Sunday, March 30, 2014
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Week 8 - Comically-oversised pointers.
Hans Rosling had an absurdly large pointer. He had to lay that sucker down across three chairs.
"Don't panic, it looks nasty..."
If I had been in one of the front rows of that presentation, I may have deserved a crack upside the head with Hans's five-foot pointer for getting bleary-eyed when he unleashed those first "nasty" looking graphs. I bet it was warm in that room. Those seats looked pretty comfortable. Even if infant mortality statistics were, like, as good as it got for me, I could still see having a hard time staying attentive while trying to interpret all of that data. My man Hans, though, he gets it. Make those same, boring graphs move around, and it's pretty much like watching a movie. Seriously. People friggen loved it. The bright colors didn't hurt, either. There must be something about witnessing data unfold that makes it more compelling than showing up once the party's over. Like, seeing exactly how the Swedish infant mortality rate fluctuated and ultimately fell--literally seeing it rise and fall--was much more satisfying than seeing that same data as a lifeless statistic. Kind of like how watching a sports game is more satisfying than just reading what the score was.
Hans summed things up at the end of his presentation and hit on like several different levels by saying "we need to have a modern concept that fits with the (modern) data." The most practical application of his modern concept are his moving bubbles. Infant mortality is certainly not a new phenomenon. Kids have been dying for as long as they've been being born! With a topic as seemingly old and rigid as that though, Rosling took the opportunity to conceptualize these long-running statistics in a modern way. "Averages are not a fair representation." That's right, Hans, because they're fricken boring. Give modern statistic viewers what they want and expand those averages in real time and narrate the whole thing like it's the Kentucky Derby. THAT will get people gassed about child mortality.
Just a cursory glance at some statistics can lead to generalizations that wouldn't necessarily occur if you were to expand the same data. I realize that a statistic is just that because it is a concise means of representing a large amount of data, but Hans showed that stats can sometimes misrepresent the data they were interpreting in the first place. When, for example, you lump sub-Saharan Africa into one category and measure it's decline in infant mortality, the resultant statistic is far less compelling than if you were to look at each sub-Saharan nation, individually. The bubbles showed three very different trajectories for the Congo, Kenya and Ghana. To combine the three nations statistics and derive an average is to deny credit where credit is due. Stats can be spun. Especially when they exists as static numbers.
The end result here is that I care way more about infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa than I did 20 minutes ago, and all it took for me were some colorful, moving graphs. Here is a very real example of how effective presentation methods can be used to convey a message that needs to be heard. Seriously, in less time than it takes to watch a TV show, Hans sufficiently informed me about this planet-sized problem.
Lisa, you're great, but I bet Hans would be a bitchin teacher.
"Don't panic, it looks nasty..."
If I had been in one of the front rows of that presentation, I may have deserved a crack upside the head with Hans's five-foot pointer for getting bleary-eyed when he unleashed those first "nasty" looking graphs. I bet it was warm in that room. Those seats looked pretty comfortable. Even if infant mortality statistics were, like, as good as it got for me, I could still see having a hard time staying attentive while trying to interpret all of that data. My man Hans, though, he gets it. Make those same, boring graphs move around, and it's pretty much like watching a movie. Seriously. People friggen loved it. The bright colors didn't hurt, either. There must be something about witnessing data unfold that makes it more compelling than showing up once the party's over. Like, seeing exactly how the Swedish infant mortality rate fluctuated and ultimately fell--literally seeing it rise and fall--was much more satisfying than seeing that same data as a lifeless statistic. Kind of like how watching a sports game is more satisfying than just reading what the score was.
Just a cursory glance at some statistics can lead to generalizations that wouldn't necessarily occur if you were to expand the same data. I realize that a statistic is just that because it is a concise means of representing a large amount of data, but Hans showed that stats can sometimes misrepresent the data they were interpreting in the first place. When, for example, you lump sub-Saharan Africa into one category and measure it's decline in infant mortality, the resultant statistic is far less compelling than if you were to look at each sub-Saharan nation, individually. The bubbles showed three very different trajectories for the Congo, Kenya and Ghana. To combine the three nations statistics and derive an average is to deny credit where credit is due. Stats can be spun. Especially when they exists as static numbers.
The end result here is that I care way more about infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa than I did 20 minutes ago, and all it took for me were some colorful, moving graphs. Here is a very real example of how effective presentation methods can be used to convey a message that needs to be heard. Seriously, in less time than it takes to watch a TV show, Hans sufficiently informed me about this planet-sized problem.
Lisa, you're great, but I bet Hans would be a bitchin teacher.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Week 7 - Shut up Siri, you're driving me friggen nuts.
Ok so the crux of this whole e-reader controversy, for me, is the quality of the voice reading back. While I understand that developers may be close to developing a crazy, lifelike computervoice, they're just not there yet. Have you heard what the Kindle Read Aloud sounds like? Personally, I can think of like 14 kinds of gross, bodily harm I'd rather inflict upon myself than listen to an entire book being read by that robo-voice. That's the biggest thing that's making the Writer's Guild look like a bunch of Dingdongs. Like, seriously. Let this one go, guys. People willing to subject themselves to listening to 10 hours of that should be committed--or will need to be once they've finished a book. Forget water-boarding. Just hook up a Kindle loaded with like Finnegans Wake or something to a loudspeaker, make it read aloud, and lock the bad guy in a room with it. By the time robo is done reading "bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!", you'll know where all of the weapons of mass destruction are.
I'm guessing that if and when software developers are ready to debut their strikingly lifelike read aloud voice, it's going to come at a price. The current generation of e-readers' ability to read back text is pretty old news. I remember being in 5th grade in my middle school computer lab on those colorful, bulbous Macs that were so hot in the 90's, and getting an absolute kick out of hearing the computer voice read back "fart" and "penis" after I typed it in. Seriously. Hours of entertainment. I imagine that if I was able to do that back then, on a public school budget, nonetheless, it couldn't have been the most expensive technology. Fast-forward 15 years, and $200 can buy you a whole lot of hand-held--probably more capable than those bubble Macs--and I bet whoever makes them in Taiwan throws the read-back voice in for free.
New technology = more money. If and when IBM ever completes or releases that oh-so-human voice they've been developing for like probably 20 years, I bet you it won't come cheap. Some of the success of e-readers can be attributed to their fairly low cost. If you read a lot of books, buying a $200 tablet can just about pay for itself before long. Make those suckers a little more expensive, though, and readers may start crawling back to print as a more economical option.
The Writer's Guild needs to concern themselves more with weathering the digital storm if they want to stay on top of things. Finding ways to adapt and innovate could prove more beneficial than acting like sore losers.Give it ten years, and some new technology will have come along that makes e-readers and read aloud seem positively prehistoric. The times, they are a changing, Writer's Guild. Get with it. For a bunch of probably pretty smart boys and girls, the Guild needs to stop acting like such dummies.
I'm guessing that if and when software developers are ready to debut their strikingly lifelike read aloud voice, it's going to come at a price. The current generation of e-readers' ability to read back text is pretty old news. I remember being in 5th grade in my middle school computer lab on those colorful, bulbous Macs that were so hot in the 90's, and getting an absolute kick out of hearing the computer voice read back "fart" and "penis" after I typed it in. Seriously. Hours of entertainment. I imagine that if I was able to do that back then, on a public school budget, nonetheless, it couldn't have been the most expensive technology. Fast-forward 15 years, and $200 can buy you a whole lot of hand-held--probably more capable than those bubble Macs--and I bet whoever makes them in Taiwan throws the read-back voice in for free.
New technology = more money. If and when IBM ever completes or releases that oh-so-human voice they've been developing for like probably 20 years, I bet you it won't come cheap. Some of the success of e-readers can be attributed to their fairly low cost. If you read a lot of books, buying a $200 tablet can just about pay for itself before long. Make those suckers a little more expensive, though, and readers may start crawling back to print as a more economical option.
The Writer's Guild needs to concern themselves more with weathering the digital storm if they want to stay on top of things. Finding ways to adapt and innovate could prove more beneficial than acting like sore losers.Give it ten years, and some new technology will have come along that makes e-readers and read aloud seem positively prehistoric. The times, they are a changing, Writer's Guild. Get with it. For a bunch of probably pretty smart boys and girls, the Guild needs to stop acting like such dummies.
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