- The NYT visually represents word usage at the Democractic & Republican conventions. Hmm, the Dems must really want "four more years" of this "Bush" character… [Via Ken Lawson]
- DIY 411: MIT’s Mycrocosm is "a Web site that makes it possible for people to use statistical graphs and other visual language tools for expressive social communication. In particular it provides an alternative to purely text based micro-blogging software." [Via]
- Reader "PW" (presumably not PW Herman) points out Pratt’s interesting mechanism for navigating classes & faculty.
- Mission Creep illustrates US troop presence worldwide by country over the last half century. [Via]
- Slate’s got a short history of information visualizations. It’s good to be reminded of beautiful work like Ben Fry’s Genome Valence (video). [Via]
- It’s not an infographic per se, but it riffs nicely on their familiar shapes: Sony’s new Walkman ads play with the forms of famous subway maps. Zooming in on the Sydney piece, you can see that station names have been replaced by bands.
The actual word usage thing is interesting but a bit skewed. Eg. Palin is listed as only saying ‘Opponent’s name’ once, yet who can’t recall the ‘community organizer’ zinger, ‘talking differently to people in Scranton vs. S.F.’ and the ‘styrofoam Greek columns being shipped back to the studios’ points all aimed at the Opponent. [Note I also didn’t mention the name but anyone paying attention knows of whom I speak.]
If you liked these infographic demonstrations, you will love Hans Roslings TED Talks from 2006 and 2007.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/hans_rosling.html