Archive for June, 2008

A new favorite quote from Robert F. Kennedy

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

A remarkable prediction:

“There is no question about it.  In the next 40 years a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother has.”

Robert F. Kennedy (stated in 1968, when Robert was Attorney General, and his brother John had been the President)

You can find my other favorite quotes at http://mathoda.com/quotes

A car with a flexible skin

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

BMW has built a concept car that has a flexible skin over a skeletal structure. This allows the car to transform and appear more like an animal with expressive emotions than an inanimate object.

Youtube link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kTYiEkQYhWY

When will blogs start presenting data using interactive visuals alongside their stories?

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

The New York Times does a great job presenting interactive visual displays of data alongside the newspaper’s stories. For a story profiling Tiger Wood’s golf game, here’s the interactive display of how Tiger Woods wins majors. For a story on inflation here’s the interactive display showing how Americans spend their money and how that’s effected by inflation.

As Hans Rosling has shown, the proper visual presentation of facts can be illuminating, reforming opinions in a way that pure text often can’t do.

When will websites beyond the NY Times obtain and start to use such capabilities? It may be that displays like this only make sense when the effort put into making the data presentable is sure to reach a very broad audience, but some blogs are already reaching very large audiences.  Here’s hoping more websites develop such capabilities.