With gorgeous Dakota sandstone dipping away from the sunset.
I recently attended Edward Tufte‘s Cincinnati lecture on Presenting Data & Information and interviewed him for VizWorld. The post and audio interview are available here.
Who is Edward Tufte? In the immortal analogy of @polarisdotca, “Tufte : graphics :: Feynman : physics :: Gretzky : hockey.” Recommended by computer science and art professors alike, the dog-eared works of Tufte have graced my bookshelves ever since I was a wee computational sciences graduate student.
That reminds me to frame and hang up the print of this amazing infographic created by Charles Joseph Minard in 1812. I love it when history and the principles of good information design come together to tell a compelling story.
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Yeah, we should be talking about what Obama said, but this is just too damned funny. I love the internet.
Obama Tells Students In 2009: “We can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents and the best schools in the world. And none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities.””
Reagan Told Students In 1986: “We have to remain economically competitive, and that means being aware of two things: first, what makes economies tick, and second, what works in other societies. We’ve been trying very hard in Washington to make America even more economically fit by really overhauling our entire tax structure. When we came into office, the top personal tax rate that the Federal Government could put on your income was 70 percent. Now, you can understand, I think, that if you were getting up in those brackets — there were 14 different tax brackets, depending on the amount of money in each bracket you earned. And when you could look and say, “If I earn another dollar, I only get to keep 30 cents out of it,” you can imagine the lack of incentive there. Well, we lowered it to 50 percent, and the economy really took off. Now we’re trying to lower it yet again so that families can keep more of their money and so the national economy will be lean and trim and fit for the future.”
Reagan Told Students In 1988: “These days, whenever I see foreign leaders, they tell me about their plans for reducing taxes and other economic reforms that they’re using, copying what we have done here in our country. I wonder if they realize that this vision of economic freedom — the freedom to work, to create and produce, to own and use property without the interference of the state — was central to the American Revolution when the American colonists rebelled against a whole web of economic restrictions, taxes, and barriers to free trade. The message at the Boston Tea Party — have you studied yet in history about the Boston Tea Party, where, because of a tax, they went down and dumped the tea in the harbor? Well, that was America’s original tax revolt. And it was the fruits of our labor — belonged to us, and not to the state. And that truth is fundamental to both liberty and prosperity.”
The Wall Street Journal reports that Obama’s speech “has roused controversy among some conservatives, who have said he is trying to indoctrinate their children with a ‘socialist’ political agenda.”
And there you have it. B.C.E.D. Batshit crazy erat demonstrandum. Know it but don’t discount it.
In his latest at Locus, Cory Doctorow notes the passing of co-founder Charles N. Brown, introduces his With A Little Help print-on-demand experiment and points out the holes in the “special pleading” arguments folks use against open online publishing.
… Now, I’m too successful, someone whose name is so widely known that I am uniquely situated to benefit from open publishing, since the micro net-fame I enjoy provides the vital push necessary to wrest sales from freebies. Hilariously, some of the people who say this go back in time and revise history, claiming that I was only able to sell as many copies of Down and Out as I have over the years (nine printings and still selling great!) because I was such a big shot famous writer in 2003, on the strength of a dozen short story sales.
Here’s the money quote, a fact that escapes folks stuck in traditional publishing modes.
I don’t give away downloads because I’m just a swell guy ” I do it because I’m a self-employed entrepreneur who needs to make as much as he can to support his family.
Giving away free online copies makes an author money. What a concept.
