BC Budget Visualizations – DIY Transparency & Local Government by Jer (via David Ascher)
When I think of Open Data many ideas come to mind. Applications like Vantrash were an early success, but what Jer has done with the BC Government's Budget is another piece I hope will emerge: data that is transformed into educative and compelling graphics that border on art. On the CBC Power & Politics last week (1:50:36) I made this my "blog of the week." And as I said on the show, if the Globe and Mail wants to compete with the New York Times and its cool multimedia work (like this piece on the Berlin Wall), get a guy like Jer on contract,
The Bitch is Back by Andrew Corsello (via David Hume)
A scathing piece in GQ magazine (have I ever read a GQ magazine article before?) about Ayn Rand. It pretty much sums up everything you've ever thought about Ayn Rand but were too polite to say. Bonus points go to this piece for the great Hitchens quote:
"as a fiction writer, she's absurd," says author and Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens, who is arguably the most opinionated Homo sapiens since Rand herself. "But if you're young and not particularly wanted and not particularly brilliant, reading Atlas Shrugged provides all the feelings of compensation one might need for any period of terrifying inadequacy."
Oh, and just in case those on the left are starting to feel smug about the Right's tautological hero and her prescribes a path to superiority, I caution you to pause. It is still early days but I'm beginning to feel like Ken Wilbur is the Left's emerging Ayn Rand and Integral Theory is its Objectivism. The material cannot be tested or proven, its lengthy and inaccessible, its definitely uncompromising, and for more extreme adherents, both theories lay out a theory of hierarchical development that I fear allow those at the "top" to be, at best, paternalistic and at worst, contemptuous, to those below.
Can D.I.Y. Supplant the First-Person Shooter? by Joshuah Bearman (via Lauren Bacon)
For those who believe video games could be art. More interestingly, it hints at how the future of entertainment may either be flatter than we thought, or the long tail of the market could be richer than many supposed. Either way, the video game is going to play a bigger role in our fragmented culture. Bonus points in this one for money quotes, insights and positive role contributed to the discussion by local boy and video game superstar Clint Hocking.
It's Time to Rethink Forest Management: More Subsidies Will Not Succeed by Susanne Ivey-Cook
I'm a policy wonk. And this piece is bang on. It's long past due that rethink how we allocate and use our forests. These are public owned goods and we need to ensure that they get used in a way that maximizes their value to tax payers and meet our ecological/sustainability goals. Definitely worth the quick read.
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