Slate has an interesting application that they have just put on-line. They call is News Dots. What the application does is it connects the day’s news events in a social network. Some of the networks are isolated from one another, such as David Cos and Mount Saint Helens. Other news stories connect to one another in a myriad of ways, such as U.S. President Barack Obama connecting to 38 other topics. I like the fact that you can jump to a specific news tag, and even go back in time on a day-by-day basis. The one downside that I see to this social network of news stories is that Joseph Andrew Stack, who crashed a plane into a IRS building a few hours ago, is not mentioned. In other words, it appears that breaking stories may be missed. I am sure that the application will be upgraded over time to include this feature.
Paul Adams
Paul Adams leads an award-winning, diverse contractor team that runs a federal high performance computing facility where he has worked for 17 years. He loves getting his hands on the latest visualization and computer hardware, astronomy, aerospace engineering, working with the poor, and ringing cowbells.