Superstorm Sandy

A live wind map showing Superstorm Sandy over New York City.

Money is debt

97% Owned is a two hour, UK-focused video on money and monetary reform. It was made by Queue Politely and includes contributions from, amongst others, Positive Money, New Economics Foundation, Money Reform Party, Bank to the Future and Ann Pettifor.

The video is strongest when it describes the mechanics of the existing monetary system and the problems associated with the existing system. Perhaps inevitably, it is not as strong when it attempts to define solutions and, in some places, it is overtly party political.  Nevertheless, it is essential viewing for anyone with any interest in economics or 21st century politics.  If it doesn't make you mad you're not paying attention.

Flight patterns and Johnny Cash

Aaron Koblin (and here) uses large and complex sets of data to create great visualisations. His work includes visual representations of flight patterns in the US, communications between New York and other cities, and SMS messages in Amsterdam.

Aaron has also helped to create a number of innovative and data-based music videos including House of Cards (for Radiohead), The Wilderness Downtown (for Arcade Fire), and The Johnny Cash Project. In the latter two projects, he collaborated with Chris Milk.

Watch Aaron talk about his work in a TED talk below.

Crises of capitalism

A visual presentation from The RSA of some of the reasons for the current economic crisis. The animation is by Cognitive Media.

Ten principles of economics

Yoram Bauman (and here) is an environmental economist who works at the University of Washington. He is also a stand-up comedian.

Evolution of the wealth of nations

One of the biggest tensions in economics is between a top-down macro view of the economy and a bottom-up micro view of the economy. César Hidalgo (and here) is pursuing a very visual and data oriented approach to economic thinking which allows him to get the best of both worlds.

We have always had this tension of understanding the world, at small spatial scales or individual scales, and large macro scales. In the past when we looked at macro scales, at least when it comes to many social phenomena, we aggregated everything. Our idea of macro is, by an accident of history, a synonym of aggregate, a mass in which everything is added up and in which individuality is lost. What data at high spatial resolution, temporal resolution and typological resolution is allowing us to do, is to see the big picture without losing the individuality inside it. I believe that in the future, macro is going to be something that is going to be in high-definition. You're going to be able to zoom in into these macro pictures and see that neighborhood, and see that person, and understand that individual, and to have more personalized interactions thanks to the data that is becoming available. I think that in some sense, big data can help recover the humanity of a world in which the scientific representations of people have become dehumanized, because of our need to simplify.

César Hidalgo

César talks about his work here. The Observatory of Economic Complexity is here. His TED talk from 2010 is also very interesting. Watch his TED talk after the jump. It's all about lego and putty.

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

René Magritte has some great advice for all modellers of complex systems.