Living in Data: Citizen's Guide to a Better Information Future

In the fall of 2009, the data artist Jer Thorp wrote a pair of algorithms to inscribe names on the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan. The project involved designing a layout that allowed for “meaningful adjacencies”?family members, business partners, coworkers?to be etched into the bronze in close proximity. Thorp presented his results in competition against another team, a group of financial analysts who had also been working on the problem. The analysts were confident they'd found the most highl...