Geography Quiz

This is a list or random geography facts that were run into by the travel writers at sfgate.com.
A lot of them are quite obscure, which makes it even more interesting. And inevitably I get drawn in and do even more research on things I run across.

I really enjoy these kinds of random questions that get you thinking about geography.

Here's a list of 50 geography questions and their answers.

Weird Architecture

My step-mother sent me this interesting website with lots of pictures of strange architecture. There's some really cool buildings out there.

Here's more if you liked what you saw.

And here's a website dedicated to unusual architecture.

Flight of the Conchords, Season 2 Episode 1 available now!

http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/?p=7538

I haven't had a chance to watch it yet.

The Flip of a Coin Might Decide MN Senate Race, Seriously

I just finished reading this great article about the obscenely close Senate race in Minnesota. How close of a race is it? Well, a "few thousandths of a percent separate" the candidates. To those non-math types out there, that's the difference of 200 votes with almost 3 million votes cast. It's really freakin close.

The most interesting part of this is that according to MN electoral law, if the vote is still statistically tied after finishing their recounts, they'll decide the race with the flip of a coin. This is totally serious. It sure doesn't sound very sophisticated.

In other news, this is why you don't post embarrassing pictures of people you like on facebook or any other social networking sites. The worst part is that sometimes you can't control what your friends do. In case you don't want to click through, it was a picture of Obama's Directory of Speech Writing groping a cardboard cut out of the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton at a party. I think it's actually sort of funny.

Election Maps

I find it really interesting to look at the election maps that are split down by county (zoom in to get the county results). The locations of pockets of blue in seas of red and vice versa are fascinating.
What makes a town primarily blue or red? Does it have to do with the industry that was originally there? Or maybe it's the landscape?
I like finding states like Idaho, where the entire state is fairly red (~72% McCain to ~26% Obama), but there's one county smack dab in the middle of the state that's pretty blue (~66% to ~32%). None of the major cities in the state are nearby, and I think the highway might be outside or on the border of this county, Blaine County. So what's the story with this place? I read a bit in wiki and the only thing of interest was the fact that the median cost of a home was about twice the state's. Why so costly?
Or how about Park County, Wyoming? Oh, this is where Jackson Hole is, and Grand Teton National Park, almost half of Yellowstone. And it has the second highest per capita income in the US at, not quite $100K a year; beaten only by Manhattan. I thought rich people loved republicans? Or is this year an exception? And why is their income so much higher?
This next one was totally unexpected. In a sea of rather hard red (65% McCain to 30% Obama) there's one hard blue county. Sioux County, North Dakota. It's 100% an Indian reservation, and it only has a population of 4,000.
If I ever decided to move randomly, this is probably partly how I'd do it. I think I like my pockets of liberalism, and I'm not quite sure I would want to give that up.

Here's another interesting map tool with tons of data to visually explore with. The interface isn't as a bit clunky though.

Worlds Craziest Data Center

Looks fake, doesn't it. It's real though.

"This underground data center has greenhouses, waterfalls, German submarine engines, simulated daylight and can withstand a hit from a hydrogen bomb."

Here's the deets and more pictures.

The Sound of Harddrives Failing

I couldn't help myself. I really think this is cool.

I ran across this page that is the various sounds of hard drive's failing, and the description of what's happening. Pretty cool!

http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

As a side, apparently Google can predict flu outbreaks about two weeks before the Centers For Diesese Control can because they get a spike in people seaching for "flu symptoms" and other search phrases. They've made a website so you can know when the flu makes an outbreak near you!

Where do you Stand Politically?

This is something I've always wondered about. I know generally that I'm left leaning, but I also have some right leaning views on certain subjects.
A friend just sent me this great test that will put you on a chart according to your answers.

Those are my results on the left.

Go here if you'd like to take the test yourself, or just read more about it.

Too Close To Call

Click this link to see which countries in the world support which Presidential candidate.

Soldering

I'm so lucky to have my honey to fix my electronics. He's soldering the sound out of my laptop right now. It's a very exciting moment.

I'm also excited about all the plants I'm starting right now. Some fava beans, spinach, asian greens, and some others. I'm working towards growing more edibles around here. I think there's something to eating food grown nearby.

Warning, the following is horribly not PC, but it's really freakin funny. Massively entertaining. http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

TED Talks and Data Visualization

I ran across some fantastic websites tonight. The first is TED talks. It's a collection of lectures by various intellectuals on a pretty wide variety of topics. This one was about some generalizations that we as "first world" dwellers make about "third world" dwellers. He goes through and visualizes data from the 1970s on infant mortality, life lengths and income, among others. It's pretty fascinationg. Here's the actual visualization tool for some of the data sets he references. Here's another one.

The other thing I ran into tonight is another website that offers various interactive visualizations of a variety of data sets and also appears to have some interesting data driven lectures. I only played with the data sets. And that was also very cool.

Here's another one.

My office mate just pointed out this very interesting (and informative) website about the election. Complete with various scenarios and lots of statistics.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Get out and vote - and help others get out and vote too!