Where to Find Open Data on the Web
2010-02-09 15:48:17 - by Nicolas Malevé

Sarah Perez lists "pretty good data sources that are already available" on readwriteweb.com

Replicating the Montage function

Through which, I had the pleasure of discovering the Datawrangling’s blog, itself full of resources.

What’s in a postcode?
2009-02-18 10:15:51 - by Nicolas Malevé

From Wikipedia:

«ACORN (acronym for A Classification Of Residential Neighbourhoods) is a geodemographic information system categorising all United Kingdom postcodes into various types based upon census data and other information such as lifestyle surveys. It was developed by Richard Webber of CACI Limited, who also developed the competing MOSAIC system, and is sold to businesses, health and local authorities typically for marketing and planning purposes.»

A collage that glues together the top (Wealthy Achievers) and bottom (Hard Pressed) categories of the ACORN classification.

Bruxelles Social
2008-08-18 13:01:00 - by Pierre Huyghebaert

Le site Bruxelles Social offre la visualisation sur cartes de nombre d’acteurs sociaux à Bruxelles, avec une base de données très riche allant des structures d’hébergement jusqu’au agences de logements par exemple. Basé sur Urbis et développé par le CIRB, la navigation requiert -pour l’instant- l’utilisation de trois fenêtres : requête, carte et fiche détaillée.

software commit visualisations
2008-07-22 11:02:46 - by Nicolas Malevé

Codeswarm by Michael Ogawa.

«This visualization, called code_swarm, shows the history of commits in a software project. A commit happens when a developer makes changes to the code or documents and transfers them into the central project repository. Both developers and files are represented as moving elements. When a developer commits a file, it lights up and flies towards that developer. Files are colored according to their purpose, such as whether they are source code or a document. If files or developers have not been active for a while, they will fade away. A histogram at the bottom keeps a reminder of what has come before.»

http://vis.cs.ucdavis.edu/ ogawa/codeswarm/

The code:

http://code.google.com/p/codeswarm/
http://code.google.com/p/codeswarm/wiki/GeneratingAVideo

It is worth looking also to the VIDI group of which Ogawa is a member.

http://vidi.cs.ucdavis.edu/publications
http://vis.cs.ucdavis.edu/...treemaplayout-final.pdf

Thanks Wendy for the info.

Gli esclusi
2008-02-22 13:22:57 - by Nicolas Malevé

«Decisions are normally taken from the high, by a minority of players, leaving out those more related to the territory. How we can get them in? Through four steps: awakening, aggregating, activating, complaining»

Gli exclusi is a map/diagram created by density design to illustrate a scenario to organise citizens response to the Italian National Action Plan.

Read more about this map (and many more )on the density design’s website.

Future Map
2008-02-11 17:21:09 - by Nicolas Malevé

From the text Future Map, by Brian Holmes

"The trading function are overlaid on a map of the Middle East, like windows of geopolitical opportunity. This interface, and the lure of profit it offered, would be the electrodes attached to the precognitive lobes of the investors. If they produced striking images, then preemptive policies would follow."

"The PAM trading interface is literally a “future map.” It is also a perfect example of what Foucault calls a “security device,” and it offers precise insight into the dynamics of surveillance under cybernetic capitalism. It is not a police program, but a market instituted in such a way as to precisely condition the free behavior of its participants. It produces information, while turning human actors into functional relays, or indeed, into servomechanisms; and it “consumes freedom” for a purpose. Like all security devices, it serves two functions. One is to optimize economic development: in this case, the development of financial speculation. But the other function is to produce information that will help to eliminate deviant behavior, of the kind that can’t be brought into line with any “normal” curve. This is the double teleology of closed-loop information systems in cybercapitalism. The map of the future is always a promised land to come. But there are always a few enemy targets on the way to get there. The question is, do you hold the gun? Do you just watch as the others take aim? Or do you try to dodge the magic bullet?"

Read the essay

Downtown Los Angeles Homeless Map
2007-11-05 18:59:03 - by Nicolas Malevé

The Los Angeles Homeless Map, by the people of Cartifact.

“The purpose of the downtown Los Angeles Homeless Map is to visually tell the story of downtown’s homeless population. Before a problem can be solved it must be understood. These maps exist to convey the situation on the streets to City leaders, the Police Department and all those who are concerned with homelessness in our city.”

Visually efficient and the map-making process is documented here.

The product space and the wealth of nations
2007-10-06 22:17:21 - by Nicolas Malevé

The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations, a paper by C. A. Hidalgo. R. B. Klinger, A.-L. Barabasi, R. Hausmann is reviewed by Tim Harford from the Slate Magazine.

In his review, the journalist writes:

There are many explanations [ why poor countries are poor], but some are easier to test than others. One very plausible account of why at least some poor countries are poor is that there is no smooth progression from where they are to where they would be when rich. For instance, to move from drilling oil to making silicon chips might require simultaneous investments in education, transport infrastructure, electricity, and many other things. The gap may be too far for private enterprise to bridge without some sort of coordinating effort from government—a "big push."

The scientists are willing to test out this hypothesis and therefore have to measure what they call the proximity between two products.

The concept of proximity formalizes the intuitive idea that the ability of a country to produce a product depends on its ability to produce other ones. For example, a country with the ability to export apples will probably have most of the conditions suitable to export pears. They would certainly have the soil and the climate, together with the appropriate packing technologies, frigorific trucks and containers. They would also have the human capital, particularly the agronomists that could easily learn the pear business. However, when we consider a different business such as mining, textiles or appliance manufacture, all or most of the capabilities developed for the apple business render useless. Unfortunately this intuitive definition of proximity is, very cumbersome to measure. It requires quantifying the overlap between the set of markets related to each product. Thus, we measure proximity by using an outcome based method founded on the assumption that similar products are more likely to be exported in tandem.

The result of their analysis take the form of a map that gives a synthetic overview of their research. More interesting than the end result itself, is the documented process of creating this image on a website that complements the paper.

For a discussion about the content of the analysis itself, refer to the forum of the French translation of the article on the website Rue89

Thanks Didier!