Contrarian friend Gus Reed doesn't think altitude maps add much to our understanding of complex social issues: These graphs don't meet the minimum standard for clarity. Your pal Edward Tufte would be appalled. What is the scale of the z-dimension? Are we to suppose that the high peak for narcotics is on the same scale as the high peak for prostitution? Absolute numbers? Percentages? Logarithmic? I'm suspicious that McCune is mixing his units. And I don't like the fundamental assumption that it's OK to smooth this kind of data. Consider the three hills of...

15 June, 2010

Doug McCune uses San Francisco Police Dept. crime reports to map crime in that city as altitude. Narcotics: Prostitution: Various criminal activity: What would an altitude map of Halifax crime look like? Or better still, a North American altitude map of multiple sclerosis, a disease that concentrates in northern latitudes (with Nova Scotia a likely mountain range)? Any data-and-graphics-savvy medical researchers out there want to take this on? Hat tip: Flowing Data....

14 June, 2010