static.davidchouinard.com
Data
political voting visualization
SHOW HN2013
How HN took it
8 positive, 19 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 2 critical, out of 30 comments about the project. Thread score +0.17.
Idea: 4 for, 0 againstExecution: 2 for, 1 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Interesting, fascinating analysis of senate polarization over time
From 3 comments
This is absolutely fascinating.
kposehn on HNI think it's fascinating watching how the parties have split up more over the years.
ebilgenius on HNas someone who is generally familiar with key political figures, i'd say this graph is awesome. it immediately quantifies information that you otherwise would guess at based on…
lmg643 on HN
Objections
Visualization is hard to understand without a key or legend
From 3 comments
There's probably some cool insights in here, but I'll need some help understanding it. For instance, what does an edge in the graph represent? What can I tell from the boldness…
pfraze on HNA legend/key would be nice.
mattpavelle on HNPlease describe the visualization (relationships you mentioned, how the nodes are colored) in the webpage. It is hard to understand what's going on there. It would be great if…
bkamapantula on HN
Page uses so much CPU it slows down the browser
From 1 comment
Ok, so while I wish I had the time to create a cool web app to analyze political data, I def think it would required not to overload the user's CPU. I launched the site and…
thehme on HN
Requests
Add a legend or key explaining edges and node position
From 3 comments
There's probably some cool insights in here, but I'll need some help understanding it. For instance, what does an edge in the graph represent? What can I tell from the boldness…
pfraze on HNA legend/key would be nice.
mattpavelle on HNReally cool! In addition to the comments others are making, I would recommend making the intensity of the base blue and red colors match. The democrats look more intense than the…
SapphireSun on HN
Make the data public
From 1 comment
Please describe the visualization (relationships you mentioned, how the nodes are colored) in the webpage. It is hard to understand what's going on there. It would be great if…
bkamapantula on HN
Animation or snapshots over time, from 1980 onward
From 3 comments
It would be helpful to see an animation to clarify this, but it's interesting to quantify how increasingly polarized this has become, starting in the early '90s.
martindale on HN+1 If the author could get data from 1980-2013, and make it into a 60 second animation, it would be really interesting to see.
x0054 on HNDavid, This may be asking for a bit much, but would you kindly put together a series of snapshots for a long time, spaced every 2 years? I would be willing to help out in…
pnathan on HN
Questions
What does an edge and node position represent; how are abstentions counted
From 2 comments
There's probably some cool insights in here, but I'll need some help understanding it. For instance, what does an edge in the graph represent? What can I tell from the boldness…
pfraze on HN1) How are abstentions counted? Does a senator that abstains more get pushed out towards the edge for having less connections in general? 2) Is this correct: If a party member…
dnautics on HN
Alternatives named
Simon Jackman ideal-point estimates for Senate and House
From 1 comment
If you like this, you may also be interested in Simon Jackman's ideal-point estimates for both the Senate and House: http://jackman.stanford.edu/ideal/currentSenate/x1.pdf…
caf on HN
Friggeri's similar senate voting project
From 1 comment
If you're into that kind of things, here is a similar project I did last year: http://friggeri.net/research/senate/
friggeri on HN
Vik Paruchuri's SVD analysis of Senate votes
From 1 comment
Interesting analysis, David. I actually got strikingly similar results looking at voting matrices and using SVD to turn them into two dimensions:…
vikp on HN