The New York Times has been putting a great emphasis on public consumption of data, from understanding data to access to data. They initially started with information graphics that visualized complex data sets into something easy to digest. The nytimes.com versions were also interactive, engaging the reader to understand the data in more depth. A few weeks back, APIs were released to allow developers access to the same data that NY Times has.

Now they are taking it a step further partnering with IBM’s Many Eyes team to combine NY Times’ data with the Many Eyes visualization application. Users are now enabled to render data against multiple types of visualizing techniques.

Great effort by NY Times to put data and tools in the hands of their readers.

Amazon has released Windowshop. Essentially a pseudo 3D wall you can move across and zoom in on a product. When you zoom in you’re presented with video or audio material about the product. Looks like the products presented are recent releases in categories such as Movies, Books, and Music.

Seems like an interesting idea and a way to navigate through products. My first impression was that it was interesting, but not something that help my buy a product. After using it a few times, I realized that the accessibility value here is great. Slide from one product to another and I can almost instantaneously play information about it. Maybe it’s a 30 second preview of a book or album or a full trailer of a movie, all reachable with a few arrows on my keyboard versus the multiple clicks and searching for links on a typical page.

I lost my cool this morning at work, frustrated at coworkers who were not being proactive. Not wanting to lash out, as that is never the right thing to do, I took an early lunch break to a local deli. Sitting outside eating my turkey sandwich, sipping on a SanPelegrino Lemonade seemed to turn my mood. Ok, ok, it’s likely because I stepped away and got some fresh air, but I’d like to thank the little red start for the delicious lemonade.

You can have so much fun with Wordle. This example is based off of taking a few minutes worth of Twitter tweets about Obama, Biden, McCain, and Palin. Ironically, Wordle made them look like bullets pointing at each other.

(2) MODIFICATIONS.—In the case of a residen-tial mortgage loan, modifications made under para-graph (1) may include—-
(A) reduction in interest rates;
(B) reduction of loan principal; and
(C) other similar modifications.

In the Bailout Draft, as expected, modifications regarding residential mortgage loan is included. I am completely for people keeping their homes, but from a home owner fairness perspective, I would hope Option C would be used, whereby home owners are expected to pay a lower monthly mortgage over a longer period of time. The net is the same amount of money pushed through the economy.

A PDF of the Bailout Draft Text can be found on CNN.

My LG phone is slowly falling part. Its served me well these past three years, rudimentary browser, battery lasted days, and rarely experienced dropped calls.

So today, I decided it might be the right time to make the jump, to an iPhone 3G. Taking a peek at AT&T’s 3G coverage (3G in blue) makes me wonder why the iPhone is even called iPhone 3G, it should be more like iPhone 3G 10% of the time.

Comparing AT&T’s network to Verizon’s VCAST & Broadband coverage, in purple. Now its not to straight forward to compare Verizon’s EVDO to AT&T’s 3G network, but if your going to tout such great speeds, make sure people can have access to it.

Most of my reading happen on a train, airplane, vacation, or weekend mornings with a cup of coffee. Usually armed with a non-fiction book and a few magazines. I’ve always found it difficult to pick one magazine to subscribe to, which meant I was always picking a few by mood at newsstands costing more than if I had signed up for a year subscription.

Maghound was recently released as a la carte solution for magazines, similar to NetFlix. You can chose your magazines for the month, pay a flat fee regardless of the magazine, and tweak your selection as you go.

Video of people unsuspectingly, I assume, getting punched in the face recorded at 1000 frame per second. This video proves that reality is like cartoons, when you get pummeled, your body accelerates at different speeds.

Found on kottke.org

Trulia launched a new feature, actually a few months ago, called truliasnapshot. It’s a easy to use interface that allows you to select a slice of homes in a city.

When you search for homes in Trulia, Zillow, or most other realtor websites, you enter in the following preferences:

• City, State
• Type of Property
• Price Range
• Beds
• Baths
• Sqft
• Other Amenities

The result is a list of properties based on your preferences. All the results rely on one preference, your location, the City/State field. What about situations where you don’t know which city you want to live in or don’t have a preference?

Locational preferences are more important than the amenities of your home. You can always upgrade your home over time, but you’re not going to pick it up and move it to a better location. So why doesn’t Trulia let you enter in data about areas you visit frequently to help you determine the optimal location? Information such as:

• Where I work, or nearby a train line
• School and School system ratings
• Addresses of family and friends
• Other places of interest; local coffee shops, gyms, grocery stores

Enter in 3 or 4 preferences, add a weight to each, and a best guess is computed for you. Does this take a lot of resources to accomplish? Yes, but its what people do question when they are looking for a home.