1. Real-Time Cities: an Introduction to Urban Cybernetics Harvard Design School: SCI 0646900 Spring 2014 Kalisha Holmes Exercise #2: Case Studies in Data Analysis (5 Ways to Make a Story out of Numbers)

2. Stories as Numbers I have looked at 5 case studies that bring large datasets to visual life. They primarily use time and geography as axes of interpretation. Some are mapping are digital realities and how third-parties interact with our digital selves, while others are mapping real-world data in an online visual format. Some have real implications for how we choose to live our lives, and others are simply interesting tidbits to learn that have only a limited effect on our ultimate life decisions. 1 | Global Forest Watch 2 | Can You Live on the Minimum Wage? -- NYTimes 3 | Misery Map 4 | Digital Attack Map 5 | Facebook’s Global Government Requests Report

3. Global Forest Watch is a dynamic forest mapping tool to monitor forest usage and loss around the world. It is updated in near real-time, and is global in its coverage. Project Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4HhoSbOgUc 1 | Global Forest Watch

5. What is the raw data? The raw data comes from a variety of sources. Some of it is in the public domain and developed by governments. Some of it is collected by the nonprofit partners of the project. Some of it is developed by individual research partners. Overall, the data is generated by a community of watchdog researchers that care about forest conservation. What processes are deployed to transform the raw data to information? The data is inputted as raw data and then is mapped using arcGIS and other mapping tools. Then, mapping tools have been built in that can show dynamic changes in any category of data over time. What is the information that is the outcome of the aforementioned processes? The outcome is that average users can monitor forest changes anywhere in the world using a very user-friendly format. 1 | Global Forest Watch

6. How the act of sensing or access to raw data leads to comparison, judgment, reflection, reasoning, and abstraction? Looking at this data changes the way users relate to somewhat bland environmental data. By dramatizing forest loss in a visual format, the user can more easily reflect on the implications of that type of rapid change worldwide. You can also compare across countries which may have implications for citizens judging how well their own government is doing in comparison with similar countries in terms of forest coverage. How the sum of all the above processes is resulting in a limited sort of agency for the data-driven construct? The data-driven construct becomes a narrative over time in its own right. By connecting data from across time, place and then organizing it into categories that make sense, the map becomes a movie in its own right. 1 | Global Forest Watch

7. This project uses the minimum wage of all U.S. states as its inputs, then asks the user to input information on monthly expenses to show how long that minimum wage will last before the user will need to either take on a second job or additional debt. 2 | Can You Live on the Minimum Wage? -- NYTimes

9. What is the raw data? The raw data comes from publicly available minimum wage data for each U.S. state. What processes are deployed to transform the raw data to information? The process to transform the raw data into information is basically user input. The user puts in the minimum amount they would need for each category, and the story becomes, how long will your minimum wage last with these bare expenses before you need help. What is the information that is the outcome of the aforementioned processes? The outcome is a balance at the end. Either you have money left over at the end of the month or you need to find alternative sources of income at the end of the month.

10. 2 | Can You Live on the Minimum Wage? -- NYTimes How the act of sensing or access to raw data leads to comparison, judgment, reflection, reasoning, and abstraction? The act of having access to this data in this format really changes the perspective of an important policy debate. It changes the debate from the abstract to the concrete, and can show in a non-judgmental non-political way just how hard it is to subsist in this country on what is currently minimum wage. How the sum of all the above processes is resulting in a limited sort of agency for the data-driven construct? The data itself is coming to have a limited agency in that on its own the data is telling a story that elicits real human emotion.

11. This map is an interactive visualization of flight delays across the country and across time. You can press play and watch what portion of flights during a specific time period have been delayed or cancelled. 3 | Misery Map

13. What is the raw data? The raw data comes from government sources in countries around the world, commercial airline providers and commercial data providers as well as the Flight Aware network partners. What processes are deployed to transform the raw data to information? The raw data is processed into an interactive map. There are only two categories: on-time and “misery” (delays and cancellations). What is the information that is the outcome of the aforementioned processes? The information that is the outcome of this process is an interactive map.3 | Misery Map

14. How the act of sensing or access to raw data leads to comparison, judgment, reflection, reasoning, and abstraction? The act of visualizing this data in aggregate allows consumers to compare the quality of service across time and across airline providers. It also helps consumers to see how weather disrupts airline services across the country even when very localized. How the sum of all the above processes is resulting in a limited sort of agency for the data-driven construct? The data-driven construct has a limited sort of agency because in aggregate, it creates a dynamic world of data specifically as it relates to the airline industry. This realm exists as its own sort of agent, and has only a few variables. 3 | Misery Map

15. This map is an interactive dataset showing real-time updates of DDos attack origin and destination ports. 4 | Digital Attack Map

17. What is the raw data? Data is gathered and published daily by Arbor Networks ATLAS global threat intelligence system. They have a worldwide network of over 270 ISP customers who share anonymous network traffic and attack statistics. What processes are deployed to transform the raw data to information? The data is then processed into a map that shows source countries and destination countries of attacks if they are known and then the time of those attacks at a particular instant or in aggregate. What is the information that is the outcome of the aforementioned processes? The information is a dynamic map of DDos attacks worldwide over time. The database and histograms and bar graphs are also dynamic and grow over time. 4 | Digital Attack Map

18. How the act of sensing or access to raw data leads to comparison, judgment, reflection, reasoning, and abstraction? The act of accessing this raw data in this format gives life to what is largely an invisible process to human beings. DDos attacks are very abstract, but by visualizing this data, users can understand both their prevalence and the countries that are most active in the practice. How the sum of all the above processes is resulting in a limited sort of agency for the data-driven construct? As such, the data is representing human actions, but takes on its own limited agency. It is showing cyber-attacks as a network. 4 | Digital Attack Map

19. This interactive visualization shows government requests to Facebook broken down by country. 5 | Facebook’s Global Government Requests Report

21. What is the raw data? The raw data comes from Facebook itself and is publicly visible. What processes are deployed to transform the raw data to information? The raw data is processed in a very simple way: by country, by number of requests and by percentage of requests where information is ultimately supplied to the government. What is the information that is the outcome of the aforementioned processes? This information is then processed into a visual map format. 5 | Facebook’s Global Government Requests Report

22. How the act of sensing or access to raw data leads to comparison, judgment, reflection, reasoning, and abstraction? The act of sensing this data makes it easy to compare data across countries about which governments are the most active in requesting information about its users. It can also act as a visual confirmation of what many people suspect, which is that Facebook data is not nearly as private as we often assume. How the sum of all the above processes is resulting in a limited sort of agency for the data-driven construct? The data-driven construct here produces its own narrative on invasion of governments into private virtual lives, and becomes pseudo-autonomous. 5 | Facebook’s Global Government Requests Report