This page begins to outline the many tools and strategies that will be needed.
This page is an ongoing, irreverent, wiseacre effort. Here goes...
The Deluge of Data
The thesis of this web site is that if the world is to prevail over the deluge of data then entirely new methods of displaying that data must be discovered or invented.It's the recipe for how to monitor huge amounts of data in 3D all updating in real time.
Attain synergy~right-brain~gestalt~zeitgeist using your eyes.
The issue at hand is the deluge of data. The solution is b 4 r i's.
See also:
About Jaanga: The Deluge of Data - added 01- 26-2011
Not Old School
Edward Tufte is a cultural icon - but his thoughts are so stuck to print and paper. Paper is that flat, static thingy you can't double-click.Let's go back to Tufte's mentor: John Tukey and Exploratory Data Analysis. Maybe you don't know Tukey. Here are three things he said:
The graph paper - and transparencies - are there, not as a technique, but rather as recognition that the picture-examining eye is the best finder we have of the wholly unanticipated.
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, than the exact answer to the wrong question .
There is no data that can be displayed in a pie chart, that cannot be displayed BETTER in some other type of chart.Tukey says too much emphasis in statistics is placed on confirmatory data analysis; more emphasis needs to be placed on using data to suggest hypotheses to test.
As cool as a Tuknumber that Tukey is, we must remember that he's not the only one that can see clearly now. Marshal McLuhan and Immanuel Kant both have, as they say, many things to see.
See also:
About Jaanga: Tufte is so Old School, Tufte is so New Cool - added 02-07-2011
About Jaanga: John Tukey + Exploratory Data Analysis = Awesomeness - added 2011-02-15
NU skoolz. A Mo' Modern Concept
Our stuff is informed by games -HUD FPS MMORPG - look them up.
There is so much data we need to be able to zoom and pan through it in real time.
We use hardware accelerated graphics - with transparency, shadow, texture and more.
Bravo Nvidia and ATI.
Video
And informed by TV. Think of watching American football on TV.- instant replays
- graphic overlays such as the yellow ten yard overlay
- picture in a picture
- slider bars
- mute
- View Full screen
Animated
Current: static data - reading data from a fixed table or fileNew: real-time data capture: >50K data items per minute
you see things move.
There is so much data being sent to us that a still snapshot is our enemy. We need to view data as a flux or flow of datums. Like light - sometimes a particle and sometimes a wave.
Our eyes are superbly evolved to discern minute differences in speed movement. Like the cheetah on the Serengeti our eyes can track the weaker ones while knowing where the stronger ones are running.
So unlike paper, Jaanga data moves and wiggles.
Time is the 4th dimension.
Does this sound familiar? Perhaps you have seen a talk by Dr Hans Rosling. His talk on poverty at Ted was very well received. More to the point, his team developed the motion chart software which is now available in Google Docs spreadsheets and which is used extensively by Jaanga geeDoc
Multi-Dimensional
Currently: "3D" so often means a 2D chart flipped 90 degrees.The new: real-time movement on three axis - plus changes in color / shape / embellishment / slime trails
making the full image area available to the user's eyes
3D TV is on its way. Do you have the solutions? The killer app?
Three axes, six degrees of freedom.
Colors, shape, direction, crustiness all providing guidance.
Everything moves
Insight: When I build complex 3D charts I often find them too complex for my brain to deal with. Perhaps this is because my brain was trained on 2D paper charts. My feeling is that my grandchildren will easily comprehend visuals that would make me seasick.
Math Minded - Highly Meth-Oddical
Normalize, normalize, normalize.Celebrate the black swan. In-Truth, cerebrate the Out-Liers.
Interactive
now: static imagenew: pan, zoom and tilt
user interaction: double click / search box / control bar / diagramming buy/sell limits
select like the one I selected (market sector, etc)
mouseover
double-click, right-click, audit trail available
drag and drop the data itself
Internet Driven
in your browserno plug-in no executable
no learning
it's like magic
it just works
- iphone/BB/netbook app
ubiquitous / simple / free / no learning curve
All this stuff comes gushing out at me like magic. All I have to do is tilt the phone. And what surprises me is that I really get it. And it's entertaining.
Augmented Reality
merging in external datareal-time semantic context
overlaying guidelines (think the yellow ten yard line overlay on US football TV)
- shows averages - best view for time of day and current market conditions - box around current sector - drop market cap to none or one on unselected - slime trails - HUD - real-time data parsing
Anthropomorphic
The numbers were created by humans.Let's expose and re-add those human characteristics back to the numbers.
voice - sound - music - the sound of five hundred symbols
actors walking on stage
The data we receive is numbers. This data was the created by the actions of untold numbers of humans. Let us recreate some of the humanity in our visualizations. Let us personify some of that data. Why? Because we humans react faster and more precisely to humanoid reaction than to any other stimulus.
Anybody Can Do It
No need to be a rocket scientist.
Or may be not. A new language. A new system of notation? We have a variety of ways of communication. Talking and reading and writing words do predominate. But there are are alternatives music scores, sign language, electronic schematics, dance notation. and many others. Do we want or need a new "language" for communicating complexities? Do you think you could learn to think (let alone multiply numbers) in Internet?
2011-12-30
Theo Armour ~ theoarmour.com
jaanga [at] googlegroups [dot] com
