Fun With Government Data: Datamasher.org
9 Sep
Apparently, people in New England are either really into birth control or they’re so socially averse that their relationships have ceased to culminate in biologically productive couplings. Either that, or every other state in the U.S. is full of people who are very keen on procreation.
At least that’s my hasty interpretation of one of Datamasher’s government data mashups:
Most Reproductive States
Number of births divided by Population: Census 2008
Datamasher was the winner of the Apps for America 2 contest that concluded yesterday. Briefly, the contest was a competition for groups to come up with novel applications that utilize the data made publicly available by the U.S. government at Data.gov. Datamasher (whose project manager is fellow new media nerd and friend, Michaela Hackner) takes a simple idea—combining two disparate sets of government data to create state rankings—and opens up what could be a seemingly infinite source of thought provoking and sometimes humorous visualizations.
Other mashups include $$ spent per student and SAT scores, How Likely Are Your Gun Owners To Shoot Somebody, and Which State Has the Dirtiest Water, among many more (and the list will keep growing).
If anything, this is a great source for sparking conversation and the mashups are certainly good catalysts for inspiring blog topics. And if you don’t see anything interesting (likely impossible), you can always suggest a new pairing of data sets to mash up.
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