Monday, June 27, 2005

An interface for your conclusions

Imagine GIS layers that overlay Google maps, automatically selected for uncontroversial relevance to a query.

Say that a Google News article was about Nuclear Weapons. A Google GIS link would appear with the story. Click it, and a Map would appear, with checkboxes on the right, unchecked, representing the unweighted layers that the system considers relevant.

* national data: size of a government's nuclear arsenal
* dates & locations of a government's nuclear tests
* national data: dates & estimates of budgets dedicated to nuclear weapon development
* dates & locations of use of nuclear weapons in wartime
* dates, locations & number of nuclear weapons stationed, by government
* national data: international treaties signed, not signed


I stayed away from controversial, editorial keywords & sources, such as the US government lists of allies, on one side, and Bulletin of Atomic Scientist lists of dangerous acts, on the other. I think, based on the uncontroversial hard data, people will see for themselves who the most dangerous nuclear power on Earth is.

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