Markus Stocker bio photo

Markus Stocker

Between information technology and environmental science with a flair for economics, the clarinet, and the world of soups and salads.

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Humans are usually good at interpreting (multi-dimensional) data visualized with shapes, sizes, colors. We can use this technique to aggregate and abstract the complexity of data and it helps us to discover patterns and relationships.

It can be informative, interesting, nice to look at or just fun.

Recently, I asked myself, how would the shape and size of a thing be that represents the anger in the world. Could we find a flat surface big enough to place that thing? Perhaps, we would have to place it in the middle of an ocean? How would that thing evolve in shape and size or color over time? Would it get darker, bigger, more irregular?

I know, we would probably have to discuss what the unit of measure would be, how you measure anger anyway, and another ton of issues. But right now I’d like to pinpoint just the following: I think, the thingwould be scary, leave us speechless, and I would be grateful if it would affect us.