Another day, another step in the right direction. Boris Johnson is opening up around 200 datasets about London along with an offer of from Channel 4′s 4iP fund of up to £200,000 to help developers to create innovative applications that use it. Why is this exciting to anyone with an interest in local democracy? Well, [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Visualisations’
Illustrating data (again)
It’s Christmas. That means that you have to indulge bloggers in their little obsessions. Mine is an interest in the way that data can be presented in a way that changes our perception of an issue and clarifies a problem. This one, for instance from Good Magazine: You can zoom around and explore it here. [...]
Going to extremes. ‘Whataboutery’: polarisation v ‘the hive mind’
I’ve been reading Cass Sunstein’s ‘Going to Extremes‘ lately – it’s worth a look. Sunstein’s conclusion – that when we are filtered into like-minded groups that we reinforce each other’s prejudices and tend to reach more extreme conclusions than we would if we were on our own – is not a particularly startling one in [...]
Visualising public spending
Further to the occasional series here looking at ways that people are using open data and visualisation tools to help clarify complex issues, here is the ‘where does my money go‘ application: The authors say that it’s not finished yet and you can look at their underlying data – they’re looking for feedback. In terms of the [...]
Celeb visualisations: Calling @stephenfry to explain voting systems
The US-based Fair Vote site makes the very valid point that some attempt at civic education needs to be done in advance of any proposals for electoral reform. It particularly concerns the actor Richard Dreyfuss who makes one or two pithy points on the subject: “Don’t call it ‘civics’ because ‘civics’ is easily the most [...]
Visualisations
If one argues (and I do) that democracy is at it’s most effective when people who are elected are making decisions, and that those decisions should be made without undue pressure from campaigners and lobbyists, one rapidly finds oneself explaining that this doesn’t mean that the public can have no influence on policy in the [...]
