• S.E.C. Rules Would Limit Trading in Volatile Market: The idea behind this is that individual stocks will now be subject to trade limits (i.e., no more trading) once they pass the 10% threshold.  Nobody knows exactly how this will work but was in terms of data visualization, why not analyze what this would mean retrospectively?  This lends itself very well to a quick analysis.

• Putting Customers in Charge of Design: All about creating your own shirts via blank-label.com.  Image provided is of the interface on this website.  Not too much you could potentially do.  Cool concept though.  Here’s another quote:

Since last Halloween, when the company’s dress shirt design application made its debut at www.blank-label.com, Mr. Bi and his three partners — ages 19, 22 and 30 — have joined a small but growing co-creation movement that uses the Internet to let consumers have a hand in making the products they buy. Web ventures have already popped up that allow shoppers to customize granola (MeAndGoji.com), jewelry (gemvara.com), chocolate (CreateMyChocolate.com), handbags (LaudiVidni.com) and clothing for girls ages 6 to 12 (FashionPlaytes.com). There are also online competitors selling design-your-own shirts, while Brooks Brothers is one major retailer that offers the service on its Web site.

• Debt Rising in Europe:  Visualization of debt on the European continent.  This is a great visual with very questionable take-aways.  What exactly is each chart trying to show?  It’s tough to completely integrate the chart into the article since there is so much data, however, I think this does a great job of putting things in perspective.

The graphs include: (1) a graph of the Eurozone countries – provide context; (2) 2009 debt as % of GDP; (3) 2005 debt as % of GDP; (4) 2000 debt as % of GDP; (5) 2009 GDP; (6) Budget deficit as share of GDP; (7) Interest rate spread from Germany.

The first graph is kind of useless.  The next three show how debt levels have progressively worsened in certain countries over the past 10 years.  The fifth graph shows the size of the economies in relation to each other (e.g., Greece is 2.5% of Europe’s GDP).  The sixth graph shows that in terms of deficits Greece is in line with Britain, Ireland and Spain and the final graph shows that Greek bonds have over a 5% higher spread in interest rates than Germany (similar to Poland and Hungary which is not explained).

This is all great information but it’s not tied into the article and in reality it seems a bit excessive.  How much this results from lack of clarity at source is unclear.  Nobody really knows what will happen with Greece and the terribly named PIIGS in the coming months (years) which could explain why the charts are nothing more than figures.  However, thank you for the facts!

• Senate Votes for a Clear Credit Score: This is one small piece of the financial regulation package but its aim is to provide users with the credit scores on which they are judged.  No data visualization is provided but that is the ultimate subject.  Currently credit reports are a mess.  This is one small step towards fixing credit reports and hopefully through good visualization, enhancing financial literacy.

Currently, the free, government-mandated credit reports show the status and payment history of outstanding loans and other obligations, including credit cards, charge accounts, mortgages and car loans, as well as delinquencies like unpaid medical bills, that have been referred to a collection agency. Such information is used by the credit reporting bureaus to devise a credit score, but the score is not disclosed in the free report.

• Why is her paycheck smaller:  Nice use of visualization to show how women’s income is lower than equal pay for men.  Nothing more than a regression with the data pairs actually paid onto the page with rollover links to see details from each sub-industry and lines displaying parity and various levels below parity.  It’s a good article with a good graph to accompany it and bring the point home.  Hallelujah.

The first are images of fallen soldiers where each pixel is a soldier.

The second representation is in chronological order where light pixels are fatalities in Iraq and dark pixels in Afghanistan.  As you can see, Afghanistan was the source of most of the original fatalities and then the source of the most recent fatalities.

Noticeably absent from this representation: American fatalities that were not directly attributable to the military such as hired soldiers.  They represent close to half of all the soldiers in these wars and unrevealed number of fatalities. Also, civilian fatalities are not depicted in any way.

Two other facts not completely transmitted through the images:

American troops are dying younger, often fresh out of boot camp, military records show. From 2002 to 2008, the average age of service members killed in action in Afghanistan was about 28; last year, it dropped to 26. This year, the more than 125 troops killed in combat were on average 25 years old.

In the last two years, the number of troops killed by homemade bombs, which the military calls improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, increased significantly. Earlier in the war, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire took the largest number of American lives. But in 2008, for the first time, more than half of American combat deaths were the result of I.E.D.’s, which — just as they did in Iraq — have become both more powerful and more plentiful in Afghanistan.

Numbers scribbled on this white board during a meeting of a spill response unit in Seattle have stirred speculation that officials have been underestimating the extent of the gulf oil spill.

Here is the link.

This is one situation where simple brainstorming could get someone in a lot of trouble.

What is most rewarding is progress the students made in their critical thinking and ability to solve real world design problems. The students have shared their enjoyment not only of the learning process, but the ability to express all of their ideas in an open forum. The TeachDesign team of frog designers and SHW Group architects collaborated with the students, helping them to refine their ideas and develop a point of view to present to their audience in a powerful and persuasive way.

The goal was to transform parts of their environment through design.

It would be great if the schools were this open in reframing their educational models as well.

Fifteen years ago, Los Angeles spent “about $1 million” a year on pedestrians and bike services. This year Los Angeles has earmarked $36 million on walking alone. Could it be that this western cow-town, this place that’s synonymous with self-reinvention, is reinventing itself?

An essay on Walking in L.A. by Ryan Bradley.  It seems to be the first part of a series in which he’s going to walk across Los Angeles.

Link.

Interesting to think how this type of micro-turbine could potentially be combined with Kite-powered systems (which are currently not made for infrastructure independence).  Could there be ways of using kites to power small communities?  For example, harnessing them onto cars, buses, bikes?

Here is the link from the National Design Triennial’s review of the M10 Kite-power System.