Master of 500 Hats

talkin 'bout Narnia, bitches.

Geek Rap, SNL-style.

(also note Hitwise data on bump in YouTube market-share)

World Population TreeMap

Here's a cool way to view the world's population: this Treemap application was created by the Hive Group using CIA Factbook data (click image below for larger view; click live Treemap app to run).

might be interesting to add some GDP data by country to this dataset, to view aggregate economic output & potential future impact based on projected population size & GDP per capita growth.

check Univ. Maryland's Viz4All site for a list of other data visualization tools.

Happy Holidays from Dave, Saya, & Dante

  Happy Holidays

Well folks, we've had a pretty amazing year in 2005.  Lots of work and lots of change, mostly all for the good.

Saya & I are happy to be celebrating our first holiday season with our new 8-month old son Dante, and he's been having a blast (as you can tell :)

To all our friends & family, whether near or far, offline or online, we send you warm wishes for lots of shiny new toys & a great new year in 2006!

peace, love & joy,

- dave, saya & dante

Googlevangelism? Hel-loOOOO?!?

hmm.  not much fanfare on this yet, but i thought it was rather significant:
    Google Homepage API

    (also: Gary Price from SearchEngineWatch comments here)

other Google developer links:

  Google Desktop Developer SDK
  Google Maps API
  Google AdWords API (hi Nelson :)

finally a little developer evangelism at Google perhaps? 

still pretty low-key, but i guess that's their style.  doesn't necessarily mean it's a good style tho -- simplicity isn't always a virtue, especially when it could be confused with secrecy or disinterest.  i don't know if that's really what's going on, but it does demonstrate a lack of prioritization on evangelism and platform education at Google.  personally i think that's a huge mistake on their part.

wouldn't it make more cents for these to be all in one place?  and perhaps to have an overall program to work with developers on the Google platform?  just a thought.

Microsoft may not be the model for web-based developer evangelism (actually i'd say Yahoo's doing the best job right now), but there's certainly a lot to be learned from previous approaches.  Ballmer might appear comically fanatical above, but at least in terms of focus & emphasis they got it right.

(and btw, if anyone @ Google would like to discuss further & tell me why i'm off-base lemme know.  often wrong but hardly ever in doubt... and my first 5 minutes are free.)

how flickr works

  Backend system 
  Originally uploaded by caterina.

well, isn't it obvious?

narnia lives

one of my favorite childhood stories and inspirations comes alive tomorrow on the silver screen. i hope the movie fulfills at least some of the storytelling potential found in the book.

looking back, there is probably a fair amount of religious allegory in the book that i don't exactly buy into (& didn't really understand when i first read the chronicles of narnia as a child)... a likely by-product of Lewis' uptight christian british white boy upbringing and beliefs.

still, that doesn't take much away from the magic & wonder that sweeps over me when i think about the world inside The Wardrobe. of all the authored worlds of fantasy and science fiction, even LOTR, Star Wars, Star Trek, and others, this one always had the most appeal to me growing up.

and why not?  isn't life a lot more interesting in a world where magic has great meaning, where you are a prince or princess, with fantastical creatures all around, and a powerful talking lion befriends you & helps save the world against the forces of evil?

i can't wait.