Sapere Aude
Tag: visualization
As part of the momentum surrounding the Ruby implementer’s summit, I have decided to take on a pet project to understand Ruby’s grammar better, with the goal of contributing to an implementation-independent specification of the grammar. Matz mentioned during his keynote how parse.y was one of the uglier parts of Ruby, but just how ugly?
with comparisons to java and javascript. fascinating, even though it is not apparent what it means
this reminds me of the chaps who used google maps to annotate ancient scrolls. maps as a generic UI element of the future?
Cabspotting traces San Francisco’s taxi cabs as they travel throughout the Bay Area. The patterns traced by each cab create a living and always-changing map of city life. This map hints at economic, social, and cultural trends that are otherwise invisible
How well wiki technology can be tailored to support collaborative image editing remains an open question. Nonetheless, both the creation of the Commons and the recent implementation of SVG support are evidence of Wikipedians’ commitment to turn images
We develop visualization algorithms that help people see and exchange information in novel ways. Our designs aim to transform visualization from a solitary activity into a collaborative one.
the first data visualization system in SL. this has lots of potential, me thinks.
Structural comparison of large trees is a difficult task that is only partially supported by current visualization techniques, which are mainly designed for browsing. We present TreeJuxtaposer, a system designed to support the comparison task for large trees of several 100K nodes. We introduce the idea of “guaranteed visibility”, where highlighted areas are treated as landmarks that must remain visually apparent at all times. We propose a new methodology for detailed structural comparison between 2 trees and provide a new nearly-linear algorithm for computing the best corresponding node from one tree to another. In addition, we present a new rectilinear Focus+Context technique for navigation that is well suited to the dynamic linking of side-by-side views while guaranteeing landmark visibility and constant frame rates. These 3 contributions result in a system delivering a fluid exploration experience that scales both in the size of the dataset and the number of pixels in the display. We have based the design decisions for our system on the needs of a target audience of biologists who must understand the structural details of many phylogenetic, or evolutionary, trees. Our tool is also useful in many other application domains where tree comparison is needed, ranging from network management to call graph optimization to genealogy.
treemaps, themescapes etc. i wish these were widely available for visualization
you don’t need exotic theories to conjure multiverses. standard cosmology postulates that all possible quantum states (10^10^150), or world histories, actually play out. therefore, elvis is still alive (somewhere).
2007-01-28:
nice visualization of the multiverse.
2009-01-22: galaxy clusters racing at up to 1000 km / s – far faster than our best understanding of cosmology allows. Stranger still, every cluster seems to be rushing toward a small patch of sky between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela.
2012-01-23:
Recent theoretical works have shown that matter swapping between 2 parallel braneworlds could occur under the influence of magnetic vector potentials. In our visible world, galactic magnetism possibly produces a huge magnetic potential. As a consequence, this paper discusses the possibility to observe neutron disappearance into another braneworld in certain circumstances. The setup under consideration involves stored ultracold neutrons – in a vessel – which should exhibit a non-zero probability p to disappear into an invisible brane at each wall collision. An upper limit of p is assessed based on available experimental results. This value is then used to constrain the parameters of the theoretical model. Possible improvements of the experiments are discussed, including enhanced stimulated swapping by artificial means. The leap from our universe to another is theoretically possible. And the technology to test the idea is available today
that experiment sounds like nobel prize material.
2013-04-03: as good as any (perhaps even on the better side) episode of minutephysics
2015-05-28:
many physicists have come to doubt the very logic of nature’s laws. Increasingly, they worry that our universe might just be a random, rather bizarre permutation among uncountable other possible universes — an effective dead end in the quest for a coherent theory of nature
2015-08-11:
“A lot of people claim that you can never empirically test a claim like the multiverse because by definition you can only see what’s in our universe. But I think that’s much too quick.” Certain fundamental laws, which we can empirically prove in our own universe, might mathematically predict the existence of other universes. These laws would therefore be indirect, but compelling evidence of the existence of other universes.
oy. “usability testing” on graphs for excel 2007 led to 0 values now being graphed with a bar. this is really bad. why did they let the stupid prevail?
Gregor J. Rothfuss 