Calling Out GE's Misleading Data Visualizations 123
theodp writes "Stephen Few never did suffer data visualization fools gladly. After seeing an oil exec (mis)use data viz to put a positive spin on Gulf Oil Spill cleanup efforts, Few felt compelled to call out BP. And now it's General Electric that's got Few's dander up: 'The series of interactive data visualizations that have appeared on GE's website over the last two years,' writes Few, 'has provided a growing pool of silly examples. They attempt to give the superficial impression that GE cares about data while in fact providing almost useless content. They look fun, but communicate little. As such, they suggest that GE does not in fact care about the information and has little respect for the intelligence and interests of its audience. This is a shame, because the stories contained in these data sets are important.' Concerned about his strong reactions to poorly designed data visualizations, Few asked his neuropsychologist wife whether he might be overreacting. She, too, agrees that GE's natural gas visualizations are maddening, which one might be tempted to dismiss as predictable, although Eyeo Festival presenter Michal Migurski also declares GE's effort 'one terrible, terrible bit of nonsense.'"
Re:The most useful one (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get the use of the Sierpinski triangle [wikipedia.org], Apollonian gasket [wikipedia.org], and Sierpinski carpet [wikipedia.org] style shapes for representing each fuel source. I haven't looked at much data visualization, but it doesn't seem the use of these doesn't add anything.
I don't know much about visualization either, but this one is really obvious. Empty spaces add perceived volume to the graph, so that it looks bigger (compared to the full square that show how much we use each year). Our brains don't know how to calculate the percentage of empty space into the perceived size.
Re:Can somebody translate the summary into English (Score:2, Insightful)
Normally, I'd agree with you. However, as a New Yorker, I can tell you that these phrases are used (or at least known) in the coastal Northeast (NY, NJ, PA, MD). I can't say one way or the other how a New Englander might react, because I've never been out that way (except for a brief foray into Boston once). It's not something that we commonly use, but we understand the idiom. Whether that's from linguistic evolution or global telecommunications, I don't know. I didn't have any trouble understanding the summary, but I find the guy's ire a bit perplexing. He got mad because someone made a misleading visualization? He's going to have a heart attack at 40.
Re:The most useful one (Score:5, Insightful)
Adjust the sliders to match the production increases over the last ten years, and you get 38 years left for oil, 42 years left for natural gas, and 44 years left for coal. Which makes the premise that "The World has Huge Natural Gas Reserves" totally false, unless you have no children and only expect to live for 40 years or less.
How many years of Sunlight Reserves do we have left?
Over 4,000,000,000 years.
Do you need a visualization to understand the difference between 40 years and 4,000,000,000 years?
Re:Summary v2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Marketing folk are malicious.
Re:Stupid we are (Score:1, Insightful)
You have a point. Corporations are run by people. LLC stands for "Limited Liability Corporation." Corporations protect owners and employees from blame and lawsuits when something goes wrong. The corporation keeps owners from suffering the consequences when something goes wrong or even when someone does something wilfully negligent. This is why the modern corporation is a great enabler of evil... when something is done wrong, like the poisoning of a body of water or the financial ruining of thousands of people, the is no one but a "legal fiction" to punish.
Re:WTF does the summary mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the summary could actually try to summarize what is going on. For example it could let us know:
* Who is Stephen Few? Is he an expert in this filed or some random blogger?
* What data on the GE website are they talking about? If there are many different sets of data give an example of one.
* What is 'Eyeo Festival'?
Providing some basic context lets us know whether TFA is worth reading - as is stands it just bunch of meaningless drivel.
Re:Pathetic. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's almost impossible to compete with the vast fossil fuel subsidies. People who mock the costs of alternative energy sources seem to forget that one of the chief reasons they aren't competitive is that any subsidies they may get are dwarfed by what is handed over to oil companies.