studio for some similar visual treats. CNN even played with teleporting, having the anchor interview a hologram, pushing visualization up several notches.

But NPR’s story is a great way to do a visual post-mortem of how the country voted. While holograms are just eye-candy, cartograms give a better picture of what happened. Gastner, by the way, lets you use his cartogram code, here, where there are more maps of the voting pattern. Talk about seeing things diffferently!

Hot, Flat and … intolerant (and why it’s going to change)

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Yesterday we had a book discussion on Thomas Friedman‘s Hot, Flat and Crowded.  There was a good cross section of people, and I truly enjoyed the student perspective on the key things Friedman diagnoses as the problems in the US (isolationism, infrastructure and nation building) we need to fix.

What timing! This was first of 4 sessions here at the Decision Theater, a place where we look at alternative  scenarios and sustainable futures.

The dominant metaphor in the book is the US consulate in Istanbul that was built so secure, it’s a place where “birds don’t fly.”

Having covered the technology space for awhile, this isolationist metaphor seems at odds with what’s going on in the US with regard to collaboration and connectivity. We build open source platforms for business, gaming, virtual worlds and education. We invented wikis and blogs and send the opposite message outside our borders. Obviously we are not singing from the same song sheet, –as this T-shirt at a rally reflects. (Guess who’s rally that might be?)

As we saw last night, hot, flat and intolerant is a losing proposition.

Don’t vote for these guys

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

As I made my short list of whom to vote for in my district & county, I struck out a few people for the simple reason that they have come off so negative. I get it. Negative ads move the needle a bit, but not where I come from.

There were a few other marketing-related reasons as well why I thought they don’t need to be in charge of things.

  • They use some very, very old, unverified databases – I get mailers to three versions of my name. I have two words for them: database cleansing.
  • They present half-truths (as verified here) that assume the voter is dumb, and that we only get our information from their 9″ x 6″ flyers.
  • They kill a lot of trees to get their message (fiscal conservativism, responsible stewards yada yada).
  • They use the same format, same size, possibly the same print company. Did they not get the memo: one size fits nobody? The guy who sent us hand-addressed “letters” from his wife? Oh, come on!
  • They have no clue about variable-data printing. If they need to ask what this is, their campaign staff don’t need my tax money.