One Plus One Equals Three

Korean Graphical Approval Rating

The above graphical approval rating system was spotted on Daum, Korea's MSN-style portal. Site visitors rank the page content via these icons. From left to right:

– I like it!
- I really, really like it! In fact I'm almost wetting my pants! Oops...
– I'm losing my cool! I really don't like it!!
– Ohhhh... I told you I didn't like it...
– Now I'm really upset... why don't you listen to me?
– I don't get mad, but I'm about to get even!
– Sigh... no-one values my opinion. And Wednesday is 'broccoli day' at the cafeteria...
– I will now spew bile in your general direction. This is what our web-relationship has come to.
– Time to go 'stoneface'.
– Enough is enough! This is a virtual jab to your solar plexus!
– Missile bunker no.1.
– Missile bunker no.2.
– Missile bunker no. 3 (don't push me... my finger... is on... the button).

Whilst you're at the site, make sure you check out the extremely cute 'Bambino' USB drives and their warm'n cosy USB drive covers. Warm data does work better. Thanks Honie.

Contemporary Constellations

Jonathan Harris unveils another in a long line of data visualisations with Universe (which was unveiled at the recent TED conference). "Universe was inspired by questions like: if we could draw new constellations in our night sky today, what would those be? What are our great stories? What are our great journeys? Who are our heroes and heroines? Who are our Gods and Goddesses? What is our modern mythology? Universe tries to answer these questions through analysis of global media coverage, as construed by Daylife".

In the celestial interface of Universe, each of the myriad of stars form constellations and each of these constellations relates to a real-life counterpart sourced from online media coverage. The (very) open-ended nature of the interface is terrific – just jump in, hunt for a topic of interest and explore the many connections and linkages that emerge – and the aesthetics of Universe are really something too. Harris has devised a typeface where the letterforms are created by a constellation of stars that glimmer against the night sky. Navigating through the interface as it expands, contracts, changes colour (and twinkles) and forms new celestial connections is pleasantly rewarding. It's really 'nice' to use: immersive, engaging and fun.

Clever – as usual, Mr Harris – and bonus points for the animated constellation typeface.

Other works by Jonathan Harris I've blogged are here.
And I should mention the site wouldn't work for me on an Intel Mac. Older Macs – no problem.

Installation Situation

Our studio's new Fuji Xerox printer works a treat. Finding identical twins to install it was a tad difficult though.

Mapped

+ A trace animation showing two days of courier activity in London. Via O'Reilly Radar.

+ The map of Early Modern London. Via Coudal.

+ Where was that photo taken? Geotagging your photos in Flickr. Over 1.5 million now geotagged. Via Design Detector. You want to search for 'photos of food in Southern Asia'? Glad you asked. Look here. Search more here.

Breathing Earth

Breathing Earth is an impressive data visualisation designed by David Bleja, a Multimedia Design student at Melbourne's Monash University.

This data-vis displays "the impact different countries have on climate change". Created with data from The World Factbook and the UN, this Flash-based piece is both well thought-through and visually appealling. Let Breathing Earth run in your browser for the day and note the simulated number of births, deaths and carbon dioxide emissions that accumulate across the globe. If the latter figure wasn't so appalling, this would almost be fun. Via Information Aesthetics.

If the data was organised per capita – guess who well may be at the top of the heap? Australia.

Spam, Inglorious Spam

Just for the record, I'm a healthy human specimen of the male gender. I really don't need any additional chemical substances or apparatus to enhance aspects either of my person or to intensify intimate activities I may indulge in. I don't invest in oil or gold nor do I currently conduct my banking with financial institutions that originate in various African countries. I do not participate in Spanish lotteries and am therefore quite sure I have not won the million dollars that many and various kind people insist on depositing in my bank account should I happily supply them with my banking details.

I recently had to change my ISP to stop the recent flood of Spanish junk mail that flooded my inbox each morning. I don't speak Spanish (have a hard enough time with English) and thought I had filtered, blocked and otherwise blockaded the nefarious spam that infiltrates and permeates our digitally-networked world. I just couldn't stop this spam – in fact my (old) ISP couldn't even block it at all. I was advised not to use my email address!

For most people, spam is the scourge of our lives. Junked, trashed, deleted (hell, I'd burn it if I could) – it is the bane of the 'Net. However, some people relish it, savour it, save it and make very interesting data-based art and visual communications out of it. People like Alex Dragulescu.

Info-graphics: Thanks for the Explanation

If you, like me, have been trying to make sense of the complexity of international relations in the Middle East in the light of the present conflict, and have found the going difficult – because there's alot of conflict between the various nations and religions over there – info-graphics come to the rescue.

A good info-graphic is worth several thousand words and tells viewers at a glance the basics behind who/when/why/how. Information Aesthetics has been compiling some interesting examples. Here too.

3,694 Universal Persons in Peril

The ubiquitous Mr (and sometimes Mrs) Universal Person guides us through many basic mundane everyday tasks. Demonstrations of where to cross the road, which toilet to use and when and how to pick up after your dog being some examples of his innate good naturedness. Occasionally Universal Persons put themselves at risk to alert us to the threat of imminent danger. Here are 3,694* examples of outstanding, danger-alerting Universal Person bravery (or stupidity – depending on your point-of-view). View Flickr slideshow. View Flickr pool of images. Via Boing-Boing.

* Make that 3,695: the one above is a photo of mine from a Korean subway...

Emotional Blog Mapping

Jonathan Harris, whose work has previously been discussed on 1+1=3 (here and here) has released two elegant data visualisations of human emotion and desire, as expressed on blogs around the world. Like Harris's other data-vis work, these applications are supremely beautiful both in an aesthetic sense and in terms of how they succinctly and interestingly express and communicate their data-based content.

"Both pieces perform large scale blog analysis to explore human nature. We Feel Fine illustrates human emotion, while Lovelines illustrates human desire". I have to confess to exploring both for quite a while.

Don Norman vs Edward Tufte on PowerPoint

The warm-up bout between David Byrne and Tufte was an inappropriate mismatch—they're really coming at PowerPoint from different angles.

But Don Norman has decided to take on Edward Tufte over PowerPoint. And Norman's on the side of the Microsoft product. A very interesting article with some sharp, well-aimed jabs. It will be interesting to see if Tufte comes out swinging in round 2. Stay tuned... Thanks Julie Allbutt for the link.