What’s New With Mick

Saturday I drove down to Happy Valley to pick up Graham following an overnight at his friend’s house. On the way there I saw a monstrous building and noted it was a church. On the way back home, we stopped so I could get a picture. I posted the first picture to Instagram (warning: link opens iTunes). In that picture, I included the sign as a point of reference but it somewhat eclipsed the gigantic church so I moved a few steps east and snapped another:

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Have you seen Google’s Public Data Explorer? It’s an interactive interface to some gigantic sets of data gathered from around the world (sorry, requires Flash). I found it when I searched for “population growth” on Google. If you click the chart at the top of the list of results, you can graph the change in population growth rates for any country from 1960 to present. The chart graphs the US population rate by default but you can turn on any combination of countries as well as the world population growth rate for comparison.

After playing with it for a few minutes, I wondered about Iran and Iraq, two countries that we all probably wish we knew less about:

Remember the Iran/Iraq war? You can see it right there in the data. Can you tell who “won” and who lost that war?

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Here is an amazing video from “YouTube” stars, OK Go. Watch carefully and wonder to yourself how many takes this took:

If you don’t have flash on your device, you can view the video on YouTube with this link. Why didn’t I just embed the YouTube video? Damian Kulash, Jr., one of the guys in the band, wrote a very interesting article on a fan forum a few days ago that did an excellent job of explaining the intricacies of the music industry’s DRM machine. Today Kulash followed up with a tremendous New York Times Guest Op-Ed.

Sleeping Jewel
Originally uploaded by johnhallmen

Be sure to click on the thumbnail and then click the “All Sizes” icon beneath the title. It’s breath-taking.

This image speaks volumes about Thomas. He made it using Disk Inventory and marked it up with Skitch. Code Monkeys, How I Met Your Mother and Doogie Howser are all television series. Click the image to see it full size.

If you want up-to-date info without having to watch TV, here’s some great sites for monitoring the presidential electoral college:

• Electoral-Vote.com: Real-time updating of the electoral map
• 270ToWin.com: Interactive electoral map that lets you make your own projections
• Poll closing times at CNN.com

And with that, I am officially done with that game.

For the record, I stopped saying “pop” when I was a teenager in order to differentiate myself from the masses. I say “soda”.

For me, the power of the internet is in its ability to facilitate communication with other people. Thus, I have lately found myself attracted to various “social networking” websites. Most recently I’ve been experimenting with several social bookmarking sites, all of which offer free memberships.

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