Taking numbers and making pictures

One way to measure some amount of economic success is to compare the imports and exports of a place.  So let's do just that for all of Canada from last year and then break it down provincially.


Statistics Canada makes available the total international imports and exports of each province on a monthly basis.  With that, it is no great trick to get yearly totals and then calculate the surplus or deficit of trade.  Since it stands to reason that more populated provinces will have more in raw numbers, a comparison is most easily done on a per capital basis.  So, a quick check of the census numbers that have been just recently released and a comparison can be done. 


All that math breaks down to look like this: 

Region	Per Capita Trade Surplus or Deficit (2011)
National	-$806.56
Newfoundland and Labrador	$16,441.80
Prince Edward Island	$4,773.76
Nova Scotia	-$4,275.02
New Brunswick	$1,590.72
Quebec	-$1,550.74
Ontario	-$7,745.24
Manitoba	-$3,650.51
Saskatchewan	$19,465.71
Alberta	$18,809.29
British Columbia	-$1,716.68
Territories	$14,873.44

Well, hey, that's pretty neat, though the numbers just kinda float out there by themselves.  The quickest explanation for the disparity between provinces comes down to how much oil or fish a province has available for export.  If the answer is: "lots", that province will have a massive trade surplus. 

It isn't that simple, there's plenty of sustainability talk that probably needs to happen there.  Manitoba or Ontario could likely rocket to the top of the standings if every tree in the province was cut down and shipped elsewhere for pulp and paper.  But that's a really bad idea.  But as a birds-eye view, it is useful.

Tables are nice, but here's a neat thing that IBM let me do:


That should be clickable, so check it out. 

Now, here's the thing about the IBM Many Eyes tool: it's pretty awful.  For a couple of hours, I couldn't get the visualizations to work.  Turns out that I needed to update Java, but there was nothing on that site to tell me I needed to do this.  That's a really crappy thing to do to a user.

Next, it is pretty rigid.  As you'll note from my data set, I combined the territories and included a national average.  These are not things Many Eyes is capable of handling.  It's easy enough to exclude them, but it means some of the picture is missing.  Yes, I could have done the independently, I didn't because their populations are really small.

Finally, don't blame me for the colour choices.  If there is an option to change it from horrible brown and overused blue, I can't find it.  You take what you get with Many Eyes, which is better than nothing.  But it is hardly perfect and kinda skirts the territory of "not very good".

Saving the seven words you can't say on television

Another Super Bowl half time show, another celebrity behaving badly.  Thankfully it wasn’t Madonna.  Perhaps 30 years ago the viewing audience would have wished otherwise, now many of us are probably glad there wasn’t a tunic malfunction on Sunday.
No, it was M.I.A., a British songstress who used a bit of sign language during the performance, a gesture urging viewers to give themselves a gentle caress.   

People saw and were outraged then apologies were made and fines were levied.  And now we can be certain that the next half dozen Super Bowl half-time shows will feature acts closer to their government pensions than the impetuousness spontaneity of youth so embodied in Miss M.I.A.

But what’s really missing in action is a reason for her to urge the 114 million viewers to love themselves just a little bit more.  She didn`t seem mad, upset or perturbed.  No, just casual cursing, just because she can.

And, as I see it, that`s really the problem here.  It`s not the oft-thought-of-children that we have to worry about here.  Really, can you think of a little one that has the attention span to get through a half time show that is also unfamiliar with the one finger salute?

No, it`s us everyday people that are cheated.  She`s watering down our gesture of frustration, our words of anger.  To do nothing more than pander.

When profanity becomes profuse, it starts to lose its meaning.  Cuss words aren`t commas, they`re really supposed to be reserved for those special occasion when un-salted language doesn`t fit the situation. 

This isn`t just me talking, there`s hard science backing this up.  Professor Richard Stevens of Keele University in the U-K has linked swearing with a reduction in pain. Apparently  A-hem and A-ha are an analgesic for our ailments.

But you probably knew that.  If you’re like most, you’ve had an oral flow of effluent, probably as recent as your last toe stubbing.  You may not be proud, but it made it feel better, didn’t it?

What is it that those people who use these words like they’re going out of style do when they need to make a point?  What is it someone like local Member of Parliament Pat Martin does?  He seemingly can’t help himself from tweeting out words banned by Beauchesne's. 

He’s unapologetic of it, and that’s fine.  I can well understand how the life of a career opposition member might make Martin feel like he needs a gimmick to draw attention his way.  There is, after all, only so often you can call for an axing of the penny before people just yawn and move on.  And it’s not like he’s the first politician to toss out a fuddle-duddle, and nor will he be the last.

But the more often the well is visited, the shallower it will become.  An explicit lyrics warning sticker once meant albums would shoot off the shelves and into stereos.  I imagine if people still bought CDs, the warning would now just blend in with the album’s artwork. 

We can’t allow the dirty words we know and love to lose their status.  And maybe we do have to think of the children the next time we think about contributing to the swear jar.  Because if we aren’t careful to conserve our curses, what words will they have when they need to make a sailor blush?