Who said maps have to be on Google to be cool? Clearly not Bill Rankin. The interface is the jank, but the pretty maps are worth it. Manhattan mapped according to building heights. America’s international economic footprint. The many shapes of South America.

Dammit, Apple. Wi-fi, not hi-fi. What do you think this is, 1973? I’ve seen frickin’ iPod speakers.

Malcolm Gladwell has a blog. I am already edified. (MetaFilterrific.)

File Under: Best invention ever. GE has made a cheap plastic so water-repellent even honey slides right off it. Check out the video at GE’s Global Research Blog (side note: check out the rest of the blog too; pretty interesting). You may have to right-click on the video and download it to view the full thing.

What does this portend? For one thing, ketchup (or shampoo or honey, etc.) bottles where all the ketchup slides right out with no coaxing. Technology Review imagines self-cleaning buildings and cool medical applications. (via Everywhere)

Columbine-area teen in custody after MySpace.com posting showing guns. Best headline ever. It condenses almost all the over-hyped media youth-bashing of the last five years into one succinct line. If only the copy editor had thrown in some stuff about video games and goths.

Seriously, though, this is getting ridiculous. I was on a local radio show this morning being interviewed about MySpace. (Some might call me a media whore. I prefer to think of it as being democratic in my approach to granting interviews.) I did my best to cut through the hype and talk about how slightly modified versions of this exact same narrative have been circulating through the press forever. Poisoned Halloween candy. Dungeons ‘n’ Dragon cults. Grand Theft Auto. I’m guessing the number of these stories has increased since the arrival of the Internet, but I’m not even sure. As far back as I can tell, the overriding media narrative about youth has been, “Your children are in grave danger. Panic.”

Yes, your children are in grave and perpetual danger. Welcome to existence. Over time, we’ve exchanged sabre-toothed tigers for more sophisticated predators. And most of those are far more dangerous, far more sophisticated, and far less well-known than your standard neighborhood MySpace pedophile/stalker. Now you may panic.

Read more…

This Washington Post story is the only news account I’ve seen of the events that led up to the recent violence in the Middle East and Pakistan that didn’t make me want to cry.

Print the letter, write it, fold it, stamp it, mail it. No envelope. (Ferreterrific.)

Did I say Gondry + Kanye = Yay? Try Gondry + Chappelle + Kanye + Mos + Erykah + Jill + Legend …

Hey Current, I think CNN International kidnapped your Web designer. I’d sue. (Kottkettish.)

Awww. Happy Valentine’s, everyone. From MNSpeak.