Comments on: Data ain’t just for geeks anymore

By: Crooked Timber » » 129 Wallace

Crooked Timber » » 129 Wallace — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:21:37 +0000

[...] Crooked Timber « Data ain’t just for geeks anymore | Main | Smarter anti-piracy? » [...]

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:17:37 +0000

Cool. Assuming you can do graphs with x, y and z axes, does this mean you could create 5 dimensional graphs using time and colour?

By: Joshua W. Burton

Joshua W. Burton — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 12:03:27 +0000

The Cambodian and Rwandan genocides stand out shockingly when animated, on several axes. (One dot leaves the pack in a disturbing plummet, and you find yourself hovering over it, concerned. “Hey, what’s wrong with you, little fella…? Who is this, anyway—ohhh.“) But two “false positives” also stand out, namely the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the liberation of southern Africa (SA, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe). Both of the latter look almost indistinguishable from genocides by the blind financial and health measures we are graphing, which nicely underlines that statistics illuminate, but cannot replace, more qualitative historical analysis. It’s a pity Iraq isn’t in the dataset.

There are all sorts of little entertainments hiding in the data, too. Cheering Ireland on as it surges past the UK, for example, or watching Mexico rapidly catch up to its northern neighbors.

By: Eszter

Eszter — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:39:57 +0000

Be sure to check out the links in the update above. Scary, even more options!

By: vivian

vivian — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 02:51:38 +0000

Wow, cool. Must force self to sleep now, play later. ugh.

By: Maynard Handley

Maynard Handley — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:23:53 +0000

I’ll once again plug this video
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7996617766640098677
which has the leader of the gapminder team explaining the project.

(Sadly it’s hosted by google video which has totally jumped the shark when it comes to handling videos longer than about 5 minutes. Good luck playing it or downloading it without something going wrong every five minutes.)

By: Bill Gardner

Bill Gardner — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:14:26 +0000

Very nicely done, Eszter.

By: Eszter

Eszter — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:53:31 +0000

Yes, I realize it’s not new, but I hadn’t seen it before, which probably means that many others hadn’t either so I thought it was worth a note. (I’m not suggesting you were claiming otherwise.:)

What a great tool for teaching purposes. While I realize that a certain level of appreciation for this tool may require one to be a geek, the point of the post’s title was to signal that in a presentation lots of students (or whatever audience) could get into and understand the material much better than trying to convey the information in other ways. It makes material really accessible. Of course, it’s still important that one use it with care.

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 23:42:55 +0000

Gapminder’s stuff came out of a WHO-funded project at the Karolinska Institut. They’ve had various betas available on the web for some years – it was interesting to watch it grow in scope and flexibility (and I hope it’s development is not finished yet).

Congrats to the WHO for realising there is a real public good aspect to accessible data analysis and doing something about it.