What is Digg?124 Comments
- inactive, on 08/28/2008, -1/+108his other thing is pretty cool too
http://benfry.com/zipdecode/ - postalblowfish7, on 05/02/2008, -1/+78super hi-res version please?
- sfacets, on 05/02/2008, -14/+54Almost like cancer...
- dafragsta, on 05/02/2008, -1/+33Look at all that white space. Now I know where to hide the bodies.
- inactive, on 08/28/2008, -6/+27just like your comment
- fsjenkins2000, on 05/02/2008, -3/+23Atlanta is pretty black itself
- ashmon, on 05/02/2008, -1/+19That's what she said.
- RooDoG, on 05/02/2008, -2/+18Its amazing how extensive our Road System is here in the US. Hard to believe we can upkeep something so massive.
- valejo, on 05/02/2008, -1/+16Nice find. It's definitely in the style of Edward Tufte.
- Zera, on 05/02/2008, -0/+13And just because I love science and HATE *****, I decided to do the math to see if I was right.
I took a typical 8 mile x 8 mile chunk of rural Wisconsin: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=44.531636,-90.3 ...
I added up total number of miles of roads, and determined that in this typical 64 square miles, there is: 10.1 million square feet of road.
Next I did the math to find that 64 square miles contains 1.78 Billion square feet in 64 square miles, meaning that road accounts for 0.56 % of total space.
Next, I grabbed photoshop, and compared the darkness of this area on his map (rural wisconsin) to a lake, to see how much darker his algorythm drew the map.
Black value of lake (no roads) = 100 (its faint yellow with no black whatsoever)
Black value of this area on his map (smudged to get an average) = 58
So this tells us that 0.5% actual road space was drawn with almost 50% of the way to totally dark black. (why else would chicago appear black, when in truth, the roads don't account for the buildings! Even Chicago is less than 50% roads!.
Doing the math on how wide his algorithm drew his roads: 42% of total black = 0.5% actual road, that's a ratio of 84 times wider than reality, and thus, the roads on his map are drawn 84 times wider than they are, meaning a typical country two lane road is being drawn with a width of slightly more than a quarter mile wide. (No wonder Chicago is totally black!)
So adjusting his map down to 84 times less dark, you get a REAL map of the roads with their widths drawn TO SCALE:
VOILA: (yes, it's barely visible) But I have a hunch he didn't do it this way because he wanted it to be visible, and therefore artistic.
http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/7221/maproadshj4. ... - Zorkon, on 05/02/2008, -4/+15Agent Smith: You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.
- Unriggable, on 05/03/2008, -0/+11Shut up, nobody likes you.
- cutething, on 05/02/2008, -3/+14The image itself is incredible, but the analysis makes it all the more so.
- Fubeman, on 05/02/2008, -0/+10I like the Zip one even more. I love the interactivity of it as well. You can really see how the Zip code numbering came about. Just type in one number, erase it, type another one digit, erase, it, etc. you can really see how it starts with 1 in the upper right corner, then works its way all the way to California with 9, Pretty neat.
- rabidg00se, on 05/02/2008, -3/+11That's because they're not as smart as us. Please stop being ridiculous.
- Zera, on 05/02/2008, -1/+9I can't do high res, but I can do accurate: (this image is adjusted for the reality of how wide roads are. Roads drawn as pure black, all other space drawn as pure white:
VOILA: (yes, it's barely visible) But I have a hunch he didn't do it this way because he wanted it to be visible, and therefore artistic.
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/4168/maproadsqk5. ...
Methodology:
I grew up in rural Wisconsin, which is drawn on the map as one third as dark as Chicago, which is absurd, because my nearest neighbor was literally 1 mile away. The map didn't seem accurate to me, so I decided to do the math to see if I was right.
I took a typical 8 mile x 8 mile chunk of rural Wisconsin: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=44.531636,-90.3 ...
I added up total number of miles of roads, and determined that in this typical 64 square miles, there is: 10.1 million square feet of road.
Next I did the math to find that 64 square miles contains 1.78 Billion square feet in, meaning that road accounts for 0.56 % of total space in rural Wisconsin.
Next, I grabbed photoshop, and compared the darkness of this area on his map (rural Wisconsin) to a lake, to see how much darker his algorithm drew the map.
Black value of lake (no roads) = 100 (its faint yellow with no black whatsoever)
Black value of this area on his map (smudged to get an average) = 58
So this tells us that 0.5% actual road space was drawn almost 50% of the way to totally dark black. (why else would Chicago appear black, when in truth, the roads don't account for the buildings! Even Chicago is far less than 50% roads! (by area)
Doing the math on how wide his algorithm drew his roads: 42% of total black = 0.5% actual road, that's a ratio of 84 times wider than reality, and thus, the roads on his map are drawn 84 times wider than they are, meaning a typical country two lane road is being drawn slightly more than a quarter mile wide. (No wonder Chicago is totally black!)
So adjusting his map down to 84 times less dark, you get a REAL map of the roads with their widths drawn TO SCALE:
VOILA: (yes, it's barely visible) But I have a hunch he didn't do it this way because he wanted it to be visible, and therefore artistic.
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/4168/maproadsqk5. ... - Kbennett, on 05/02/2008, -1/+8The squared off blocks of farmland are just so visually striking.
- oxdeltaxo, on 05/02/2008, -0/+6Looks a bit more like that black mold that grows in your shower.
- darkism, on 05/02/2008, -0/+6Replace them with railroads and then we're talking.
- jdunlop2179, on 05/03/2008, -0/+6Why do people on digg have to leave such obviously stupid comments?
- PabloMac, on 05/02/2008, -1/+7Which is just the way we like it.
- johnn11238, on 05/02/2008, -2/+8Digg users favor people who stay on topic.
- johnn11238, on 05/02/2008, -2/+8And we can't drive out here on the east coast because of all the ***** traffic. Thanks Robert Moses!!!
- StevieG, on 05/02/2008, -0/+5Canada would be a thin black line near the US border. Most of our population lives there.
- Zera, on 05/03/2008, -0/+5Science is tedious and complicated, and some people like it. This only took 15 minutes, and I have a boring job. :)
- kipmartin, on 05/02/2008, -1/+6ok, now THAT is cool. especially after the Digg item about humans just being ants yesterday.
- directedition, on 05/03/2008, -0/+5Oh yeah, it's EXACTLY like cancer..... er..... wait, actually, isn't anything like cancer in the slightest.
- boombye, on 05/02/2008, -1/+5What we do the planet is no different than mold. The difference being that we're capable of intelligent thought and spores are not.
- Zera, on 05/02/2008, -1/+5It would be interesting to see a version that had the street widths drawn to scale, because the area I grew up in Wisconsin, there are often miles and miles of field/hills/forest between sections of road, with the roads making up easily less than one thousandth of a percent of total acreage. Yet, Wisconsin on this map appears to be a gray color, only one third as dark as say Chicago, and my nearest neighbor in my childhood home was a mile away. The idea that rural Wisconsin is one third as urban as Chicago is just ridiculous.
No doubt this is just intended as art, but some people will think it's to scale. Compare, and you'll see it's just not true:
http://benfry.com/allstreets/map4.html
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=44.247658,-90.6 ...
Note: The google maps link every inch = 1 mile - RubberBinder, on 05/04/2008, -0/+3So, you don't eat drywall?
- beargrylls, on 05/02/2008, -1/+4That's pretty sweet. I like how you can see the mountain ranges...
- Zipko, on 05/02/2008, -2/+5I'm amazed by the definition in the Appalachian Mts. Without seeing any geographical references you can tell exactly where they are since most roads going over any of them have to wind parallel to the mountain to reduce the grade. Takes on the same shape and pattern you would see if someone did a geographical features map. Same with the major rivers too, the Mississippi and Missouri rivers are pretty well defined.
- boombye, on 05/02/2008, -0/+3Seems some of my fellow diggers could benefit from reading Kevin Kelly's "Out of Control:The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World" @ http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/
I can't believe all the people digging me down and others here, specifically me because I'm a jerk, because they can't be bothered to educate themselves and can't comprehend the truth. Sorry if Post-Modern concepts are too much for some people to grasp and think this all sounds stupid, but hey, that's their fault for being ignorant. - Ruger11mcrdpi, on 05/02/2008, -0/+3lame.
- MJDub, on 05/03/2008, -0/+3Don't forget 0.
- corneliusJones, on 05/02/2008, -0/+3It's what we were naturally selected to do.
- SEN5241, on 05/02/2008, -0/+3I can see my street from here!
- tbechtx, on 05/02/2008, -1/+4This is fascinating stuff! The visual patterns that emerge from statistical and collective data are quite intriguing.
- a1lazydog, on 05/02/2008, -0/+3good luck finding shortest path algorithm on that...
or how about traveling sales man? - exspasticcomics, on 05/02/2008, -1/+4in a way- it's cool... in another way- it's disturbing. one big block of cement.
- mehan, on 05/03/2008, -1/+3a virus is not technically an organism.
- Cornrider, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2This article is not accurate, the program actually used on these maps can be found here: http://fsk.deviantart.com/art/Line-Rider-beta-4025 ...
- firstpost, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2@ mehan
Biologists debate whether or not viruses are living organisms. Some consider them non-living as they do not meet the criteria of the definition of life. For example, unlike most organisms, viruses do not have cells. However, viruses have genes and evolve by natural selection. Others have described them as organisms at the edge of life.
(Source: Wikipedia) - allhard, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2"...and digest materials such as our homes."
Not seeing a connection. - aguynamedben, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2This guy has written an O'Reilly published book called "Visualizing Data." I bought it a few days ago, and it's alright, but it's too specific to the Processing framework he created. It's almost like a documentation of the Processing framework instead of a general exploration of different ways to visualize data.
- Netrilix, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2Interesting. I can only view that image if I tilt my laptop screen nearly all the way back. Viewing it at straight on 90 degrees, I see white. Even tilting it back to 160, I still can't see anything. Right around 170, I can finally see the image.
- ryleyleckie, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2agreed
- Tolzmaniac, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2Great work, Zera!
- DiscoLando, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2The technical term is Chocolate.
- rprins, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2I await to see your more impressive feat if this is so easy to do... Also, if you read his post about it you would have already known that he used the TIGER data feeds. (http://benfry.com/writing/archives/54)
I personally find it fascinating, regardless if it's missing a few roads here and there. -
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