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Two Half-Baked Prototypes
🕑 Added 2016-03-21 13:33:43 +0000 UTC Hi everyone!For the past couple months, I've been in "exploratory" mode – making lots of tiny prototypes, rather than any one complete, self-contained project. Most of the prototypes were crap, so I'm going to pretend they never happened. But today, I'd like to show you two prototypes that were... okay-ish!
Schools & Prisons
http://ncase.me/prison-wip/model.html
All of my past interactives have been more "theory-heavy" – this prototype is my first foray into using, y'know, actual real-world data. The model itself is pretty simple. It's just a Markov chain, and the data comes from official sources like the Bureau of Justice Statistics, etc. My hope is that, by using real data, this simulation can be more useful to civics educators, policymakers, and journalists. Maybe.
A Tool To Make Tools To Make Explorable Explanations
While making the above prototype, I realized that was the third time I've implemented a "sidebar to change simulation logic" feature. So, I made a Javascript library for that. It's not a lot so far, and honestly, I worry this prototype may be me getting too meta. But hey, maybe it'd be useful for you?
And, I should have another prototype for you before the end of the month!
But maybe it's time for me to get out of "exploratory" mode, and actually finish the projects I start. Maybe I'm just being indecisive, and my indecision *feels* good because I keep getting to work on new things, but it doesn't add up. Maybe I've just discovered a way to make procrastination seem productive.
Oh look, now I'm in "second-guessing myself" mode.
<3,
~ Nicky
Comments
Nicky Case
Thanks Pablo! And hm yeah, maybe I should focus more on giving people control over *policies*, rather than the probabilities directly. (And probabilities like "dropout rate" can be changed with policies like education reform, or something) That might make it more, 1) actually *relevant* to the real world 2) possibly useful for citizens/policymakers to decide what to vote for/implement in policy!
Nicky Case
Thanks for the bug report! Ughhh time to find out whether it's Firefox or Chrome who's implementing whatever thing wrong.
Pablo Lopez Soriano
Bug report! :P Tried on Firefox on Ubuntu 15.10 GNU/Linux 64bit On the improv.js page, the 'boid' appears on the upper left corner. It disperses around while dragging on the number slider. Screenshots: <a href="http://imgur.com/a/Plsto" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://imgur.com/a/Plsto</a> It works on Chromium for the same system
Pablo Lopez Soriano
Schools and Prisons is already very interesting! I miss being able to control policies instead of chances, but maybe I just lack the knowledge on the policies. The one slider that was related to that was the years spent in prison, which has quite an impact on the rates. This is another great project, thank you Nicky!
Nicky Case
Thanks Richard! Yeah, it isn't clear what those squares are – that's something I'll fix later – they're supposed to be high school & college diplomas. Thanks for asking!
Richard Hackathorn
Super simulation that naturally stimulates thought. Like the slider section, because you realize how complex this Markov simulation really (as in really) is! What are the small yellow/white squares on persons?
