More Cartographic Joy!

As I've written before, I love maps so much that I pretty much cannot pass a map on a wall -- any map, any wall -- without stopping to look at it.

So John Wagner made my day by passing along this gem: a GoogleMaps/Census Bureau mashup that calculates residential demographics within 1 mile, 3 miles, and 5 miles of any spot in the US.

John got the tip from Dave Gray, at Communication Nation... a blog that on first glance looks headed for a spot on my daily reading list.

Here's the map from where I lived as kid:

Technorati tags:
Cartography
Google Local
Google maps
census data

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:54pm in Cartography, Time-Sinks | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

Is Your Prose Gender-Confused?

Those of you know me (and some of you who don't) know I'm a guy. But would you know that from the way I write? Is your gender clear from the way you write?

If you're in doubt, crank some of your best words through the GenderGenie. After a brief cogitation, the GenderGenie will decide your text (ideally 500 words or more) signals that you are male or female.

To test the concept, I ran three of my blog posts through the program:

PR Bloggers Get Knickers in Twist Over FedEx Protecting Its Mark. This 544-word post came in with a Male/Female score of 1263/680. Definitely a guy that day.

Yeah, We Got Eggs in Denmark. And Ireland's Starting to Look Like America. 493 words. Male 729, Female 1129. A low-testosterone day, clearly.

IABC's 55% Loan Business. 522 words, 1742:768 M:F ratio.

For fun, I also ran some recent articles I've written for clients. Results? All over the map. Which either means I'm an adaptable writer or an execrable writer.

Or the Gender Genie algorithm is flawed. For example, in the IABC's 55% Loan Business article, the Gender Genie's analysis looked like this:

That would seem a fairly simplistic analysis. But an explanation of the algorithm shows some pretty convincing empirical evidence.
I'm guessing the Gender Genie "gets it mostly right, most of the time."

Now, what's it good for?

A powder of the paryk  to  Matt Galloway's Basement blog (which is worth a visit if only for its strapline: "...because someone has to BE the Long Tail." ) where Matt also provides his own analysis of Gender Genie.

Technorati tags: gendergenie moshekoppel shlomoargamon linguistics

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 10:00am in Language & Linguistics, Time-Sinks, Writing & Grammar | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (3) | TrackBack (0)

13 Steps From The Doobies to The Doors

While we wait for the white smoke to go up in Rome, here's a time-sink that's not only fun but useful.

Welcome to Band To Band.com

Bands have a tendency to share band members from time to time and as a result it is not difficult to construct a simple "family tree" based upon the interrelationship of band members. We at BandToBand.com decided to find out how large this extended tree is and the following list of bands is that result.

Click on any two of the following band names to find the connection between them...

Tip of the yarmulke to Mark Wilson's Escape from Obsession blog.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:26pm in Time-Sinks | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1) | TrackBack (0)

Amusing Time-Sink and A-1 Blog Directory

A month or so ago, I stumbled across Blogshares, which bills itself as "fantasy stock market for weblogs. Players get to invest a fictional $500, and blogs are valued by inbound links."

I like simulations and, while I don't have all that much time on my hands, thought I would give it a go.

$14 billion (fictional) later,  having pumped-and-dumped Neville, Shel, DRC to a fare-thee-well, and having realized that the "market" is not really a market (and that "Ideas" and "Chips", not blogs, are the valuable commodities), I don't need to play anymore.

But... and perhaps this is the point of the game ... for the "market" to work, blogs must be filed and catalogued into various "industries", which can range from the language of the blog ("English", "French"), to the subject ("Advertising", "Cooking"), to the location of the blogger ("Russia", "North Carolina"). Players make these assignments by "voting" on a blog's industry (and thereby earn the ever-valuable "chips").

It's not a Blog-taxonomy-Wiki, but it has every attribute of one.

The result: a complex, comprehensive directory of the most active part of the blogosphere. Not every blog is here; on the other hand, I've not met a blog recently that wasn't here. And by exploring various "industries", I find myself on a journey of serendipity.

Don't worry about playing... but sign up. The directory is worth real gold.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 06:54pm in Games, Taxonomy of Cyberspace, Time-Sinks | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)