Tarrybreeks

‘There’s a great democratisation of data going on. Rather than the numbers belonging to the experts, they belong to all of us - and data journalism is part of that reclaiming of the facts. Even at the OECD, users’ voices are part of the process, making up the core analysis that lies at the heart of the Better Life Index on wellbeing.

‘And, just to be clear - data journalism doesn’t have to mean data visualisation. It is not about producing charts or intricate graphics - the results of data journalism just happen to lend themselves to that. Sometimes a story is best told in images and infographics, other times it works as words and stories. It’s the ultimate in flexible formats.’

—by Simon Rogers

‘The current wave of excitement about data, data technologies and all things data-driven might lead one to suspect that this machine-readable, structured stuff is a special case. The zeitgeist at times bears an uncannily resemblance to the optimism of a loose-knit group of scientists, social scientists, and philosophers at the start of the 20th century, who thought they could eschew value-laden narratives for an objective, fact-driven model of the world. “Facts are sacred” says the Guardian Datablog and “for a fact-based worldview” says Gapminder. The thought of tethering our reportage, analyses and reflection to chunks of data-given truth is certainly consoling. But the notion that data gives us special direct access to the way things are is – for the most part – a chimera.’

—by Jonathan Gray

‘Ireland could potentially export as much energy as we consume ourselves as part of the Government’s strategy for Renewable Energy 2012 – 2020, it was claimed today.

‘It is also suggested that as many as 10,000 jobs could be created by 2015 in the wider green economy.

‘However, commentators stress the importance of the Government sticking to its own strategy to avoid the loss of our vast natural Resources to big business or to Europe.

‘The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland said that the Government’s strategy is a step in the right direction.’

[Source: Irish Examiner]

penny-red:

So the divine Molly Crabapple and I overcaffeinated ourselves and decided we should start teaming up on some art journalism. I wrote two pieces for the Independent about the Chicago protests, and Molly drew illustrations based on photos I took and sent to her. They’ve been published at The New…

‘In this essay, we outline a cognitive approach to democracy. Specifically, we argue that democracy has unique benefits as a form of collective problem solving in that it potentially allows people with highly diverse perspectives to come together in order collectively to solve problems. Democracy can do this better than either markets and hierarchies, because it brings these diverse perceptions into direct contact with each other, allowing forms of learning that are unlikely either through the price mechanism of markets or the hierarchical arrangements of bureaucracy. Furthermore, democracy can, by experimenting, take advantage of novel forms of collective cognition that are facilitated by new media.

‘Much of what we say is synthetic – our normative arguments build on both the academic literature (Joshua Cohen’s and Josiah Ober’s arguments about epistemic democracy; Jack Knight and James Johnson’s pragmatist account of the benefits of a radically egalitarian democracy and Elster and Landemore’s forthcoming collection on Collective Wisdom), and on arguments by public intellectuals such as Steven Berlin Johnson, Clay Shirky, Tom Slee and Chris Hayes. We also seek to contribute to new debates on the sources of collective wisdom. Throughout, we emphasize the cognitive benefits of democracy, building on important results from cognitive science, from sociology, from machine learning and from network theory.

‘We start by explaining social institutions should do. Next, we examine sophisticated arguments that have been made in defense of markets (Hayek’s theories about catallaxy) and hierarchy (Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s ‘libertarian paternalism’) and discuss their inadequacies. The subsequent section lays out our arguments in favor of democracy, illustrating how democratic procedures have cognitive benefits that other social forms do not. The penultimate section discusses how democracy can learn from new forms of collective consensus formation on the Internet, treating these forms not as ideals to be approximated, but as imperfect experiments, whose successes and failures can teach us about the conditions for better decision making; this is part of a broader agenda for cross-disciplinary research involving computer scientists and democratic theorists.’

—by Henry Farrell (George Washington University) and Cosma Rohilla Shalizi (Carnegie-Mellon/The Santa Fe Institute)

‘FBI and local law enforcement officers raided a Montvale home and a Park Ridge building that houses several renewable energy companies Thursday in connection with a probe into fraud in the bio-diesel industry, a company executive and police said.

‘The Park Ridge raid took place at a building at 52 Park Ave. containing Caravan Trading Co. LLC, which is described on its website as an “agro-commerce” company, and affiliated companies.

‘From early morning, FBI agents, and at least one member of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, went in and out of offices in the stucco building, sometimes carrying boxes, and remained there all day. At one point, an agent carried a computer hard drive to a car.

‘Reached at his office, Joseph Furando, Caravan Trading’s vice president of procurement, sales and marketing, said that although the FBI raided the company’s offices it is not the target of the investigation.

‘“They are looking for information that is part of a wider investigation” focused on a company that Caravan does business with, Furando said. He added that the agents were looking for correspondence and “better information” on the customer, whom he declined to identify.

‘“As I understand, we are not the object of the investigation,” Furando said. “They are engaging in an investigation which is unrelated to us. We are helping with the investigation,” which he described as a probe into “fraud within the bio-fuels industry.”’

—BY HUGH R. MORLEY AND LINH TAT

‘There was a bit of a scandal last week when it was reported that a TED Talk on income equality had been censored. That turned out to be not quite the entire story. Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist with a book out on income inequality, was invited to speak at a TED function. He spoke for a few minutes, making the argument that rich people like himself are not in fact job creators and that they should be taxed at a higher rate.

‘The talk seemed reasonably well-received by the audience, but TED “curator” Chris Anderson told Hanauer that it would not be featured on TED’s site, in part because the audience response was mixed but also because it was too political and this was an “election year.”’

—By Alex Pareene

‘At a workshop on food in cities at Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark last week I learned: that the largest food exporter in Sweden is Ikea (meatballs); that for every meal eaten in a UK restaurant, nearly half a kilo of food is wasted; that about 40 percent of the food produced in the United States isn’t consumed; that every day, Americans waste enough food to fill the Rose Bowl; that US citizens waste 50 per cent more food today than they did in 1974; and that that doggy bags are taboo in Danish restaurants.

‘These were spicy facts to be confronted with — but what is one to do with this sort of information? Food waste is just one among a bunch of ‘wicked’ questions concerning food in cities. There are no simple answers. Half the time, there is no consensus on what the problem is.’

—by John Thackara