Last week marked the end of semester one at the University of Canberra. Although it feels like “the end” it is really the opposite of this. I have a further two and a half years left of my degree. not even at the halfway point yet. It has also been my first experience of the Blogosphere. At first I was keeping a very close eye on how many people were viewing my blog each day, as if it were some sort of popularity contest. I soon got over that and just decided to concentrate and what I wanted to write about and not really caring how many views I got.
In writing a blog post each week it helped me remember much more of the information that was taught to me. Because not only was I just turning up to the lectures I also had to relay what I learnt in from the lectures in a blog post, which involved having to go over what was taught in each lecture. I found myself doing further research into topics that I am interested in such as censorship. I really began paying a lot more attention to what was going on in the media in regards to the internet and censorship as a result of doing the Networked media unit and writing Blog posts.
Before I started the university semester I already thought the networked media class would be my least favourite. I didn’t think I would be as interested in the content of the unit. I thought it would just be a whole lot of nerdy crap. But now looking back upon the semester that was, Networked media turned out to be one of the units that I was most interested in. Not only was it interesting it was also a challenge. The biggest challenge I faced in the course was definitely making a website. It was the assignment that I spent the most hours just trying to figure HTML and CSS. I am now using the skills that I learnt in doing the assignment to re-design and bring Bruno’s Truffles website up to date. This opportunity would’ve not been possible if I hadn’t have chosen to do the networked media unit.
Because we had to set up a google reader account so we could read other peoples blogs that were doing the same unit, I also found myself becoming more connected with the blogosphere and I now read quite a few blogs and browse through pictures. My favourite blog is Scott Hansen’s ISO50 blog. I like a lot of the music that is posted and the design related posts. I also look at quite a few blog where only photos are uploaded. I used some of the photos from the blogs in my first assignment I have noticed that a lot of the blogs where only photos are uploaded, Tumblr is the weapon of choice. I do like the design and outlay of some of the Tumblr websites. If I were to open another blog Tumbr would definitely the weapon.
Early on in the semester my blog was getting a lot more views than it is now, especially when I uploaded my first few posts. I think if I had been a little more strongly opinionated I may have attracted a few more views. I also chose not only show a little bit of my blog post when it is viewed in the blog readers which means that I may have had quite a few views that do not show up on my view data on WordPress. I also chose not to add a link to my blog on Facebook. If i had added a link to my blog on Facebook that my have also increased the views to my blog. I may add a link to my blog on Facebook in the future so that my blog can be exposed to a wider audience. However I am not really after how many views i get, that does not really interest me. For me it is more about writing about what I am interested in and if a lot of people view it, that is an added bonus. I haven’t tried to change my writing style , nor have I tried try to pump blog posts full of humour and witty remarks rather in order just to get more views and appeal to a general audience, I have just tried be me which I think is one of the most important things when to do when writing a blog.
The biggest thing I have learnt not only from this unit but from being at University, is that no matter how bad or how stupid you might have considered yourself at school or any other education experiences, that doesn’t mean anything. If you work hard and put in the effort you can do things that you wouldn’t believe you were capable of doing. When I was at school I was by no means a model student nor did I get a very good UAI. Despite the fact that at school I never got the best grades, I am doing very well at University. This is because I am working hard and really putting in the effort. It’s a pretty simple lesson to learn but a very important one to learn, and it is one which is often overlooked.
Three of my favourite blog posts.
https://michaelmichaelson.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/similarities/
https://michaelmichaelson.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/what-are-we-complaining-about/
https://michaelmichaelson.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/datavisualisation/
After a bit of confusionI thought I did not have to upload the rationale (how wrong I was) as the rationale below is my assignment. I could not build the visualisation as I do not have the skills or the time to learn how to make the visualisation. When uploading the assignment I did a spellcheck on WordPress and I have discovered that WordPress has a better spellchecker than Microsoft Word it’s a shame I have already handed in a hard copy of the assignment otherwise I would’ve corrected the spelling Errors.
Click on the image for a larger view
How it works
Above is an example of what the datavisualisation might look like. The bubbles that represent the different teams resemble the shape of a rugby ball to fit with the theme of rugby union. The viewer can select what teams they want to view. In the example above the Hurricanes, Brumbies, Waratahs and Crusaders have been selected. The selection of the teams comes from clicking the check boxes next to the name of the team. The check box that is in the left hand corner allows the viewer to select or deselect all the teams. The timeline bar that is below the bubbles lets the viewer navigate between the seasons of the competition. Some teams will disappear the further back in time you go through the season as there were not always 14 teams in the competition. To select a year the mouse can be clicked on the arrow of the timeline and scroll through the years to select a season. As the seasons are scrolled through the data and visualisations will change accordingly. Transition from one year to another will be seamless. The bubbles will either shrink or grow larger as if they were animated.
Once the teams and season has been selected the data that can be viewed includes: Age, weight, height, experience and, Place of birth. For age, weight, height, and experience the data is visualised in the same way. The age, weight, height etc of each player of every team is added up to create a whole number for example the total years of experience for the Brumbies in the 2009 season is 123 years and the total weight of the Brumbies is 3174 kg. This number is expressed in the size of the bubble shaped like a rugby ball. The bigger the bubble is the more experienced the team is.
There are three ways to view the data. This first is the “geographical view” where teams are placed on the page according to where their home stadium is (the geographical view for age is selected in the example above). The second is “by size” this is where the bubbles are aligned from largest bubble to smallest (the size view is below on the left). The last view is “by placing” (the placing view is below to the right), this where the teams are aligned according to their placing on the ladder of a particular season. In the example below the Hurricanes are the best placed team out of the four shown. The placing goes from left to right. If all 14 team were shown in the placing view there would be four rows with the team that is first in the top left hand corner of the visualisation and the team that is last in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. In the grey box below the visualisation the placing will also be show alongside the data that is chosen such as age as selected in the example below.
The reason that there are three ways to view the data is so there is more of a possibility of being able to find correlations between the data. For example when the data is viewed in the placing option there could be consistent evidence that shows that the taller the team more successful they are, or the heavier the team the less successful they are. Possible correlations could also be found in the geographical view.
Click on the image for a larger view
When the options are selected such as viewing age in the geographical view the whole number that is represented in the bubble shapes is displayed the grey box below such as the example above on the right hand side. This is so viewer can make the link between the size of the bubble and the data. However if the viewer wants to know more about a certain team they can click one of the bubbles to find out about that team. Once the viewer has clicked on one of the bubbles information about that team pop ups in the grey box below the visualisation. Included in the information are the players names and information about those players such as age, weight, height, experience, and tries scored for the season selected, Also included is the teams placing and wins and losses for the selected season. There will also be a link to the team’s homepage. The name of the players can be clicked on so that they can see a photo of the player and the stats. The grey box can change in size according to how much data needs to be displayed.
Click on the image for a larger view
When viewing where players come in the geographical view the visualisation design pattern changes. An API of Google maps is included and on the map there are pins which indicate where players were born. The pins will be different colours to indicate the team player comes from. These colours will be the same as the bubbles. It is possible to be able to zoom in and out of areas around the world so if there is a cluster of pins it means they can be spread out so it is obvious where players were born. When the mouse is hovered over a pin the name of the player will pop up. The viewer can then choose to click on a certain pin and information about that player will pop up below including their age, weight, height, photo, teams they’ve played in etc. Notice in the example above the options for “by placing”, and “by size” disappear, this is because the data can only be viewed in “geographical view”. There is only one team selected in the example however more than one team can be selected.
Algorithms
The way that the datavisualisation uses colour, scale, shape, logos, position and movement are all very important in the success and ease of understanding the visualisation. Colour and logos are used so that each team is easily distinguishable between one another. Although colour already does a good job of being able to distinguish between each team it does not go far enough. This is way logos are included in the bubbles which makes it even easier and quicker to distinguish between the teams. It is necessary for the logos to be included because not everyone knows the main colours of the each super 14 team and some of the colours are very similar so if the visualisation was to rely solely on colour to represent the teams the visualisation would not be as effective and easy to use. Scale and position are equally important as colour and logos. Scale is used so that the teams can be compared easily against one another. The bubbles are a certain size according to the total years of experience or total height of a team etc. This means that it is quick and easy to visually compare the total height of one team to another. This is also quicker than reading through the data. The position of the bubbles can be selected in either the “geographical view”, the “by size “view or the “by placing” view. These different positioning options all have an impact on how the data is interpreted and what correlations might be drawn from the visualisation. Without the use of scale or positioning the visualisation would be useless. Shape is used for the bubbles so that the visualisation sticks with the theme of rugby union. In the first example the bubbles have been shaped from a rugby union ball. Movement has been used so that the viewer can see the differences in the teams from season to season. As the viewer scrolls through the different seasons the data changes and so does the visualisation. The bubbles either grow larger or smaller as the viewer scrolls through the seasons.
How it might be built
The data included is only for one season. The data required to be able to build the visualisation would need to be from every season that the super 14 competition has been running for. It would be built using HTML, CSS and other web development techniques such as Ajax so that data can be taken from the server asynchronously in the background so that there is no interference with the web page.
This is so the bubbles and the grey box below can move about the page and change in size without any interference, so the change between data happens seamlessly. Appropriate API’s will also be used such as the Google map API and the possibility of a flickr API so there are more photos of every player. The visualisation could be set up on each super 14 team website. This would mean that the visualisation could be accessed by more people.
Edge cases
In some cases a player may have only played one or two games of the whole season. If this is the case they will not be included in the total of the data, as it does not provide a clear representation of the team because of their low involvement with the team. An example of a player that would not be included is Julian Huxley. In the 2009 season he only played 3 games as he had to undergo treatment for a brain tumour.
What it means for the viewers
Those who are interested in super 14 or Rugby union in general would find this datavisualistion interesting as it show rugby union data in a unique and interesting way. An example of an already existing and quite boring rugby union data website is http://www.rugbydata.com/ . The datavisualisation also brings all the data from every team to one convenient place. This means that fans don’t have to go through each individual super 14 team website to get the same amount of data. The visualisation also gives the viewers the possibility to get an idea on how well their team might do, or how well their team has done in the past. It also has the possibility to draw correlations between age, experience etc and how well a team does. Not only would the visualisation be a convenient resource for super 14 fans it would also has a potential to reveal patterns and correlations in rugby union that would have not been possible to find without the datavisualisation. It would also be now where near as easy or interesting to discover patters or correlations from the raw data. That is why visualising the data has such an appeal.
Other ideas
When I set out to create the visualisation my first thought was to somehow visualize the data all on the one page.
So the viewer does not have to explore through all the data. However when I put more thought into it I quickly realized that it would be very hard to do and it wouldn’t necessarily be the best way to visualise the data. This is when I came up with the idea of visualising the data like I have explained above. It is a much more effective way of visualising the data. The main inspiration for the design was from the Olympics datavisualisation which can be viewed from. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/08/04/sports/olympics/20080804_MEDALCOUNT_MAP.html.
One of the hardest things that might incur when trying to make the datavisualisation would be getting all the data from every season for every player in that team for each season. But once that data is collected the rest of it would be easy for someone who knows how to make a visualisation.
Above is an example of what the datavisualisation might look like if it were built. I didn’t make it because I just didn’t have the time or the knowledge of how to make it so in may assignment i just went into an in-depth discussion There would be a lot more to if it was built compared to what it looks like now. I’d like to try to build something like this. But first i need to get the skill to make one.
On another note did anyone watch Q&A and four corners on monday. They were all about censorship and about the possible impacts the filter might have. They were both really quite interesting and are definitely worth a look if you missed out, here are the links so you can watch them.
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2889287.htm http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2010/s2893505.htm
Both these programs have definitely reinforced my belief that the internet in australia should not be censored. It is not the solution to “protecting the children” from harmful content on the internet. The children’s protection should be left up to the parents. Educating the parents would on how to better protect their children from harmful content would be a better idea. Hopefully the government will realize from the national and international reaction that imposing an internet filtering system is a stupid idea.
oh yeah and it was the last week of classes at uni this week which is pretty freakin sweet. But oh no what am i going to write about in my blog. Never fear i do have a life that does not consist solely of uni. I will be travelling over to Europe with my brother to places such as Berlin, Poland, and country next to Poland Belarus. I am looking forward to going to Belarus the most, basically because we have family there and we’ll visit the place where my grandpa was born and escaped from during WWII and starting a new life in england and then onto Australia (that’s a pretty amazing story..might have to write a blog about it) leaving behind all the family most of which died in WWII, Except for a few survivors. The other reason why I am looking forward to going to Belarus is in my travels i have only ever really been to the western very touristy countries so it will be nice for a change and going somewhere completely different.
Below are examples of what the bubbles will look like in the visualisation. (see previous post for explanation of the assignment)
whoops in the excitement and enjoyment of the weekend, with such distractions as Groovin the Moo I forgot all about posting a blog. anyway enough blab here it is.
So i have collected all my data for my assignment (thank god) and I have come up with a way to visualise it. At first I was trying to work out a way in which I could visualise all my data on one page. I realized pretty quickly that this was either going to look very crap or it just wasn’t going to work. So I had a trawl through other datavisualisations for some inspiration and ideas. I remembered one of the examples that Michael Honey showed is in the datavis lecture which was the olympics one. where the medal data was visually displayed. My datavisualisation will be similar to the olympics datavis.
The viewer will be able to select a certain season such as the 2009 season or 1992 and select what data they want to see such as age. The age of the players will be added up to get one whole number and then this will be displayed in an oval shape similar to the ball, the older the team the larger the oval. The oval will have some kind of emblem design on it so it teams the viewer can distinguish between teams. the viewer can then click on the oval and it will come up a visualisation of the total age of that team throughout the years that team has been in the super 14, and a list of all the players in that team below the visualisation from the certain year that was selected and at the start and the stats for each individual player such as age weight height etc. This same principle of datavis will be used for weight, height. wins and losses etc. The only one that will be different will be the place of birth for each individual player. The viewer will be able to select the team or teams they want to view. A google map will pop up with pins showing where each player comes from. when the mouse is rolled over a pin the name of the player will pop up. You can click on the pin and the data of that player will show up below the google map. It is possible to view different teams at the same time. The pin markers will be different colours according to which team the player is from.
Hopefully the datavisualisation will show how important things such as age, weight, height etc in how well a team does.
I am currently going through the mundane task of collecting the data i need for my assignment. I am collecting the wins and losses (from the 2009 season) of every rugby union team, the height, weight, age of every player, and where they come from. i am not really sure how i am going to visualize all the data. However I have noticed that the infographs and datavisualisations I have looked at that are about rugby union are all very unimaginative and boring so however I decide to display all my data i want it to be a lot more interesting and imaginative that the stuff I have looked at.
Hopefully my data will show how much of a factor, age, weight, height and where the players come from have a factor on how well a team does. However I do understand that these are not the only factors that determine how well a team can do in a season.
This week marked the last lecture of networked media production. I would have to say that the nmp lectures were by far the best and most interesting out of all my units. I want to thank Michael Honey for delivering such interesting lectures.
This week we learnt about Datavisualisation. I think the greatest thing about datavis is using methods such as color, movement, size, etc it can make raw data that is usually hard to read and compare, easy to read and compare. (insert awesome analogy for explaining datavis here!)
For our next assignment, one of the choices we have is to make our own datavis. I’ve been thinking about what data i want to use. The two ideas i have come up with is using the raw data that is stored on my phone (call and text data) and doing something with it, like finding what days of the week i am using my phone. The other idea I have which I am more leaning towards is using raw data from a sport and using that data to attempt to find out stuff, like if there really is a correlation between age and how much a team wins.
I have come up with a few ideas but I am still very up in the air on how i am actually going to ‘visualize the data’. This will be my next challenge.
One of my favourite old school datavisualisations is John Snows visualisation of the Cholera outbreak in London 1854. By creating the datavisualisation below John Snow was able to locate where the main source of the outbreak was coming from, which was from a pump on Broad Street.
Other Datavisualisations/infographics I like
http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/small-world This reveals the remotest place on earth according to how long it takes to get to certain places. Interesting fact to come out of the research: only “less than 10% of the world’s land is more than 48 hours of ground-based travel from the nearest city.”
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/02/23/movies/20080223_REVENUE_GRAPHIC.html This visualisation shows how well some movies have done at the box office from 1986 to 2008.
http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/ This is a bit of a different take on Datavisualisation. This is the video clip of Radioheads’s house of cards. There was no light or no cameras used in the video clip, just data which is pretty cool check out this url http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/viewer.htm. You can actually use your mouse to show you different perspectives of the video clip.
In our tutorial yesterday we were split into groups and asked to come up with a website or online service that harnessed collective intelligence. We came up with the idea of a travel website and named it “youflew”.
The idea is that People will be able to upload their itineraries and essentially review their trip, ranking the airlines they flew, accommodation they stayed in, cities they visited and what they did. Once we have collected enough intelligence from the users we would create a program that uses all this information to create an itinerary based on tags or keywords, the dates that you want to travel and a budget. The tags and keywords will harness the collective intelligence of the people who have uploaded and ranked their trips. This itinerary will cover the flights, accommodation, transport of any kind, and any activities that need booking. The user however has the choice to only select one or a few of the options such as flights and accommodation when creating the itinerary. Once you proceed to pay for the itinerary there will be a small commission from youflew for the privilege of using the website. One idea is that we could possibly ask for a donation no less than One dollar. Once the itinerary is booked and paid for the user will be encouraged to rate their trip which will further add to the collective intelligence. If you don’t know what you want to do or where you want to go, popular itineraries can be accessed and there will also be the function of creating a random holiday that is just one click away. Regular users would be able to set up an account which would include a map of where they have been and where they want to go. The website will then use this information and recommend other users to that user who have similar places that they want to travel to. So there is the potential to meet new people and find ‘travel buddies’. These users will also get priority e-mails informing them of deals and sales on the website
Including the harnessing of collective intelligence, youflew will also make use of many API’s, such as Flickr, a vast of range of flight companies to ensure a good deal on flights, weather information, currency rates, google maps, travel warnings, car rental companies etc. If the website becomes popular there is the potential to make even more profit by making flight companies bid for their airline to be the main airline that is used when selecting the flights, and also for advertising space (if that makes sense).
One of the major problems that we think would incur if we were to create this website would be coming up with the program that harnesses the collective intelligence to create the itineraries. There is also the problem of acquiring the intelligence needed for the website.
This weeks lecture was all about the Web 2.0. Michael Honey Drew similarities between what happened when the printing press was invented in europe around 1430-ish ( one thing I want to add is that at uni I have heard a lot of different dates been thrown around from various people about the invention of the printing press. Ranging from 1430 to 1550. My understanding is that in europe, it was invented in about 1434. I could be wrong though as I am not an expert on the topic. But it really doesn’t really matter I have just found it interesting…… Back to the story). and the current situation of the web today. Prior to the invention of the printing press the Church had a lot of control over scripts that were all hand written. It is important to add that the culture before the invention was largely an oral one. Monks mainly interpreted the readings to the public ( and the hand written scripts weren’t so widespread because they could not be as easily duplicated). So in a way the public could only believe essentially what they were told. This meant that those in power had a great deal on control over public. So when the Printing press came along, the Church and those in positions of power did not like it at all because they did not have the same control over what and how the public learnt. Instead of relying on the Church and the spoken word to learn, people who could read were able to go off and learn by themselves, and interpret the information themselves. Attempts to censor printed books and ban certain books were made, but they still managed to circulate among the general public, and have an impact. The effect that the invention of the printing press has had of the world and the shaping of modern society has been debated by such people as Elizabeth EisensteinThe Printing Press as an Agent of Change) and Marshal McLuhan (The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)
(Note: most of my knowledge of the invention of the printing press has come from an essay that I wrote for another university unit about the invention)
A similar thing is happening today. The internet opens up a massive gateway of information that is available to anyone that has access to a computer and an internet connection. It is known that some Governments, such as the Chinese Government try to control what can be viewed by the public on the internet by censoring what can be accessed online (see What are we complaining about post). It could be argued that some Governments (not all) are censoring because they want a greater deal of control over what the public can view online. Will the effort of control from some Governments shape what the internet in the future? No one can be certain, but not if Google can help it. I am talking specifically about Google’s recent activity in relation to censorship that are highlighted in the article linked and in one of my posts.It is very hard to predict where the internet will go in the future. We know that there is much more user interaction with the advent of social networking sites and wiki pages where the general public are the ones adding the content rather that the content being provided for public. There is much more of an emphasis on peer-to-peer and open source functionality. When the internet was invented by Tim Burners Lee in 1989, no one could predict how successful the internet would become,and how quickly it would evolve. Realistically we are still in the early days of this technology it is exciting to think how much more the internet might evolve in another 21 years.
It is worth reading this article titled “we are the web” that was one of the readings for the lecture. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html
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