11 ms·

State of The Union address minute by minute on Twitter

104 points by aroch 13y ago

alimoeeny 13y ago
More than anything it is a self fulfilling prophecy,the more people trust the social media as a source of real time news, the more they (and "social media experts") contribute to the social media to present the news, and it is a double edged sword as well.
larrydag 13y ago
This is one of the neatest data visualizations I've seen.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  It's cranky, but with no explanation of what 'engagement' actually means, it's just a visualization. (I get that is is some sort of relative keyword frequency;)
- md224 13y ago
  Indeed... it's almost like an fMRI of the national "mind", measuring activation in both spatial and topical dimensions. Might be interesting to see retweet patterns, to illuminate how sentiment is forwarded through the network.
  - smoorman1024 13y ago
    Retweet patterns would be quite interesting. Especially since retweets happen one of two ways. You retweet someone you follow or you retweet something happening in a trend. I wonder if you could separate those two.
taeric 13y ago
Not having scrollbars on the text is... an interesting idea. Also, I see I jumped through several "pages" in my history. Where did I go, exactly?
- wmeredith 13y ago
  Interesting... but maybe not effective for getting people to read your content. I scrolled around with my mouse and nothing was happening so after about 10 seconds I just clicked back. EDIT: So I went backed and checked it out some more. Completely breaks my back button as they load 20+ URLs while I try to (jerkily) scroll through the text. under ideal circumstances this interface could be really cool, but I found it unusable.
  - taeric 13y ago
    Yeah, I was being polite calling it interesting. And I noticed the same broken back button behavior. When I figured out what it did, I almost edited my post. Really annoying.
  - andrethegiant 13y ago
    +1 I absolutely despise when sites do this. One scroll gesture and now I can't go back to the site I came from? Another common archetype for this behavior is sites that show a slideshow. I click through 20 slides, and now I can't get back to the page I came from. Webdevs: you can still have permalinks to each paragraph/slide/whatever without completely muddling the user's browser history! Use replaceState instead of pushState to mitigate this problem. Browsers should evolve to account for this kind of abuse. Holding down the back button should present two options: One to list all the anchors you've been to on the current page (in this case, paragraphs on the page), and one list of your previous history stack that doesn't account for URL fragments/hashes.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - taejo 13y ago
      > Browsers should evolve to account for this kind of abuse. Holding down the back button should present two options: One to list all the anchors you've been to on the current page (in this case, paragraphs on the page), and one list of your previous history stack that doesn't account for URL fragments/hashes. Chrome does this (as I discovered when trying to escape this page)
welder 13y ago
"And let’s pass a patent reform bill that allows our businesses to stay focused on innovation, not costly, needless litigation." I really hope this happens.
- guelo 13y ago
  Whatever passes would be legislation that further entrenches the biggest corps. It's the only thing that ever passes congress these days.
  - zhemao 13y ago
    They already passed such legislation. And you're right, it is a joke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Ac... Basically, it moves US patent law from first-to-invent to first-to-file. So it lowers litigation costs for the big guys who take ideas from the little guys and use their big legal departments to file the patent on it before the little guy can.
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      .. or in a less cynical view, it makes it easier for a little guy to sue a big guy without getting into a huge "who did what first" court battle.
      - Drakim 13y ago
        ...or in an even more cynical view, let's big corporations and trolls to file patents for things that have long been in use but nobody even thought about patenting.
        MichaelGG 13y ago
        That's not how it works. It doesn't allow you to patent prior things because you're first, it is just to kill of disputes when people patent something "simultaneously".
miggaiowski 13y ago
Anyone want to sync this up with a youtube video? Just make it scroll as the video plays.
- MrZongle2 13y ago
  And add the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" as the backing music.
smoorman1024 13y ago
This is really spectacular. Hat tip to you.
mbell 13y ago
I found it interesting that New Hampshire, Vermont and New Jersey seem to be pegged at the far low end of engagement for every paragraph. Bug or lack of interest in twitter/STU in those states?
- robotmlg 13y ago
  There was a New Jersey Devils game on TV at the same time as the SotU Address, so that may explain NJ.
  - acuozzo 13y ago
    > so that may explain NJ. I'd argue that it also "explain"s USA.
    - RickHull 13y ago
      I'd argue that the SOTU is about as meaningful as a campaign speech, and less so than a NJ Devils game.
Zikes 13y ago
I'm disappointed that he addressed energy and specifically mentioned natural gas, but did not address the controversial "fracking" method for extracting it. Considering the high engagement from certain areas of the US at that point in the speech, I'm willing to bet a lot of other folks felt the same way.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  He did, at least euphemistically. Right after the very first mention of natural gas he said "if extracted safely". That's about as far as he is going to go if he isn't going to say 'no more fracking'.
unlimited_power 13y ago
my back button!?
msvan 13y ago
I always find it interesting how different the rhetoric in US politics is compared to, for instance, Northern Europe. It's more pompous and dramatic; certainly more interesting to listen to than what I hear here on a regular basis. Obama's speeches also always have this left-ish air of "we're all in this together!", whether true or not. But then again, US politics is truly one-of-a-kind in most ways.
- rtpg 13y ago
  Different cultures, different speech styles. I've noticed a lot of non-native English speakers tend to greatly misinterpret language nuances.
- devcpp 13y ago
  As a French citizen who has visited UK and Germany, I prefer the pragmatic data-based discourse I see in European countries. It's still bullshit but at least it doesn't like it and all the promises are verifiable. I'm not particularly fond of Obama's "I ask rich people to give a bit of money to the poor" and hope that's sufficient. Hope...
  - Artistry121 13y ago
    The UK and Germany may be different but from what I've heard and read about French politics I'm not sure I'd prefer that in any situation over America. Isn't there lots of institutional racism and huge restrictions on enterprise?
sillysaurus2 13y ago
That’s why, tonight, I ask every American who knows someone without health insurance to help them get covered by March 31st. Moms, get on your kids to sign up. Kids, call your mom and walk her through the application. I have no health insurance, and I don't plan on getting it. This is, of course, crazy. But the reason is because I can't afford it. I'm in the same position as many others across the nation. Under Obamacare, I am going to be fined some hundreds of dollars for not having health insurance; health insurance which, itself, costs at least $200/mo (even under Obamacare). Then next year, I'm going to be fined triple that amount iirc, with increasing penalties each year. Isn't this the opposite of free health care? I'm not involved in this debate one way or the other. I don't know enough about the issues. But I will say that I don't appreciate the government intruding on my private life, forcing me to buy a product for at least $200/mo, a $200/mo I literally can't afford. I don't know how this is going to play out, but the government's expectation that everyone will buy health insurance just because they're enacting tax penalties seems somewhat naive. People simply have no money for $200/mo of extra costs. People are also bad at long-term planning, so the impending threat of "next year I'll probably be fined" isn't going to persuade those who are bad at finances (the vast majority of Americans) to sign up for an immediate $200/mo expense.
- hahainternet 13y ago
  I am not American, but as I understand it, if you earn so little that you can't afford a plan, you can get vouchers to cover the cost. I'm not sure of the specific boundaries and I think it varies per state. If you detail more information I can always Google.
  - sillysaurus2 13y ago
    If I can't afford my lunch after being given so many opportunities to earn it myself, then it would be unfair for me to ask my countrymen to foot the bill. It's my problem, not theirs. I would have an extreme moral aversion to seeking a handout, even if that aversion is to my own personal detriment. Perhaps I should be trying to maximize every possible opportunity offered to me. But I just can't stomach the idea of taking money away from other people to pay for my own personal problems.
mindstab 13y ago
The CBC had a great re-imagining of the speech "The state of the union speech Barack Obama would never give" http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-state-of-the-union-speech-barack-obama-would-never-give-1.2514862 http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-state-of-the-union-speech-b...
- cookingrobot 13y ago
  That would be refreshing to hear.

104 points by aroch 13y ago

More than anything it is a self fulfilling prophecy,the more people trust the social media as a source of real time news, the more they (and "social media experts") contribute to the social media to present the news, and it is a double edged sword as well.

larrydag 13y ago

This is one of the neatest data visualizations I've seen.

maxerickson 13y ago
It's cranky, but with no explanation of what 'engagement' actually means, it's just a visualization. (I get that is is some sort of relative keyword frequency;)
md224 13y ago
Indeed... it's almost like an fMRI of the national "mind", measuring activation in both spatial and topical dimensions. Might be interesting to see retweet patterns, to illuminate how sentiment is forwarded through the network.
- smoorman1024 13y ago
  Retweet patterns would be quite interesting. Especially since retweets happen one of two ways. You retweet someone you follow or you retweet something happening in a trend. I wonder if you could separate those two.

taeric 13y ago

Not having scrollbars on the text is... an interesting idea. Also, I see I jumped through several "pages" in my history. Where did I go, exactly?

wmeredith 13y ago
Interesting... but maybe not effective for getting people to read your content. I scrolled around with my mouse and nothing was happening so after about 10 seconds I just clicked back. EDIT: So I went backed and checked it out some more. Completely breaks my back button as they load 20+ URLs while I try to (jerkily) scroll through the text. under ideal circumstances this interface could be really cool, but I found it unusable.
- taeric 13y ago
  Yeah, I was being polite calling it interesting. And I noticed the same broken back button behavior. When I figured out what it did, I almost edited my post. Really annoying.
- andrethegiant 13y ago
  +1 I absolutely despise when sites do this. One scroll gesture and now I can't go back to the site I came from? Another common archetype for this behavior is sites that show a slideshow. I click through 20 slides, and now I can't get back to the page I came from. Webdevs: you can still have permalinks to each paragraph/slide/whatever without completely muddling the user's browser history! Use replaceState instead of pushState to mitigate this problem. Browsers should evolve to account for this kind of abuse. Holding down the back button should present two options: One to list all the anchors you've been to on the current page (in this case, paragraphs on the page), and one list of your previous history stack that doesn't account for URL fragments/hashes.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - taejo 13y ago
    > Browsers should evolve to account for this kind of abuse. Holding down the back button should present two options: One to list all the anchors you've been to on the current page (in this case, paragraphs on the page), and one list of your previous history stack that doesn't account for URL fragments/hashes. Chrome does this (as I discovered when trying to escape this page)

welder 13y ago

"And let’s pass a patent reform bill that allows our businesses to stay focused on innovation, not costly, needless litigation." I really hope this happens.

guelo 13y ago
Whatever passes would be legislation that further entrenches the biggest corps. It's the only thing that ever passes congress these days.
- zhemao 13y ago
  They already passed such legislation. And you're right, it is a joke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leahy-Smith_America_Invents_Ac... Basically, it moves US patent law from first-to-invent to first-to-file. So it lowers litigation costs for the big guys who take ideas from the little guys and use their big legal departments to file the patent on it before the little guy can.
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    .. or in a less cynical view, it makes it easier for a little guy to sue a big guy without getting into a huge "who did what first" court battle.
    - Drakim 13y ago
      ...or in an even more cynical view, let's big corporations and trolls to file patents for things that have long been in use but nobody even thought about patenting.
      - MichaelGG 13y ago
        That's not how it works. It doesn't allow you to patent prior things because you're first, it is just to kill of disputes when people patent something "simultaneously".

miggaiowski 13y ago

Anyone want to sync this up with a youtube video? Just make it scroll as the video plays.

MrZongle2 13y ago
And add the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" as the backing music.

smoorman1024 13y ago

This is really spectacular. Hat tip to you.

mbell 13y ago

I found it interesting that New Hampshire, Vermont and New Jersey seem to be pegged at the far low end of engagement for every paragraph. Bug or lack of interest in twitter/STU in those states?

robotmlg 13y ago
There was a New Jersey Devils game on TV at the same time as the SotU Address, so that may explain NJ.
- acuozzo 13y ago
  > so that may explain NJ. I'd argue that it also "explain"s USA.
  - RickHull 13y ago
    I'd argue that the SOTU is about as meaningful as a campaign speech, and less so than a NJ Devils game.

Zikes 13y ago

I'm disappointed that he addressed energy and specifically mentioned natural gas, but did not address the controversial "fracking" method for extracting it. Considering the high engagement from certain areas of the US at that point in the speech, I'm willing to bet a lot of other folks felt the same way.

maxerickson 13y ago
He did, at least euphemistically. Right after the very first mention of natural gas he said "if extracted safely". That's about as far as he is going to go if he isn't going to say 'no more fracking'.

unlimited_power 13y ago

my back button!?

msvan 13y ago

I always find it interesting how different the rhetoric in US politics is compared to, for instance, Northern Europe. It's more pompous and dramatic; certainly more interesting to listen to than what I hear here on a regular basis. Obama's speeches also always have this left-ish air of "we're all in this together!", whether true or not. But then again, US politics is truly one-of-a-kind in most ways.

rtpg 13y ago
Different cultures, different speech styles. I've noticed a lot of non-native English speakers tend to greatly misinterpret language nuances.
devcpp 13y ago
As a French citizen who has visited UK and Germany, I prefer the pragmatic data-based discourse I see in European countries. It's still bullshit but at least it doesn't like it and all the promises are verifiable. I'm not particularly fond of Obama's "I ask rich people to give a bit of money to the poor" and hope that's sufficient. Hope...
- Artistry121 13y ago
  The UK and Germany may be different but from what I've heard and read about French politics I'm not sure I'd prefer that in any situation over America. Isn't there lots of institutional racism and huge restrictions on enterprise?

sillysaurus2 13y ago

That’s why, tonight, I ask every American who knows someone without health insurance to help them get covered by March 31st. Moms, get on your kids to sign up. Kids, call your mom and walk her through the application. I have no health insurance, and I don't plan on getting it. This is, of course, crazy. But the reason is because I can't afford it. I'm in the same position as many others across the nation. Under Obamacare, I am going to be fined some hundreds of dollars for not having health insurance; health insurance which, itself, costs at least $200/mo (even under Obamacare). Then next year, I'm going to be fined triple that amount iirc, with increasing penalties each year. Isn't this the opposite of free health care? I'm not involved in this debate one way or the other. I don't know enough about the issues. But I will say that I don't appreciate the government intruding on my private life, forcing me to buy a product for at least $200/mo, a $200/mo I literally can't afford. I don't know how this is going to play out, but the government's expectation that everyone will buy health insurance just because they're enacting tax penalties seems somewhat naive. People simply have no money for $200/mo of extra costs. People are also bad at long-term planning, so the impending threat of "next year I'll probably be fined" isn't going to persuade those who are bad at finances (the vast majority of Americans) to sign up for an immediate $200/mo expense.

hahainternet 13y ago
I am not American, but as I understand it, if you earn so little that you can't afford a plan, you can get vouchers to cover the cost. I'm not sure of the specific boundaries and I think it varies per state. If you detail more information I can always Google.
- sillysaurus2 13y ago
  If I can't afford my lunch after being given so many opportunities to earn it myself, then it would be unfair for me to ask my countrymen to foot the bill. It's my problem, not theirs. I would have an extreme moral aversion to seeking a handout, even if that aversion is to my own personal detriment. Perhaps I should be trying to maximize every possible opportunity offered to me. But I just can't stomach the idea of taking money away from other people to pay for my own personal problems.

mindstab 13y ago

The CBC had a great re-imagining of the speech "The state of the union speech Barack Obama would never give" http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-state-of-the-union-speech-barack-obama-would-never-give-1.2514862 http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-state-of-the-union-speech-b...

cookingrobot 13y ago
That would be refreshing to hear.