Interpreting Global Flight Maps 93
kodiaktau writes "Five experts including: artist, environmentalist, aviation consultant, data visualization expert and philosopher interpret a flight map showing global flights. While the imagery of the visualization is intriguing, the interpretations are particularly interesting and show how individual background and experience impact they way they view the data."
Interpretations (Score:5, Insightful)
The artist looks at it and sees art, without any insight into interpreting the data.
The environmentalist looks at it, and doesn't understand what it's actually showing.
The aviation consultant looks at it and accurately relays exactly what it was intended to represent, with some limited interpretation.
The data visualization expert understands the data, and provides some suggestions for allowing this format to provide more information.
The philosopher is insane
So the intended interpretation of the story is that we each see what we want to see in information. The meta-interpretation is that I should only hire an expert in an appropriate field to analyze my data.
Re:Pretty, but is it real? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty, but I'm dubious. Looking at the US, it looks like nearly half the brightness is in a triangle with the southern terminus in Orlando or Miami, and going to the northeast. If brightness is mapped to density of flights, then this says that half of the flights in the US go from the northeast to Florida? I just don't think that's true. Florida is a great attractor... but not that great.
Well, you can never ignore the Disney factor. Or the cruise-ship factor (many fly to Florida to hop the cruises there). Florida is really big for vacations.
BUT... then you also have the fact that lots of people fly Internationally. LOTS.
And then you have to factor in business trips. LOTS of those too. Many are International, which means Boston + New York + Newark. And many are just to the big business cities: New York / Boston Chicago. Which means TONS of people from the south east are going to one of those 4 cities every day. Either from Florida, or from Atlanta.
Then you have Atlanta, a huge / busy airport hub, It's relatively close to Florida. So all of that density is adding to that blob in the south-eastern section.
Re:Interpretations (Score:4, Insightful)
The meta-interpretation is that I should only hire an expert in an appropriate field to analyze my data.
And possibility a data visualization expert along with the industry expert.
Re:Eurocentric (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interpretations (Score:5, Insightful)
>> "The meta-interpretation is that I should only hire an expert in an appropriate field to analyze my data."
An aviation consultant is going to be a better expert on the subject than a dog breeder, chef, or locksmith.
"Expert" is an overused and abused title in western civilization. I recently watched a show on BBC about Roy Lichtenstein. He was a 60's pop artist who copied nearly verbatim comic panels from Kirby, Kubert, Novack, and many of the best artist in comics in that day. He projected the panels and traced them onto canvas and painted them with ever so slight modification, placing special emphasis on the dot paterns used in printing.
So the snobby BBC "expert" (Alastair Sooke) debated Dave Gibbons (artist from The Watchmen) and tries to sell Dave on Lichtenstein's art being better than the originals he ripped off. Gibbons puts forth the argument that in no other field, not music or writing, would such wholesale plagerism be tolerated. You can't pass off a Beatles song as your own because you changed on or two small things. Sooke looks Gibbons in the eye and says the original artists were less talented so this is OK.
Sooke, BBC's expert, having no background or interest in comics, has written books trashing the talents of the original artists who Lichtenstein left uncredited. He describes the creations of people like Jack Kirby as "trashy" and "low" and "pulp". As an "expert" Sooke makes the argument that Lichtenstein improved the images he copied (a subjective opinion) and therefore he is the greater artist, even though Lichtenstein in his life never sold an original composition or creation of his own.
Lichtenstein's painting "WHAAM!" has sold for $10 million dollars. It is a ripoff of an Irv Novick panel from "All-American Men of War". Novick, nor any other artist, ever saw a dime from Lichtenstein.
Bottom line - the world is full of "experts". Many of them are well paid and full of rubbish.
http://davidbarsalou.homestead.com/LICHTENSTEINPROJECT.html [homestead.com]
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