The Power of Visualization

One of the things that the development of computers has made possible is incredibly powerful visual images. It's almost impossible to find a movie made in the last 10-20 years that doesn't make some use of CGI (computer generated imagery.) Stick around through the credits of any recent realistic movie and you will see that somebody is being credited with computer imagery or enhancement. And we're not talking Beowulf or the latest Pixar flic but all normal, "realistic" movies.

But that's not the only kind of visualization that computers have made possible. A very powerful tool is data visualization. This involves taking data and devising a visual presentation of it. There need not be anything new about the data -- just the presentation.

The folks over at GapMinder.org have developed just such a tool. The video below shows some of the kinds of things you can notice and learn just by visualizing data that used to be presented in pages of numbers with the occasional chart or three.

If you find this intriguing, head on over to GapMinder World where you can play with a large number of different datasets from the convenience of your own browser. Maybe you'll come up with some insights that others haven't seen yet.

Music and Aerodynamics

I suppose if Philip Glass can create a piece of music/theatre called 1000 Airplanes On The Roof, it makes sense for Karlheinz Stockhausen to create the Helicopter String Quartet. From the Wiki:

A performance requires: four helicopters, each equipped with a pilot and sound technician, television transmitter and 3-channel sound transmitter, and an auditorium with four columns of televisions and loudspeakers, a sound technician with mixing desk, and a moderator (optional), as well as the members of the string quartet. The piece focuses on the simple idea of a string quartet, with the rotor blades acting as a second instrument, with microphones placed so the helicopters may blend with the instruments themselves, whilst the instruments remain louder than the blades. The piece is played as follows. A moderator, who may be the sound technician, introduces the quartet, and then explains the technical aspects of the piece. The players must then walk, or be driven if necessary, to the helicopters, always being visible to the auditorium audience by camera. The embarkation is also shown, the musicians and instruments remaining constantly in the view of the cameras, with no camera changes. Behind each player the ground can be seen, as well as the glass. Then the piece begins. The original version lasted approximately 18½ minutes, but the 1995 revision was extended to 21½ minutes. The helicopters circle at a radius of 6 km from the auditorium, changing altitude constantly to create the 'bounce' of the piece. All 12 incoming signals are controlled by the sound technician. The descent lasts five minutes, with the decreasing sound of the rotor blades acting as a background as the quartet re-enter the hall. The moderator then takes questions and leads applause.

Here's a short excerpt:

Well, It Didn't Just Happen ...

Probability is one of those things that people are just not very good at unless trained. There are probably some good reasons why evolution didn't help us come with the intrinsic Calculators of Large Numbers we would need to not be misled so easily.

Psychologically, we seem to be much more attuned to the false positives in our data gathering than to the false negatives. Of course, interpreting a rustle in the grass as a possible snake and taking action is much more prudent (in terms of survival) than to dismiss the rustle of a snake as just the wind. Combining this tendency with inadequate number-crunching skills leads us down many a garden path (or blind alley.)

Coincidences fool us all the time. The Gambler's Fallacy helps drain bank accounts every day. Lucky numbers become signposts on our journeys. Superstitions are usually born from misunderstood coincidences.

The folk over at QualiaSoup have addressed this issue with another fine video that begins with one of my favorite examples, the Birthday Paradox. The Birthday Paradox, of course, isn't really a paradox but just something that is counter-intuitive — which just shows how our intuitions about probability aren't very good.

Political Rhetoric Explained by Steven Pinker

A bit from a talk by Steven Pinker, one of the more interesting writers on psychology, mind, and language. I particularly liked his quotation of Michael Kinsley's definition of a gaffe:

... a gaffe is when a politician says something that is true.

His discussion of how words can become colored like swear words is intriguing. Liberal in America connotes something much different than in does in Canada.

This clip is just an excerpt from the full video. See info in the clip to get the whole thing.

John Cage (Unplugged)

Nowadays, when a musician's performance is characterized as "unplugged" it means that the normally electric instruments are not used, just "acoustic" ones. In this historic footage from 1960(!), avant garde composer John Cage is featured on the TV show "I've Got A Secret." Network television (when there were only three networks.) Prime time (when Prime Time actually was prime time.)

Figuring, I suppose, that the game of guessing his secret would be too difficult and, as host Gary Moore explained, to allow for sufficient time for the complete performance to take place, the game portion of the event was eliminated and Cage's secret was just announced. He would perform his composition Water Walk using: a water pitcher, an iron pipe, a goose call, a bottle of wine, an electric mixer, a whistle, a sprinkling can, ice cubes, 2 cymbals, a mechanical fish, a quail call, a rubber duck, a tape recorder, a vase of roses, a seltzer siphon, 5 radios, a bathtub, and a grand piano.

I suppose guessing the secret probably would have been a little on the difficult side.

There was, however, a glitch in the system. Two different unions were contesting which should plug in the radios. There was no resolution so the radios were to be unplugged for the performance. Cage explained his workaround before beginning the performance and the radios were not played although they were still used.

I haven't figured out yet why the other electrical gadgets (tape recorder and mixer) did not enter into the dispute. Maybe the sticking point had something to do with music or actors being broadcast over the airwaves.

Enjoy! Oh, yes, TV was mostly in black and white back then.

Originally from: WFMU's Beware of the Blog — A Radio Station That Bites Back

Thinking Inside & Outside the Box

QualiaSoup has nailed it again with a video about a box, theistic claims of existence, and the logical traps of asserting non-physical characteristics (among other things.)

Tip o' the hat to Hemant over at FriendlyAtheist.com.

Deconstructing (Literally) a Pocket-Size Box of Magic

Over at YouTube, I found this piece of "pure nerd porn" in which a MP3/camcorder device is deconstructed before our eyes.

We Might All Eventually Have Machines This Powerful

I ran across another interesting demo of early computer hardware and software. Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad program was developed in the very early 1960s. Here are a couple of clips about a slightly later version from 1963 demoed at the MIT Lincoln Laboratories.  

Part The First:

Part The Second:

Hat Tip to BoingBoing.

The Problem With Anecdotes

If you've gotten an email from me in the last 6-7 months, you might have noticed my signature line: The plural of anecdote is not data.

The problems of anecdotes in all kinds of areas is pretty well known if you have looked into it.  But if you haven't, this video from QualiaSoup is a good introduction to the issue.

There is more from QualiaSoup over at YouTube -- you might want to take a gander.

Data Mining As Art

The Sociable Media Group at MIT has created a installation work called Metropath(ologies). Watch the video below for more details.

 

The Personas application is available by itself over here. I tried it on myself:

You can click on the graph for a larger version.

Thanks to GrrlScientist over at Living The Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted) for finding this.

It's Just Water!!

Ben Goldacre writes the Bad Science column for The Guardian. He also runs the blog over at BadScience.net. He's one of the seriously good guys in the fight against intellectual (and other) silliness.

Ben Goldacre on Homeopathy from science TV on Vimeo.

And In Other News, The Earth Was Created Today -- An Archaeological Moment In Time

Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC

(via Kelosphy)

A Good Reason Not To Use You As An Eyewitness

Richard Wiseman is a very smart man.  Author of The Luck Factor, Quirkology and :59 Seconds, he also devises real world experiments and demonstrations.  Watch this video and see if you could survive a good cross-examination.

Go here for more information including how it was done.  And check out the other videos he's done.

How Really, Really Big Can Make You Feel Really, Really Small

Thanks to PZ Myers over at Pharyngula for this.  You can join the comment fest there if you wish.  I just wanted to share the video:

RIP: Les Paul (1915-2009) -- The Man Who Changed Popular Music

Les Paul has died at age 94. Musician and inventor who changed the face of popular music forever.

"I learned a long time ago that one note can go a long way if it's the right one,and it will probably whip the guy with 20 notes." -- Les Paul

Here he is at age 90:

You can also check out the video obituary at the New York Times.

Thanks for the memories!

Sometimes, Humor is the Best Alternative Medicine

Comedian Dara O'Briain was unknown to me until this clip began showing up.  Obviously, I've been missing quite a bit.  Here's his take on homeopathy and related looniness.  (Warning: the clip contains industrial strength language so children may wish to cover their parents' ears.)

You can find more of his work on YouTube.

Bobby McFerrin Brings Out Our Inner Pentatonic

Although Tom Hanks dancing on a keyboard in Big was kind of fun, jazz singer Bobby McFerrin's fancy feet help show how fundamental the pentatonic scale is to us human critters.  Just a little prodding and the whole audience gets it right.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Lost in the Blogosphere -- And Avoiding Baloney

So, way back when -- I started this blog.  Then, I began seriously reading what is already out there in the blogosphere.  And I got sucked in!  So much to read, so little time!  I didn't want to end up writing something that was already published (and, probably, better written.)  So, I read and read and read ....

But, enough is enough.  I think I've got better sense of what I want to do here and how I can provide something of value.  There will be links to posts that I've enjoyed interspersed with my thoughts on various random things.

One of the places I've found entertaining and enlightening is the Richard Dawkins site.  Check it out here.

For those of us who are lobbying for a more critical approach to dealing with the world, Michael Shermer's Baloney Detection Kit is marvelous.