USA report - More than 1 of 10 is starving

Feeding America reports that the number of people that receivs food support during 2009 is now more than 37million of their population of the 310 million. The increase is nearly 50% in just 5 years time. (source: DN)

Few of those can afford a private medical health plan and less likely to make pension savings. Food and house (Morgages) are the two primary priorities (Maslow). There is a tipping point but I hope the 50% increase is not a early warning sign.

If a major natural disaster - like an earth quake in the Bay area - would strike, the Stockmarket would collaps. The hungry, and social security needy would increase dramatically. In contrast to many other countries, the social security sector rests heavily on Private organisations. Social security can be said to be, not a legal obligation/institution but a free choice*.

Americas debt in now mainly owned by China. They are worried about the state of USA, and are bound to ask USA to take necessary measures to stabalize their country. They are not yet ready to take up the butan as the World leader. They need all power/focus on their domestic events.

Paradigm shifts have happen previously in the history of man kind - often followed by great movement, instability and realignments. I can look at it from trade and ideas as rejuvenating. I can look at from values/ideology and legality, with fear. Especially since IT is a powerful tool in the hands of law enforcers. History has shown us that it takes very few people to control many.

* The free choice selection process is intresting. We get more choices and are required to take spend more time to select. Now if the selection process could be automated, it would free our time. For instance, when I select energy supplier it is now based on a number of simple criterias, and done automatically and instantanious (elskling.se). Same thing when it comes to selecting internet service supplier etc.

The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures

"Hello, old friends. I am back from dark months of data mining, here now to present my ores. To write this piece, we cataloged over 7,000 photographs on OkCupid.com, analyzing three primary things:

• Facial Attitude. Is the person smiling? Staring straight ahead? Doing that flirty lip-pursing thing?
• Photo Context. Is there alcohol? Is there a pet? Is the photo outdoors? Is it in a bedroom?
• Skin. How much skin is the person showing? How much face? How much breasts? How much ripped abs?

In looking closely at the astonishingly wide variety of ways our users have chosen to represent themselves, we discovered much of the collective wisdom about profile pictures was wrong. For interested readers, I explain our measurement process, and how we collected our data, at the end of the post. All my bar charts are zeroed on the average picture. Now to the data."

Read more: The 4 Myths

Copy from blog.okcupid.com

Personal 3D Food Printer - MIT-media lab

Cornucopia is a concept design for a personal food factory that brings the versatility of the digital world to the realm of cooking. In essence, it is a three dimensional printer for food, which works by storing, precisely mixing, depositing and cooking layers of ingredients.

Cornucopia's cooking process starts with an array of food canisters, which refrigerate and store a user's favorite ingredients. These are piped into a mixer and extruder head that can accurately deposit elaborate combinations of food. While the deposition takes place, the food is heated or cooled by Cornucopia's chamber or the heating and cooling tubes located on the printing head. This fabrication process not only allows for the creation of flavors and textures that would be completely unimaginable through other cooking techniques, but it also allows the user to have ultimate control over the origin, quality, nutritional value and taste of every meal.

This project is currently starting, at MIT-media lab.

Other interesting projects: electronic popables

Target Point - Chart wars & What is rich income?

A great, short talk by TargetPoint's VP and Director of Research, Alex Lundry, at DC Ignite. He addresses the issues of subjective messaging through visualization, the emergence of open data, some ideal data visualization tools, a set of quick lessons in graphic literacy, and a short list of recommended visualization books, all within the time span of 5 minutes.

Watch the movie below.

Copy from: Information aesteatics

"What is rich income"

- Another interesting article fromTarget point -

The most frequent response, the mode, was $100,000. The median response was $250,000 – that is, half of the country gave an answer above $250K and half were below. The mean is too heavily influenced by extreme values and is a correspondingly inefficient measure of the midpoint. We can also estimate a nationwide consensus at the 75th percentile, where ¾ of the country defines rich below the $500,000 mark.



Still despite the fact that all demographic effects are subsumed by income, we can’t help but point to a number of interesting and fun significant differences in the crosstabs. For instance:

• GENDER: men’s median response is $250k, while women’s is 200k.
• IDEOLOGY: conservatives have a higher “rich” threshold, $250k, than liberals, $200k, and moderates line up with conservatives with a median response of $250k.
• 2008 VOTE: mirroring ideology, “rich” to a McCain voter means an annual income of $250k (median), while an Obama voter sets the bar at $200k.

Finally, it’s important to put these numbers into their proper perspective: median annual household income in the United States is about $44,389 (from 2005 Census Bureau data); if we were to arbitrarily define the rich as the top 20% of household incomes the lower limit would be $88,030 a far cry from our survey’s median of $250,000. Even the top 5% of household incomes begin at $157,176, nearly $100,000 short of our survey’s median response.

Copy from: Target Point

Knol - Ethics theory

An Introduction the Ethical Reasoning

This knol provides an introductory overview of ethical reasoning as a foundation for professional ethics. It presents some of the philosophical background to ethical thought and attempts to answer the question - "How can we know the difference between right and wrong?".

While the knol is aimed primarily at students in higher education and young IT professionals , it is equally relevant to other disciplines and professions.

Contents

• How Can We Know the Difference Between Right and Wrong?
• The Golden Rule
• The Utility Principle
• An Important Philosophical Distinction
• Discussion
• Bibliography

We all have a sense right and wrong - or good and bad. There are things that we feel we (or others) ought to do, and other things that we feel we (or others) ought not to do. Ethics is the study of how we distinguish between these alternatives.

This knol is intended to familiarise students and young professionals with the basic concepts of ethics and ethical reasoning in order to equip them for the responsibilities that accompany professional status.

Read more...

Other interesting links:
* Knol
* "How to Use the Harvard Style of Referencing"
* Gold
* "Laying a house foundation"
* ...

Northern Europeans are Uniquely Depigmented

Interesting article:
"White," of course, is a a social designation. The question really is, "Why are northern Europeans depigmented?" Here is a map of human skin tone. The natives of northern Europe are oddly light-skinned. They are paler than anyone else on earth.

Read more

Public statistics

Not sorted

Now debated

2012 End of the World: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/2012-the-end-of-the-world/
N1H1 Vaccine: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/is-the-h1n1-swine-flu-vaccine-safe/
Fatal infections: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/fatal-infection/

Disasters
Nuclears to destroy the world: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/how-i-learnt-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb/
The drug world: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/drugs-world/
Drugs: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jun/24/drugs-trade-drugsCalories&Coffein: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/caffeine-vs-calories/#comment
Refugees: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jun/16/refugees
Right-Left parties: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/leftvright_world.html

Social web: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/who-rules-the-social-web/

Standard of living
Salaries in UK: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/17/public-sector-pay-uk-data
Public persons: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/17/public-sector-pay-uk-data
Best country for children: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/20/children-unicef-report-2009-afghanistan
Child poverty: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/sep/11/child-poverty-statistics-uk-countries
World corruption: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/17/corruption-index-transparency-international
Expensive cities: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jul/07/global-economy-economics
Government debt: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/mar/01/government-borrowing-economy

US debt: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/mar/13/useconomy-china

Environment
Kyoto treaty: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/kyoto-whos-on-target/

Carbon emisson per person: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/carbon-emissions-per-person-capita
Atmospheric CO2 concentration: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-concentration-emissions-climate
Peak oil: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/nov/13/peak-oil-iea-uppsalaMeat consumption: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/meat-consumption-per-capita-climate-change
Bottled water: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/bottled-water-consumption-region
Ozon hole: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/size-ozone-hole-layer
Total energy use: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/datablog/2009/sep/02/energy-use-demand-efficiency-fossil-fuels

Human

World population growth: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/2009/sep/02/world-population-growth-resources-control
Elderly: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jul/20/population-older-people
People living in cities: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/aug/18/percentage-population-living-cities
Sprint speed: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/aug/17/usain-bolt-100-metres
Evolution: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jul/01/evolution

Visualisations
Visualisation tools: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jun/15/google-ibm

The sweet spot: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/interesting-easy-beautiful-true/
Other: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/great-visualizers-michael-paukner/

Nice background music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji7jn4z2wTQ

Mapping the Human ‘Diseasome’

Researchers created a map linking different diseases, represented by circles, to the genes they have in common, represented by squares.

'Secret Agent', the 24th CGChallenge

The mission for 'Secret Agent', the 24th CGChallenge, was to depict characters and events involving espionage, gadgets, guns and evil geniuses, via a still image or video. The field of almost 1,200 undercover artists who took up the challenge did not disappoint.

"Entrants once again astounded us with the quality and breadth of styles of their work. The CGChallenges offer a chart for the evolving excellence, imagination and capability of today's digital artists to produce world class entertainment and art.

Next, the Winners

Don't miss the Videos: Video1, Video2, Video3

Harnessing Waste Heat

ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2009) — In everything from computer processor chips to car engines to electric powerplants, the need to get rid of excess heat creates a major source of inefficiency. But new research points the way to a technology that might make it possible to harvest much of that wasted heat and turn it into usable electricity.

How different groups spend their day

Sleeping, eating, working and watching television take up about two-thirds of the average day.

Link

Ôr'ganik constructions

Interesting details when you zoom in.
Presentation Movie

Eurovision Song Contest - visualized statistics

Here is the Eurovision Song Contest statistics from 1994-2008, visualized. It's in Norwegian but it gives some good insights to neighbour voting, or not?

Trackmania

It's old but still fun to show



More: 1
Official page

Portable computer 2.0 - 6th sense

This demo, from the Fluid Interfaces Lab of Pattie Maes at MIT, and spearheaded by PhD student Pranav Mistry, was the buzz of TED. SixthSense [pranavmistry.com] is a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. The innovative device allows to literally overlay everyday objects with real-time visualizations, in order to inform users about normally invisible information relevant to the objects in view. Imagine ingredient pie charts beamed on top of apple pies. Imagine Facebook comments projected on people's foreheads.

Source: Information Aesthetics

Create your own music - Dub FX

Dub FX, is a beatbox artist who street performs all over Europe. Watching him construct one of his multilayered compositions is impressive—he throws some pitch-shifted bass underneath ethereal treble highlights and solid hip-hop vocals:

Here are some more samples, 2, and just Mr Woodnote.

Roam Bi - from Xcelsius

RoamBi transform your existing data from a variety of sources into state-of-the-art, interactive visualizations for the iPhone. Explore and analyze your data with the ease of playing a video game and the power of an enterprise reporting tool.

And for now, It's Free to Try.

Just register, then use RoamBi.com to start turning your own data into dynamic visualizations for the iPhone.

Santiago Becerra behind RoamBi also started Xcelsius (another software I have written about). Buy Xcelsius

If you have time please check out Antivia, mentioned as Bi 2.0. I think it too early but it's a step in the right direction. , i

Source: Information Aesthetics

Why do we organize?

Probably genetically related. Which in turn relates to human values rather than a coincidence.

Source of picture: Donation Coder

TED - spreading ideas

"TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.

The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 100 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted."

TED mission: Spreading ideas.

Here are some talks that I found both interesting and fun:
John Doerr, Ken Robinsson, Richard Dawkins, Hans Rosling,2, Tony Robbinsson, Jill Bolte Taylor, William McDonough, Robert Full, A.J. Jacobs, Robert Ballard, Jay Walker, Juan Enriquez, Shai Agassi
For the best talks, select the most discussed or e-mailed talks.


New visual interface

Since I still find TED very interesting, I bump the post (From July 2007 to 2009 March).

World Builder

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Quite interesting
"The movie above entitled 'World Builder by filmmaker Bruce Branit. World Builder was shot in a single day followed by about 2 years of post production. We really like it, its not often you get a story weaved around the creation of 3D worlds."

Source: Digital Urban