1. What Do We Do With All This Big Data?

   Tue 28 October 2014

   cfarmer

   This is an interesting and thought-provoking TED Talk by Susan Etlinger about how important it is to encourage ‘critical thinking’ when it comes to Big Data. Here, the idea is not let the ‘data speak for themselves’ but rather tell an engaging and intelligent story ‘with data’. Basically, we need to move beyond counting things in order to really understand anything.

   I agree with pretty much everything Susan says, and her use of a very personal example really deepens the impact of her talk. I really liked her focus on the need for ‘deepening our critical thinking skills’, and I ...

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2. History of Social Media in 90 Seconds

   Tue 28 October 2014

   cfarmer

   I’ve been spending a fair bit of time looking at material on social media data and social media usage, and I came across this video is from a CNBC piece called “11 Predictions on the future of social media” by Mary Catherine Wellons:

   It is very interesting to see how short the history of this relatively pervasive set of technologies is!

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3. What if Google was a Guy?

   Mon 29 September 2014

   cfarmer

   This is absolutely hilarious!

   Everything you ask Google sounds a lot less intelligent when you actually ask Google. Don’t forget to checkout Parts 2 and 3!

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4. Re-imagining New York Streets

   Tue 08 October 2013

   cfarmer

   Here’s a TED talk from Janette Sadik-Khan, the New York City Transportation Commissioner, on how they’ve transformed New York City streets over the past several years.

   I love the Citi Bike program (especially the data), which she helped introduce, so it is interesting to hear her talk about how and why the program was started. There is also an interesting article on Sadik-Khan on the TED blog which provides some additional insight into her and the various programs she’s helped develop.

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5. Public transportation time warp

   Tue 01 October 2013

   cfarmer

   I recently came across two extremely cool videos while preparing lectures for my transportation geography course. It is pretty cool to see the development of the regions around the transportation network while the network itself remains pretty much unchanged. Worth a quick watch!

   The first video depicts the London to Brighton Train Journey for three time periods. In 1953, the BBC made a point-of-view film from a London to Brighton train, 30 years later (1983) they did the same trip again, and again 30 years after that (2013).

   The second video is from the Vancouver SkyTrain, with older footage (1985) from BCRTC/Translink, and newer footage (2013) by Celgen Studios. You can get the original Translink footage from here.

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