The end of the world as we know it… Good luck fellow humans. Here we are with five things for this final of Fridays.
1) On Compass and up on the Vote
Vox Pop Labs is a social enterprise from a group of academics in the social and data sciences bent on creating new tools to make decisions, explore issues, and drive public discourse.
From the website:
“Vox Pop is a term used by journalists to describe a technique in which people are arbitrarily selected and interviewed about a given issue. Recent technological advances now allow us to engage with thousands of such people across the population in the time it once took to interview a single interviewee.
Our applications permit citizens to better understand themselves and those around them in fine-grained detail. Our methods enable us to transform these data from anecdotal into representative statements about the public.”
Their interesting and relevant projects include VoteCompass, launched most recently for the 2016 presidential election.
VoteCompass is designed to drive electoral literacy, gather information, and help
people understand political parties and platforms. Somewhere in a utopian future (We’re looking at you, 2020!), it will help people make better decisions and help governments be more response.
people understand political parties and platforms. Somewhere in a utopian future (We’re looking at you, 2020!), it will help people make better decisions and help governments be more response.Vote Compass has also launched for elections for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand over the past few years.
My Democracy.ca is a project of similar design and experience, launched in Canada not too long ago to help capture the national sentiment on electoral reform.
Unfortunately now defunct, the site did take some flack for potentially misguided and misleading questions. BUT, in the design and approach, there surfaced certainly something innovative and fresh, with potential to establish a next generation model for gathering public data and gauging the national conversation.
2) Oblique Strategies
How to break out of creative deadlocks? Draw a card, an Oblique Strategy card. Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt created this conceptual art project in the 70s, which turned into a clever tool for developing ideas and new thought patterns. Whenever you’re banging your head on the table, draw a card, and a delightfully cryptic inspiration will guide you towards inspiration.
A few thoughtful creators have digitalized much of the full deck for online browsing.Oh and apparently there’s an app for that as well.
Maria Popova adds elevated insight and intelligence to the description, at BrainPickings.com.
3) GREEN: A Field Guide to Marijuana 
Everything you ever wanted to know about marijuana, in a beautifully designed, exquisitely photographed, and sophisticatedly researched and written book.
Described, by some, as the most beautiful book about weed you’ve ever seen.
Created by Eddie Opera, design partner at Pentagram, Dan Michaels, of Sinsimedia, and photographer Erik Christiansen.
4) Welcome to the Fake News Micro-Propaganda Machine
We sick of this shit, but this is a worthwhile read from Elong University professor Jonathan Albright. Albright’s research looks at the complicated behemoth that has become the internet and its workings, and how all that “fake news” or microproganda get spread. Pushing the traffic through the links. Includes overwhelming visualization.
For a good overview, check out this edition of Spark, with Nora Young on CBC Radio.
we are communicating 