Good NYTimes profile of NYU/Hoover Institute professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, who has spent 40+ years developing predictive models of socio-political activity. (Also a nice bit of promo for “The Predictioneer’s Game,” Bueno de Mesquita's book scheduled to come out next month.)

"Of course, a somewhat high profile always proves to be an attractor.  For example, see "The New Nostradamus." 

"Can a fringe branch of mathematics forecast the future? A special adviser to the CIA, Fortune 500 companies, and the U.S. Department of Defense certainly thinks so.

"If you listen to Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, and a lot of people don’t, he’ll claim that mathematics can tell you the future. In fact, the professor says that a computer model he built and has perfected over the last 25 years can predict the outcome of virtually any international conflict, provided the basic input is accurate. What’s more, his predictions are alarmingly specific. His fans include at least one current presidential hopeful, a gaggle of Fortune 500 companies, the CIA, and the Department of Defense. Naturally, there is also no shortage of people less fond of his work. “Some people think Bruce is the most brilliant foreign policy analyst there is,” says one colleague. “Others think he’s a quack.”

Still, we think the articles and approach are well-worth your reading time.

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We were pleased to see last week (via the NICAR listserv) that multiple newspapers, at least in the U.S., have discovered they can get public records data bases, create specialized look-up tools for their frontends and post it/them on their web site. Let's keep on keeping on with this. It seems quite possibly that the next phase of bringing bits and bytes to the people might well be in the realm of 3D, mapping and simulation modeling. To that end, take a look at the "Terrain Tools & Software Packages" jumpstation. This is a nifty collection of commercial and open-source apps that just make your job easier and more interesting.

Assoc. Prof. Paul M. Torrens, at Arizona State University's School of Geographical Sciences (torrens at geosimulation dot com) continues to turn out interesting simulation models. Most recently they are about crowd movement, but the methods are applicable to many venues. See his work at Geosimulation.org    

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Once again, O'Reilly's Radar tips us to an interesting application of cell phone GPS data, this time to illustrate daily traffic activity in Rome.

Real Time Rome: Using Cellphones To Model a City's Movements

Posted: 02 Jul 2007 01:14 PM CDT

By Brady Forrest

MIT's Senseable City Lab is using cellphone data to model Rome's populations. The project is called Real Time Rome. It is an exhibit at architecture conference La Biennale di Venezia's show Global Cities (shown Sept 10 - Nov 19 2006).

There are descriptions about the exhibit from an MIT article about the exhibit:

Real ...   more »

A recent article worth a look over by the journalism community. What we do DOES have impact.

Juan Carlos González-Avella, Mario G. Cosenza, Konstantin Klemm, Víctor M. Eguíluz and Maxi San Miguel (2007)
"Information Feedback and Mass Media Effects in Cultural Dynamics"
Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation vol. 10, no. 3 9
PDF at http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/10/3/9.html
Received: 11-Jan-2007 Accepted: 18-May-2007 Published: 30-Jun-2007
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Abstract
We study the effects of different forms of information feedback associated with mass media on an agent-agent based model of the dynamics of cultural dissemination. In addition to some processes previously considered, we ...   more »

 From Ian Bogost's site, Watercooler Games: http://www.watercoolergames.org/archives/000794.shtml

 

The New York Times Publishes Our Newsgames
May 24, 2007 - by Ian Bogost

Today, one of my videogames is on the front page of the Gray Lady.

Almost four years ago, Gonzalo suggested "newsgames" as a genre that intersects videogames and political cartoons. Last year, my studio Persuasive Games took our own take on this genre with The Arcade Wire series (Airport Security, Oil God, Bacteria Salad, Xtreme Xmas Shopping), published by AddictingGames.com/Shockwave.com. Those games enjoyed considerable success, tallying at least 10 million plays or so. But Shockwave is still a gaming site, reaching gamers, not necessarily reaching ordinary citizens more broadly. And that's what news and editorial should do.

Today, I'm excited to announce that Persuasive Games has a new publishing relationship with The New York Times, in which they will be publishing newsgames we create on their op-ed page, as editorial content, not just as games. This is unprecedented, and at the risk of tooting my own horn, I think it represents another important shift in videogames as a medium. This is news/editorial in videogame form, rather than videogames trying to make news fun. The fact that the Times is often considered the national newspaper of record makes this moment even more notable, and gratifying.

The first game is Food Import Folly. The game is about the experience of extremely limited FDA inspection on food imports, and just what that scarcity of resources actually feels like. To play, you have to be a paid TimesSelect subscriber (NY Times puts all their editorial content behind the TimesSelect subscription wall). There's more info and screenshots on the Persuasive Games website.

Like most of our newsgames, timeliness was an important consideration. Food Import Folly was created in a week's time. Congrats to my team at Persuasive Games for their hard work. And look for more of our newsgames in the newspaper, in the near future.

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From All Points Blog

Monday, June 18. 2007

The Redistricting Game

University of Southern California students developed the online game for the Annenburg Center for Communications to teach about the challenges (and partisanness) of redistricting. Along the way players learn that to keep their candidates elected they may need to examine ethical issues. The game is Flash-based.

From the [original News 10] site: The Redistricting Game is designed to educate, engage, and empower citizens around the issue of political redistricting. Currently, the political system in most states allows the state legislators themselves to draw the lines. This system is subject to a wide range of abuses and manipulations that encourage incumbents to draw districts which protect their seats rather than risk an open contest.

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A number of friends and associates, for whom we have the greatest respect, say this is one of the best, most enriching conferences in the U.S.  It is not cheap, but there are vacation condos to be found in the area that would help to make this affordable.

The IAJ plans to be there.  Hope to see you there.


4th Lake Arrowhead Conference on Human Complex Systems
conference syllabus

We are back with our 4th UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference on Human Complex Systems. from Wednesday April 25, 2007 through Sunday April 29, 2007.

We look forward to another cross-disciplinary gathering of social scientists who employ cutting-edge agent-based computational modeling and related computational ideas and methods in their research and teaching. As in past years, dozens of presenters from numerous disciplines are presenting. We are also hosting evening panels, a live simulation, and opportunities for networking and relaxation amid gorgeous surroundings.

Advancing Agent Modeling in the Social Sciences
The conference is a forum for sharing the most recent advances -- in theory, methodology and application - in the area of agent modeling throughout the social sciences (e.g., Anthropology, Communication Studies, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Sociology, Urban Planning). We also welcome social scientists in professional schools (e.g., Business, Education, International Relations, Public Health, Public Policy, Social Welfare) and in the public and private sectors. Researchers and theorists in Psychology, Media Studies and social aspects of Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and related disciplines also welcome!

For a paper presentation, authors present for 20 minutes and receive an additional 10 minutes for Q&A. We also welcome 90-120 minute symposium proposals consisting of 3-4 individual papers on a related topic of inquiry. Finally, we are open to someone wishing to organize an evening panel discussion on a �hot topic� in agent modeling.

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A former student of colleague Steve Ross sends this interesting report on how simulation models can/are being used in the real world:

I’m the communications officer for the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University. The IRI specializes in making forecasts of climate for every part of the world by using data from satellites, meteorological stations and proxy records (tree rings, corals, etc) to run models. The models tell us, with varying degrees of certainty, how much off the “norm” rainfall, temperature and humidity will be for a given place in the world.  We’re not so ...   more »