Wisconsin Voters Banished to NULL Island
The top headline in my local paper this morning was “Glitch puts some Wisconsin voters in Africa” … an interesting thing to ponder over a bowl of Quaker Oatmeal Squares. I suppose this problem merits at least some attention given the heated political climate surrounding the state’s voter redistricting process. But headline …
Politicians Discover Data Science
During the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign, the online design community devoted a lot of pixels to comparisons of the two candidate’s web sites (a few great examples here, here, and here). The overall consensus was that Obama won the war for eyeballs by emphasizing design, web usability, multimedia, and robust social networking. According to an …
Six Degrees of Joy Division
My local record store used to have this great poster on the back wall that explained how several dozen British indie bands from the 80s were all linked together through their various group members. The title of the poster was something like “Why All These Bands Sound the Same” and it was clearly a tongue-and-cheek …
They’re Coming for Your Data
Data privacy breaches seem to be the issue de jour for the tech sector. On October 18, 2010, it was revealed that several of the most popular Facebook applications had transmitted the personal information of tens of millions of users — including ID numbers, demographic data and names of friends — to …
The Etiquette of File Naming
My company has a public network that is open to all employees and is used to store shared information. The number of folders is quite large and — in an effort to make the search for a particular folder easier — a few people have started adding exclamation points to the front …
Relearning an Old Lesson
Anyone who’s ever used a computer has — at some point — lost a carefully-crafted sequence of ones and zeros to the unforgiving gods of the digital realm. Every time it happens, you mourn, you rage against the sky, you re-write and you move on. Each time, you add another …
In Search of the Right Metric
The Wisconsin DNR just kicked off its PR campaign for Operation Deer Watch this week. This program is designed to collect data about the state’s deer herd and it is used primarily to keep tabs on the overall deer population. This is serious business for folks who live in America’s …