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Ars technica brings us Track who's buying politicians with "Greenhouse" browser add-on:
Nicholas Rubin, a 16-year-old programmer from Seattle, has created a browser add-on that makes it incredibly easy to see the influence of money in US politics. Rubin calls the add-on Greenhouse, and it does something so brilliantly simple that once you use it you'll wonder why news sites didn't think of this themselves.
Greenhouse pulls in campaign contribution data for every Senator and Representative, including the total amount of money received and a breakdown by industry and size of donation. It then combines this with a parser that finds the names of Senators and Representatives in the current page and highlights them. Hover your mouse over the highlighted names and it displays their top campaign contributors.
In this sense, Greenhouse adds another layer to the news, showing you the story behind the story. In politics, as in many other things, if you want to know the why behind the what, you need to follow the money. And somewhat depressingly, in politics it seems that it's money all the way down.
So a 16 year old kid figures out how to not just connect the dots; but show how the money that is buying our government is affecting it. Are there any other tools that can help visualize the data? How else can we perpetuate these tools to the public?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Lazarus on Thursday August 14 2014, @06:40PM
I wish you were joking too, rather than suffering from the paranoid delusions so common among the SlashDerps that came here to spread unwarranted fear.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mrider on Thursday August 14 2014, @06:48PM
And that friends and neighbors is a classic example of flamebait.
You might also consider my post as flame bait, and if so that's fine, but I was attempting to comment on the sad state that we've seemed to reach. If that's a troll or flame bait, then so be it.
Doctor: "Do you hear voices?"
Me: "Only when my bluetooth is charged."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 14 2014, @06:49PM
You call them paranoid delusions after how the conspiracy theorists vastly underestimated the NSA? Someone here's deluded but it ain't GP.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday August 14 2014, @06:58PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 14 2014, @07:02PM
Coins can't reason or observe, people can. If someone who's been right about the weather repeatedly lately tells you it's going to rain and you don't grab an umbrella, you're probably going to look like an idiot fairly soon.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday August 14 2014, @07:08PM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩