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Online nowLaodan: laodan is a 56 year old guy from Wisconsin, USA.; Likes 1,586 pages, 24 videos, 8 photos • 227 fans • Received 64 reviews; Member since Aug 08, 2005

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YouTube - Hans Rosling: No more boring data: TEDTalks: Oct 26, 2007 2:51pm 1 review science, video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w; Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen.
on YouTube a talk by Hans Rosling

You've never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called "developing world" using extraordinary animation software developed by his Gapminder Foundation. The Trendalyzer software (recently acquired by Google) turns complex global trends into lively animations, making decades of data pop. Asian countries, as colorful bubbles, float across the grid -- toward better national health and wealth. Animated bell curves representing national income distribution squish and flatten. In Rosling's hands, global trends -- life expectancy, child mortality, poverty rates -- become clear, intuitive and even playful.

Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen

youtube.com/watch [youtube.com/watch]
Firefox users should install "video embed" and greasemonkey to view this embedded video.

An excellent presentation of world health statistics and their movement in time.

There should be no doubt left that the increase in life expectancy experienced by all nations entering modernity is not primarily provoked by the spread of modern medicine but well by the application of simple hygiene principles. Among those the distribution of drinkable water to people's houses has assuredly acted as the most determinant parameter...

The Oil Drum | USA 2034: A Look Back at the 25th Anniversary Year: Oct 26, 2007 2:29pm 3 reviews environment, society, change
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3140; USA 2034: A Look Back at the 25th Anniversary Year
in The Oil Drum by Alan S. Drake

After an extended period of bewildering, painful and rewarding transition, the people of the USA finally feel that they have found their feet underneath them, with a clear and hopeful path to the future. Oil consumption is down to 6.6 million barrels/day, 30% of our 2007 peak oil use, and CO2 emissions are 26% of their 2011 peak, a matter of pride for most Americans.

Rapid reductions in world carbon emissions (almost as great as US reductions), plus some negative feedback loops, have kept Global Warming effects manageable. Persistent and prolonged droughts in the American Southwest have been the largest effect so far in the USA.

At long last the goal of "Not One Drop" of oil is being burned to transport people and freight over the nations railroads. All of the main and secondary lines are electrified with battery locomotives for some short spurs.

USA 2034: A Look Back at the 25th Anniversary Year

There is no doubt in my mind that our way of life will have dramatically changed 20-30 years from now. How it changes remains unknown. Projections on what the future entails are indeed no more than projections in the future of present understandings and dreams.

Alan S. Drake projects into the future the somewhat dull vision of our present defined solely in terms of energy scarcity and climate change. But we all know by now that our present is defined by much more than those 2 determinant parameters. As I often wrote our future is bound to emerge as a result of the interactions between a set of determinant parameters that appear to occur almost simultaneously in late-modernity.
+ mass extinction of species that continually reduces the number of future possible outcomes for the principle of life on Gaia our earth.
+ peak resources (oil, minerals, rare metals...) that leads to scarcity industrialism, conflicts between nations and the market being superseded by central planning.
+ climate change that now appears has been a leading cause of past mass extinctions.
+ poisoning of land, air and water impacts human health and reduces life expectancies.
+ scientific singularity will eliminate human judgment from the decision making about the choices impacting the production of our future.
+ globalization redistributes the world's economic cards among the national participants in the global capitalistic game.
+ the emergence of a worldwide worldview shall impose itself as a necessity in order for humanity to survive the side-effects of modernity.

The Archdruid Report: The Age of Salvage Societies: Oct 25, 2007 11:47am 2 reviews economics, politics
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2007/10/age-of-salvage-societies.html; The Age of Salvage Societies
from Archdruid by John Michael Greer

The industrial economy currently lurching toward historyu2019s compost bin, after all, did not rise to global dominance because the people of the world agreed to make that happen. Nor did the worldu2019s elites, if the political classes of the worldu2019s various societies deserve that name, make that decision; of course there were cabals of industrialists who did their level best to further its spread, but there were plenty of leadership groups in other, competing societies who staked everything they had on resisting it, and failed. Industrial civilization had its day in the sun because, in a world where plenty of cheap abundant fossil fuel could be had for the digging or drilling, the industrial mode of production was more efficient than its rivals, and enabled the communities that embraced it to prosper at the expense of those that did not.

In turn, as the industrial system undercuts the environmental conditions that allow it to thrive, new forms better adapted to the new reality will elbow todayu2019s industrialism aside and take its place.

The Age of Salvage Societies

John Michael Greer's analysis of the present derives from his understanding of the "long haul history". Modernity treated the citizens of tribes as "savages" and now in late-modernity are emerging the roots of our future "savage societies". The core of Greer's argument is that we are entering an area of "resource nationalism". Peak resources is preparing us "a mode of industrial economy u2013 scarcity industrialism u2013 that pursues resource nationalism rather than the mirage of a global economy, and shifts the allocation of energy and other scarce resources from the market to the political sphere".

The present geopolitical maneuverings are essentially early signs of "resource nationalism" as the Western answer to "peak oil" that foreshadows a coming "scarcity industrialism". As Alan Greenspan noted Iraq is all about the oil... as is the posturing towards Iran.

I tend to agree that peak resources shall foster a scarcity industrialism where the market is going to be superseded by central planning. Seen in this light the retrenchment of individual freedoms that we observe presently all around the Western world starts to make sense. This retrenchment of individual freedoms should be understood as early signs of a process of strengthening of the political institutions. But for this to work it should be accompanied by the strengthening of a culture of obedience in a common worldview.

Strong public institutions have always taken the substance of their power over their citizens from the gluing of those citizens behind a common vision of the whole of reality what is otherwise called a common worldview. Animism was the holistic worldview of pre-agricultural tribal societies, religions served to assure the power of kingdoms and empires that grew out of the population growth that followed agriculture, individualism fostered the justification for the spread of the logic of capital that is basically responsible for peak resources and all the side-effects of modernity.

Scarcity industrialism and salvage economies will act like a transitioning from modernity to what comes after, what Greer calls, ecotechnic societies. Such ecotechnic societies (postmodern societies) will answer the necessity to assure their reproduction and, in all likelihood, will foster a postmodern worldview (shared on a worldwide scale) combining elements of animism with elements of technicity.

USGS Astrogeology: Digital Geologic Maps of the Planets: Oct 25, 2007 9:17am 1 review astronomy, science, visualization, reality
http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/PlanetaryMapping/DIGGEOL/index.html; Digital Geologic Maps of the Planets
via info aesthetics, in astrogeology.usgs.gov

a collection of visually stunning maps of the geological composition of the lunar surface, based on data from lunar missions in the 1960's and 1970's. the contrasting colors & seemingly random shapes of the clusters of craters transform normally boring looking informational maps in objects of visual art.

Digital Geologic Maps of the Planets

Visualization, visualization!

- The more complex the knowledge, about anything, the more we seem to transform it in visual terms in order to get a more instantaneous grasp of its usability.
- This process of late-modern visualization is similar to the visualization offered by the visual arts in earlier periods (animism, religion, modernity).

In other words the men of knowledge in each historical epoch produce knowledge about phenomena that are not directly accessible to the human retina. All knowledge that is not directly accessible to the retina is converted into visualizations. Such visualizations are transmitted by the retina to the brain for integration in the representation of reality operating in the brain of the observer.

But one clear difference distinguishes late modern visualizations from its earlier artistic forms. In earlier epochs artistic visualizations were meant to unify the worldview of all citizens within any given society. Late modern visualizations are not concerned with this kind of societal unification they appear as mere tools for letting late modern men of knowledge gaining a more instantaneous grasp of the implications of the sum of knowings he has accumulated.

This distinction between the societal functionality of artistic visualizations in earlier epochs from the late modern individual, or sectoral, functionality begs us to differentiate the nature of the knowledge in earlier epochs from its late modern version.

In earlier periods knowledge had the societal function of unifying the individuals behind a common worldview. This kind of knowledge was holistic. It gave an interpretation of reality for all to share. The resulting sharing of a common worldview by the citizens of any society before high modernity assured the reproduction of those societies. Societal change was thus naturally slow as it privileged conservation of the societal order over the innovation spurred by individuals.

In late modernity visualizations are meant to help those who research a particular segment or aspect of reality to make more instantaneous sense of the profusion of data their research returns. Such profusion of data should not be confused with knowledge (understanding of the whole of reality). It merely corresponds to an accumulation of knowings (one data added to another at the level of a particular segment of reality).

This distinction between:
- knowledge as an understanding of the whole of reality
- and knowings as an accumulation of data at the level of a particular segment of reality
is shaping the nature of the difference between:
- art (as visual representation of the whole of reality)
- and scientific visualization (as the visualization of an accumulation of data gained through the observation of a tiny segment of the whole).

Art served societal reproduction but what do late modern scientific visualizations serve? Not the reproduction of societies for sure but what else could it be?

The Oil Drum: Europe | Peak Minerals: Oct 24, 2007 2:05pm 3 reviews economics, environment, society
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/3086; Peak Minerals
in The Oil Drum Europe by Chris Vernon

We examined the world production of 57 minerals reported in the database of the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Of these, we found 11 cases where production has clearly peaked and is now declining. Several more may be peaking or be close to peaking. Fitting the production curve with a logistic function we see that, in most cases, the ultimate amount extrapolated from the fitting corresponds well to the amount obtained summing the cumulative production so far and the reserves estimated by the USGS. These results are a clear indication that the Hubbert model is valid for the worldwide production of minerals and not just for regional cases. It strongly supports the concept that \u201cPeak oil\u201d is just one of several cases of worldwide peaking and decline of a depletable resource. Many more mineral resources may peak worldwide and start their decline in the near future.

Peak Minerals

My personal interest resides essentially in understanding the production of the future of humanity. In sum my understanding goes something like this:

- Several determinant factors are emerging simultaneously and in parallel: peak resources (oil, minerals, metals) + a series of side-effects of modernity (poisoning of air and water, reduced diversity of species, over-population, climate change and so on) + economic globalization + atomization of modern societies. The present article focuses on one aspect of peak resources the peak of minerals.

- Those determinant factors are having direct effects upon one another and their inter-relations are intensifying by as much the effects that each of those factors are imposing on human societies and more largely on the principle of life on earth.

It's time we awoke to the horrors that late-modernity is unleashing...

http://infosthetics.com/: Oct 24, 2007 10:22am 56 reviews visualization, reality
http://infosthetics.com/; Last weeks best on information aesthetics
last visualization findings in information aesthetics by Andrew Vande Moere

inspired by Manovich's definition of information aesthetics, this weblog explores the symbiotic relationship between creative design and the field of information visualization, in an emergent multidisciplinary field what could be coined as 'creative information visualization'.

information aesthetics
comparing census data by zip

hand-drawing concept of time

memory landscape drawings

A great blog that I don't miss to visit daily. Here are the best findings of the last 2 weeks.

It's all about visualizing contemporary trends and concepts. The findings of Andrew Vande Moere often touch on my approach about art.

Eco-Dome.htm: Oct 11, 2007 7:09pm 45 reviews architecture, environment
http://www.calearth.org/EcoDome.htm; ECO-DOME:
via Stardust's SU pages, in calearth.org

Learning and building an Eco-Dome is an excellent way to prepare for building a larger design such as the 3-bedroom house, because it provides a hands-on learning experience on the essential aspects of Superadobe construction. The Eco-Dome's size of approximately 400 square feet (interior space), makes it a manageable structure for the first time owner builder. The finished "very small house" is self-contained and can become a small guest house, studio apartment, or be the first step in a cluster design of an Eco-Village of vaults and domes.

ECO-DOME:

Material: the earth under our feet.
Great site where would be builders will find a ton of info

The Loom : In Praise of Yeast: Oct 11, 2007 6:26pm 1 review evolution, art, life
http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2007/10/11/in_praise_of_yeast.php; Endless Forms Most Beautiful
in The Loom by Carl Zimmer

We do a pretty good job at appreciating the visible intricacies of nature: the antennae and legs and claws of a lobster, the geometrical order of the spots on a butterfly's wings. But a lot of nature's intricacies are hidden away inside single-celled creatures, such as the baker's yeast that makes bread rise and beer ferment.
At an audition for a David Attenborough documentary, a yeast cell guzzling away on sugar is bound to do a lousy job. ("Thanks, don't call us; we'll call you. Send in the King Cobra!") But the intricacy of its metabolism is no less impressive. What's more, scientists know how to manipulate yeast in ways they can't with animals, and that power lets them set up experiments that yield clues to how that intricacy evolved.

The latest study of yeast's intricacy comes from the University of Wisconsin lab of Sean Carroll. Carroll has become the public's go-to guy for evo-devo, or the evolution of development, thanks to his book Endless Forms Most Beautiful.

In Praise of Yeast
Endless Forms Most Beautiful
The Making of the Fittest

in "The making of the fittest" Carroll writes "DNA is the genetic blueprint of all creatures; it contains the operating instructions for everyday life and for making the next generation. Very recently, an important new dimension of DNA has been revealed -- it contains a vast and detailed record of how species adapt and change. That is, DNA is a living chronicle of Evolution. We can now pinpoint the precise changes in DNA that have enabled the marvelous creatures that inhabit our planet to adapt to its many shifting and sometimes extreme environments, from the freezing waters of the Antarctic to the lush canopy of the rain forest. We finally understand not just how the fittest survive, but how they are made."

This is the scientific heart of my theory of beauty in art.
The history of the evolution and the development of the principle of life is recorded in our DNA. The forms, colors, patterns, sounds and rhythms that have been retained are representative of beauty while non-beauty and ugliness represent what has been rejected. So, knowingly or unknowingly, we all are carrying the code of beauty as well as the code of ugliness inside ourselves.

Gone is that old idea that germinated in high modernity that art has nothing to do with beauty time has come for artists to recognize that beauty is something objective that they can't run from. There is no hiding place left...

APOD: 2007 October 8 - Galaxy NGC 474: Cosmic Blender: Oct 8, 2007 1:48pm 1 review astronomy, visualization
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071008.html; Unexpectedly high complexity
in Nasa's Astronomy Picture of the Day

Credit & Copyright: Mischa Schirmer
Explanation: What's happening to galaxy NGC 474?
The multiple layers of emission appear strangely complex and unexpected given the relatively featureless appearance of the elliptical galaxy in less deep images. The cause of the shells is currently unknown, but possibly tidal tails related to debris left over from absorbing numerous small galaxies in the past billion years. Alternatively the shells may be like ripples in a pond, where the ongoing collision with the spiral galaxy to the right of NGC 474 is causing density waves to ripple though the galactic giant. Regardless of the actual cause, the above image dramatically highlights the increasing consensus that the outer halos of most large galaxies are not really smooth but have complexities induced by frequent interactions with -- and accretions of -- smaller nearby galaxies. NGC 474 spans about 250,000 light years and lies about 100 million light years distant toward the constellation of the Fish Pisces.

Galaxy NGC 474: Cosmic Blender

Two Million Galaxies

Credit & Copyright: S. Maddox (Nottingham U.) et al. APM Survey, Astrophys. Dept. Oxford U.
Explanation: Our universe is filled with galaxies.
Galaxies -- huge conglomerations of stars, gas, dust -- and mysterious dark matter are the basic building blocks of the large-scale universe. Although distant galaxies move away from each other as the universe expands, gravity attracts neighboring galaxies to each other, forming galaxy groups, clusters of galaxies, and even larger expansive filaments. Some of these structures are visible on one of the most comprehensive maps of the sky ever made in galaxies: the APM galaxy survey map completed in the early 1990s. Over 2 million galaxies are depicted above in a region 100 degrees across centered toward our Milky Way Galaxy's south pole. Bright regions indicate more galaxies, while bluer colors denote larger average galaxies. Dark ellipses have been cut away where bright local stars dominate the sky.

Those 2 images give us a good visualization of the utter complexity of our universe, or better, of our island universe in Villenkin's terminology.

Stock prices plunge when social protests strike | Science Blog: Oct 8, 2007 1:25pm 1 review economics, society
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/stock-prices-plunge-when-social-protests-strik...; Stock prices plunge when social protests strike
in ScienceBlog from news.cornell.edu

A new study led by Sarah Soule, professor of sociology at Cornell, and Brayden King, assistant professor of sociology at Brigham Young University, examines how organized public protest affects "abnormal stock price returns" -- an indicator of investor reaction to a focal event. The report, "Social Movements as Extra-institutional Entrepreneurs: The Effect of Protest on Stock Price Returns," is published in the September 2007 issue of Administrative Science Quarterly.

Protests by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force against Cracker Barrel's disastrous 1991 policy to dismiss all gay and lesbian employees, for example, resulted in a national boycott of the chain. The company's stock fell 26 percent below the expected return -- in one month -- even though national sales remained stable.

Stock prices plunge when social protests strike

The weapon of the street against The Street. Wow! How come this weapon is not used systematically? Is it ignorance? Or has societal atomization successfully countered any move by the street leaving The Street free to do whatever it wants?

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