I have spent an inordinate amount of time working on my various projects, leaving this blog unupdated for a while. That will likely change later on.
One of the reasons for my silence has been the work on a report on the effects of new medical technology on the way the healthcare systems work. Another is the huge brain exhibition I'm working on. And the chapter about cognitive enhancement for a Danish anthology. And research, roleplaying and graphics... ah, life is good :-)
For the moment, here are links to my regular post on CNE Health: The Border-guards of the Country of Pain, Immunity is skin deep and Continuing the Quarrel Inside the Body.
Last week I wrote on the CNEhealth.org Blog about the case of a Swedish hospital trying to get people to change names to fit their autogenerated email addresses.
Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman have made excellent Election result maps. Not that I care that much about the data per se, but this is a great example of how to use information visualization to make things clearer.
When I read the Gastner and Newmann paper on making density equalizing maps I was amused by their ingenious solution but regarded the kind of map as rather irrelevant. But the above link shows that sometimes these maps do have their uses despite the effort needed by the viewer to interpret them.
It is interesting to compare this election outcome with Richard Florida's criticism of the current US political paradigm. The final map seems to suggest that the division of America isn't into separate regions, but enclaves and a surrounding net.