Edward Tufte Appointed To Help Track and Explain Stimulus Funds 186
President Obama recently announced several appointments to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, including data visualization expert Edward Tufte, author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. The purpose of the panel is to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, whose aim is "To promote accountability by coordinating and conducting oversight of Recovery funds to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse and to foster transparency on Recovery spending by providing the public with accurate, user-friendly information." Tufte said on his website, "I'm doing this because I like accountability and transparency, and I believe in public service. And it is the complete opposite of everything else I do. Maybe I'll learn something. The practical consequence is that I will probably go to Washington several days each month, in addition to whatever homework and phone meetings are necessary."
Its mis-named so it will feel better. (Score:5, Funny)
So, no Power Point presentation? (Score:4, Funny)
At least we know... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The whole world loves us now! (Score:1, Funny)
Rush Limbaugh was saying that long before 2007. And everyone knows Rush is always wrong. So, that guy from the UK is full of it too. Mr Obama is Mr perfect!
Re:Background anyone? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mercy me... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Background anyone? (Score:2, Funny)
Quite simply, he will be helpful because when he puts together a report, there will be one or two incredibly informative graphs that explain where the money went and how that money changed things.
Heck, I could paste a picture of a black hole and a type a 200 point "0" onto a Powerpoint slide as well as this guy, and I'd charge a lot less.
By having this information in such a concise, digestible form, it will help bring transparency and accountability to the government.
Yeah, sure it will, kiddo. Sure it will.
Re:tufte has it easy (Score:4, Funny)
That's not scary. Try retitling it from "Napoleons invasion of Russia" to "Bushes invasion of Iraq". That sounds possible enough to be terrifying.
Well, yeah, if you take a person and surgically remove all their knowledge of history, awareness of current events and their critical thinking center, I can see how that person might confuse the two events. Or just drop them on their head a bunch of times. That'd work, too.
Re:"Grow a thicker skin, man, this is the Internet (Score:3, Funny)
mommy daddy stop fighting
simple task (Score:3, Funny)
I don't see why they need to hire such an illustrious researcher for such a simple task. I've prepared an accurate IMO data visualization of the results of the Federal stimulus spending. It can be viewed at:
http://shambala.net/stimulusvisualization.jpg [shambala.net]