More data visualizations

[Phil Henshaw-2]

Great idea, and I've been intending to look further at that site but
am working late at the office this week.   I looked through five pages
of the data set list you suggested just now, though, and didn't find
any that measured change.   To draw out probing questions about
emergent systems you need to have a graphs of change, one or more time
series, using reliable measures, more or less regularly spaced, for a
substantial part of the beginning or ending of the system.  

Usually you don't pick the emergent system and then look for the data,
but the other way around, though either works.   What I seem best at
is picking out the patterns of complex moving fluctuations that are
usually read and ignored as random walks or noise.   I have a new
tool, counting the ratios of direction reversals under successive
light smoothing that seems quite promicing as an unbiased indicator.  
There are various examples on my 'physics of happening' page, and a
list of types of false positive indications near the top I'd be happy
to have people add to.

>
> Phil,
>
> You're always asking for datsets and the site Tom linked to is full
of them
> (http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/browse/data). How about
using
> your tools on one of them and then reporting back to the group? I'm
sure
> we'd all be happy to comment on the results once we had a concrete
example

> of the power of your tools.
>
> Robert
>
>
>
> On 1/24/07, Phil Henshaw <sy at synapse9.com> wrote:
> >
> > Fantastic stuff!    Wish I had some of those talents.
> >
> > But for the time related stuff people doing these kinds of things
> > should single out some of the things that have definate beginnings

and
> > ends (that's a real strong indicator of emergence) and put them
into
> > the context of their original and final developmental processes
> > (extending the window to their *whole* bump on the curve, even if
you
> > only have data for a part).  You can't always single them out, but
> > when you can it gives you a way to ask well directed questions that
> > make it easier to peer inside them to see what's happening.
> >
> > >
> > > Pardon the expression, but there seems to be a real "surge" in
> > infographics
> > > and visual statistics news in recent days.  This post on Tim
O'Reilly
> > > blog<http://radar.oreilly.com>(an increasingly informative site,
I
> > > find) points us to some interesting
> > > tools out of the IBM shop.  Be sure to check out the site
for "Many
> > Eyes."
> > > Impressive, and highly informative visualization of useful data.
> > >  IBM Wants Many Eyes on
> > > Visualization<<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/%">http://feeds.feedburner.com/%
7Er/oreilly/radar/atom/%

> > 7E3/80299451/ibm_wants_many.html>
> > > Posted: 23 Jan 2007 11:25 AM CST
> > > http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/01/ibm_wants_many.html
> > >
> > > By Tim O'Reilly
> > >
> > > IBM today announced Many
> > > Eyes<http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/home>,
> > > a site for sharing and commenting on visualizations. Martin
> > > Wattenberg<http://www.bewitched.com/research.html>,
> > > who developed the original version of the
> > > treemap<http://www.smartmoney.com/marketmap/>we use for our book
> > > market visualizations as well as the awesome baby
> > > name voyager

<http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html>,
> > and Fernanda
> > > Viegas <http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/fernanda.html>, who
> > worked with
> > > him on the equally awesome history flow visualizations of
> > >
Wikipedia<http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/>,
> > > are the geniuses behind this project.
> > >
> > > [image: Many Eyes home page]
> > > <http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/ManyEyeshome_page.html>
> > >
> > > As with swivel <http://www.swivel.com/>, users can upload any
data
> > set, but
> > > the tools for visualizing and graphing the data are much richer.
The
> > > visualization
> > >
> >
options<https://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/page/Visualization
> > _Options.html>include
> > > US and World maps, line graphs, stack graphs, bar charts, block
> > > histograms, bubble diagrams, scatter plots, network diagrams, pie
> > charts,
> > > and treemaps. The site isn't yet live, but should be very
shortly.
> > > Meanwhile, you can get a good sense of the types of graphs
available
> > by
> > > checking out the visualization
> > >
> >
gallery<http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/browse/visualizatio
> > ns>
> > > .
> > >
> > > I asked Martin and Fernanda how they compared themselves to
swivel,
> > and
> > > Fernanda replied:
> > >
> > > You also asked if we see our site as "Swivel for visualization".
> > That phrase
> > > isn't quite accurate (any more than Swivel is "Many Eyes for
data" ;-
> > ). Both
> > > our site and Swivel are examples of a broader phenomenon, which
we
> > call
> > > "social data analysis," where playful, social exploration of data
> > leads to
> > > serious analysis. At the same time the two sites fall on
different
> > ends of a
> > > spectrum. Swivel seems to have some neat data mining technology
that
> > finds
> > > correlations automatically. By contrast, we've placed our
emphasis

> > on the
> > > power of human visual intelligence to find patterns. My guess is
> > that both
> > > approaches will be successful because social data analysis is a
> > powerful
> > > idea.
> > >
> > > Martin added:
> > >
> > > In Many Eyes our goal is to "democratize" visualization by

offering
> > it as a
> > > simple service. We also think that there's something special
about
> > > visualizations that gets people talking, so we placed a big
emphasis
> > in
> > > design and technology to let people have conversations around the
> > > visualizations.
> > >
> > > Personally, I'd love to see swivel and manyeyes working
together, as
> > swivel
> > > already has some great data sets, but has only a limited number
of
> > graphing
> > > tools. But that's an exercise for the future. For now, data wonks
> > can just
> > > rejoice that both sites exist, and should start exploring, and as
> > Martin
> > > says, conversing about what they find. I love both of these
sites.

> > >
> > > -- tj
> > >
> > > ==========================================
> > > J. T. Johnson
> > > Institute for Analytic Journalism -- Santa Fe, NM USA
> > > www.analyticjournalism.com
> > > 505.577.6482(c)                                 505.473.9646(h)
> > > http://www.jtjohnson.com                 tom at jtjohnson.us
> > >
> > > "You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
> > > To change something, build a new model that makes the
> > > existing model obsolete."
> > >                                                    -- Buckminster
> > Fuller
> > > ==========================================
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > tel: [phone]
> > e-mail: sy at synapse9.com
> > explorations: www.synapse9.com
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
> >
>
>

--
Phil Henshaw                       ????.?? ? `?.????
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~        
tel: [phone]                
e-mail: sy at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com