[Editor’s note: This Flash-based interactive experience features several 3d panoramas shot from high above Manhattan. Spin the views around, listen to tunes, and download desktop wallpaper pictures. Thanks Laris!]
Posts Tagged ‘karklis’
New York 3d Virtual Reality Panorama (PixelCase)
Friday, May 15th, 2009Tag Cloud: Twitter Chatter During the Super Bowl (NY Times)
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009[Editor’s note: The Times produced a fantastic interactive time-based tag-cloud-on-a-map showing twitter chatter across the US keyed to major events in the Super Bowl game between the Steelers and Cardinals. Several thematic channels are available. Kudos to Matthew Bloch and Shan Carter. Thanks Laris!]
Republished from The New York Times.
Orig pub date: Feb. 2, 2009.
As the Steelers and Cardinals battled on the field, Twitter users across the nation pecked out a steady stream of “tweets.” The map shows the location and frequency of commonly used words in Super Bowl related messages.
Interact with the original Flash version at New York Times . . .
Bizarre: Hacking Your Brain (Boston Globe)
Thursday, January 15th, 2009[Editor’s note: Truly bizarre science graphic about how the human brain processes sensation and the wacky tricks that expose the artifice of our senses. Thanks Laris.]
Republished from the Boston Globe. Sunday 11 Jan. 2009.
How to hallucinate with ping-pong balls and a radio
Text by Johan Lehrer, graphics by Javier Zarracina
DO YOU EVER want to change the way you see the world? Wouldn’t it be fun to hallucinate on your lunch break? Although we typically associate such phenomena with powerful drugs like LSD or mescaline, it’s easy to fling open the doors of perception without them: All it takes is a basic understanding of how the mind works.
The first thing to know is that the mind isn’t a mirror, or even a passive observer of reality. Much of what we think of as being out there actually comes from in here, and is a byproduct of how the brain processes sensation. In recent years scientists have come up with a number of simple tricks that expose the artifice of our senses, so that we end up perceiving what we know isn’t real – tweaking the cortex to produce something uncannily like hallucinations. Perhaps we hear the voice of someone who is no longer alive, or feel as if our nose is suddenly 3 feet long.
Click image for larger view.
Map: Walking to the Inauguration (Wash Post)
Sunday, January 11th, 2009[Editor’s note: Continuing coverage of Obama inauguration on January 20th, 2009. Unprecedented crowds are expected, severely disrupting commuting patterns. If you are within two miles of the National Mall experts say to walk to your destination (and expect security checkpoints around the Mall itself). Other coverage includes: overview map, ticketed seating, special bus corridors, and road closures and parking restrictions.]
Republished from The Washington Post.
The bad news: Witnessing this historic occasion in person will require a bit of a schlep. The good news: Officials say pedestrians will be allowed to go just about everywhere. So what about those who have to park their cars and venture over the Potomac and Anacostia rivers on foot for the first time? Put on your sturdy shoes, grab a wind-resistant jacket and climb down into this guide to walking over the 10 bridges into the District of Columbia. — Reporting by Bonnie Berkowitz
SOURCES: U.S. Secret Service, Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, D.C. Department of Transportation
NOTE: Closures and corridors are subject to change at the discretion of security officials.
Graphic By Laris Karklis — The Washington Post
Map: Inauguration Road Closures, Bridge Closures, Parking Restrictions, Tour Bus Parking (Wash Post)
Sunday, January 11th, 2009[Editor’s note: Continuing coverage of Obama inauguration on January 20th, 2009. Unprecedented crowds are expected, severely disrupting commuting patterns. If you are within two miles of the National Mall experts say to walk to your destination (and expect security checkpoints around the Mall itself). Other coverage includes: overview map, ticketed seating, and special bus corridors.]
Republished from The Washington Post.
Original post on Jan. 7th, 2009.
Map: Inauguration Special Bus Corridors (Wash Post)
Sunday, January 11th, 2009[Editor’s note: Continuing coverage of how to best experience or cope with the Inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States on January 20th. Other posts include: Overview map and Ticketed seating.]
Republished from The Washington Post. Jan. 9, 2009.
Metro has designated 23 special bus corridors to run extended rush-hour service from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Jan. 20. Corridor service mainly follows existing Metrobus routes and bus stops across the region. The buses on these corridors pick up and terminate at 14 stops just outside the restricted area. They will run about every 10 minutes to accommodate inauguration crowds.
Gas Woe’s for Europe (Wash Post)
Thursday, January 8th, 2009[Editor’s note: Beautiful, compact map in Thursday’s paper showing 4 main natural gas pipelines feeding Europe from Russia on a globe. I think this map is by Laris Karklis. He even has the Arctic Circle on there!]
Republished from The Washington Post. By Philip P. Pan. Thursday, January 8, 2009; Page A08
Economy, Politics Stoke Russia-Ukraine Gas Quarrel
Deliveries Halted To European Users As Feud DeepensÂ
MOSCOW, Jan. 7 — Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine have wrangled over fuel prices, with both sides holding a powerful bargaining chip. Russia has had the natural gas Ukraine needs to power its industries. Ukraine has owned the pipelines Russia depends on to transport the gas it sells to Europe.
The two have often engaged in brinkmanship, threatening to cut off deliveries. But they have never followed through on the threats for very long –Â until now.
A confluence of factors tied to the global economic crisis and political uncertainty in both countries have altered the dynamics of the annual dispute. For the first time, Russian gas deliveries to Europe through Ukraine came to a complete halt Wednesday, as the standoff between the two countries stretched into a seventh day.
Russia accused Ukraine of shutting down pipelines that deliver a fifth of the continent’s fuel, while Ukraine charged that Russia had simply stopped sending gas. With more than a dozen countries scrambling to maintain heat and electricity amid a bitter cold snap, the European Union urged both countries to accept international monitors to verify gas flows.
Direct talks were scheduled to resume Thursday, but analysts said progress would be difficult for the same mix of economic and political reasons that led the two nations to dig in this week instead of compromising, as they had done in years past.
With its economy in deep trouble, Ukraine has little to lose by using its control of European fuel shipments to resist Russia’s demand for a price increase. By contrast, Russia is suffering huge losses in immediate gas revenue and enormous damage to its reputation as an energy partner seeking European investment. Yet political considerations seem to have prevented the Kremlin from surrendering.
Website maps surnames worldwide (BBC)
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008A website which maps global surnames has been launched to help people find the origins of their name and how far it may have spread.
[Editor’s note: Originally published August 30th but the site was hit so hard I did not promote at the time. Thanks Curt and Laris!]
Visit the site at: http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/
The Public Profiler site plots eight million last names using data from electoral rolls and phone directories.
The site covers 300 million people in 26 countries, showing the origins of names and where families have moved to.
David Beckham, for example, has an English name, but there are more Beckhams in the US than Britain.
But the region of the world with the highest concentration of people called Beckham was even further from the footballer’s east London origins – in the New Zealand province of Northland.
The site – www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames – also reveals which of the five million forenames are most closely associated with different surnames and lists the top regions and cities for each surname.
![]() |
![]() ![]() Professor Paul Longley
![]() |
It was developed by a team of geographers from University College London.
Professor Paul Longley, one of the researchers, said: “The information is not just historical but geographical.
“We can link names to places – a name is now not just a statement of who you are but where you are.”
Most surnames originated in specific places in the world and remain most frequent in those areas, but have often spread to other countries because of migration, the research showed.
Searches for Britain’s three multi-gold medallists at the recent Olympics and the leaders of the three main political parties revealed some mixed results.
• Swimmer Rebecca Adlington’s surname is most prevalent in New Zealand
• Cyclist Chris Hoy’s surname is Irish but more common in Denmark
• Cyclist Bradley Wiggins’s surname is most popular in the US
• Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s surname tops the list in Australia
• Conservative leader David Cameron’s surname is most prevalent in New Zealand
• Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg’s surname is still most common in Britain
Prof Longley said that the site was currently struggling to cope with demand.
“We are being deluged with requests and we ask people to be patient. There is obviously a lot of interest in family names and family history globally,” he said.
Here are some example maps of my surname (Kelso):
Oil: Key players and movements (Financial Times)
Thursday, July 10th, 2008[Editor’s note: curious interactive map from the Financial Times. I like the “top 10” listings in tables but wish there was more going on with the maps themselves (choropleth coloring, direct interactivity). The technique of using background images (oil derek and oil tanker) seems to be making a comeback at the FT, WSJ, and elsewhere of late. I think it is more effective when masked by an area chart.]
Updated with 2007 data, [this Financial Times] interactive map examines the world’s largest oil producers, consumers, and how oil flows around the world. Updated: June 18 2008.
Screenshots below. Interactive version here.