I spent Saturday at “barcampUKgovweb” and met a very interesting group of people who care about how government behaves online. Among the 60 or so participants, there was a roughly even split between people working for government, people working for companies and people who are - for want of a better term - civic hackers. (more…)
Archive for January, 2008
Comedy flashback: Chris Rock on the Black President
Friday, January 18, 2008
With Barack Obama neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, it’s worth recalling a virtuoso performance by comedian Chris Rock back in 1996 when Colin Powell was rumoured to be considering a presidential bid. Have things changed much since then? Could Rock’s cynicism about white people saying they’ll vote for a black candidate explain the inaccuracy of opinion polling in the New Hampshire primary?
Enjoy a master at work (caution: strong language).
Can you tell Gordo from Dave?
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Many Eyes is a web-based data visualisation tool that is still in alpha but already looks impressive. It’s very simple. You cut and paste data (numbers or text) and then choose from a variety of data visualisation tools to make your dataset come to live. We hope to be doing some cool things with it over at caphealthcheck.eu and farmsubsidy.org. In the meantime, here is a rather silly visualisation of the most frequently used words in speeches made by the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative Party Leader David Cameron. Can you tell whose words are whose? Answer after the jump.
Many Eyes has got some glitches but it seems a lot better than its rival Swivel. Here is a good comparative review of both.