Tracing Things As They Flow, Where They Go

I am reading mathbabe's blog.  She has some interesting links in the list of blogs and sites she follows.  When I find one great site, it usually connects with others.  This is one of them:

http://flowingdata.com/

The visual display of cell phone (a couple of entries down) movement is intriguing.  Since most people have one it is like tagging every person in the city and following their movement over time.  While the exact nature of what is being recorded is not clear, it seems to be calls and motion during calls, looking at the result opens many possibilities for info extraction.

There appears to be a body of water and flows go across it.  Too many to be water transportation?  Maybe not.  At one point a large number of calls seem to originate half way across.  The time it takes a passenger to find a seat?  While the information displayed is generally evident, not knowing the details I am not sure how to make any specific observations.

Maybe this is what the analysts look at when all the iPhone location reporting data is displayed?

Personal location tracking is an invasion of privacy.  Gross analysis of personal movement via anonymized cell phone tracking for data mining/extraction for monetizing or academic research purposes has fascinating value.

The newest Boeing model did a test flight around the USA.  It spelled something on the map, maybe the model number, using location tracking.  The tracks of all flights around the USA per day shows gross information and node relations. 

Scientists tag things with some type of traceable property in experiments to see where they go, how they interact.  This is the same thing applied to people.  It could be viewed in real time.  Or even projected back to see where convergence came from such as where did all the people in a stadium come from to get there.  Providing individual privacy is safeguarded, of course. Single entities cannot be tracked or their tracks deduced.

In my imaginary money system what if the aggregate movement of money where every single dollar is serialized could be displayed in real time or over any selected time period as is flows in transactions.  National movement.  International movement.  The nodes would be interesting.  Washington, Wall St. USA/China or Offshore Islands?  Playing the video history flow presentation in reverse as well as forward from any given point in time. Applying test variables like exchange rates, labor rates, skill levels, investment, debt, etc. in an algorithm to see where it would flow in the future?

Actual serialized dollar bills have been tracked in a similar manner to see where they go.  Tracking them in Bend would show that (I think) 80% simply cycle around in Bend.  CDC tracking serialized dollar bills was used as a model for how infectious disease spreads.