If Google Trends was True

Google Trends aims to provide insights into broad search patterns. As a Google Labs product, it is still in the early stages of development. Also, it is based upon just a portion of our searches, and several approximations are used when computing your results. Please keep this in mind when using it.

Google Trends, a new offspring of Google Labs, returns graphical information of which keywords are searched by which nationalities. Now of course, the data presented by Google Trends is not 100% true.

Google Trends uses IP address information from our server logs to make a best guess about where queries originated.

It's just an estimate. But it's entertaining to consider what the world would be like if Google Trends was 100% accurate. What if Google Trends actually did world news? Here's a list to give you an idea:

• Peruvians blog 5 times more than Americans.
• Amsterdam is more about ajax than drugs.
• The Irish are the majority of downloaders on the iTunes Music Store, although the Poles are the kings of P2P.
• Mexicans misspell everyone's favorite MP3 player with a common sentence of past tense.
• Lesbian Norwegians were partying hard on the New Year with their new dildos.
• The Phillipines is pretty much the only country who likes the Da Vinci Code.
• Koreans are hyped about Web 2.0.
• Washington DC is planning an assassination of a not-so-popular Texan president.
• The United States does not know how to clean all the mold in its country.
• The Ku Klux Klan still exists in Turkey.
• Osama's cave is in Egypt.
• Pakistanis are suckers for boobs, while vaginas are more of an Indonesian thing.
• Indians knew about the Wii in 2004.
• At least Iran is trying to understand women.
• The Mohammed fad was only temporary.
• Malaysia generates its revenue from Adsense.
• Highly anticipated video game Spore is already a huge hit to Singaporeans, mainly because the game rhymes with their country.
• South Africans, also known as the masters of Chuck Norris jokes, are concerned about Global Warming, while the Germans don't give a shit.
• Lots of failure in late 2005. My guess is criticism of George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina.
• Hungary is crazy about Star Wars.
• Who knew that New Zealanders could shotput?
• Slovakia is just a big cheater.
• Moroccans are homies with 50 cent.
• Malaysians are fascinated with Kevin Rose.

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Feel free to leave any urls to interesting trends by commenting.

More to Dictionary than you Think

Here's a key combination you probably never knew existed: Hover your mouse over a word and press Command-Control-D, and a little window pops up and tells you the definition of the word. Nifty! You can change this key combination to whatever you please in the System Preferences.

Easter Egg Found in Apple's Final Cut Pro HD

Those of you fortunate enough to own Final Cut Pro 4.5, or those who promote eclecticism: nested in your FCP application itself is a string that is quite out of the ordinary. Open up "Final Cut Pro.rsrc" ( / Applications / Final Cut Pro HD / Contents / Resources / Final Cut Pro.rsrc - to open Final Cut Pro HD, right-click and select 'Show Package Contents') in any text editor and you will stumble upon this hidden message*:

If we can't ship this puppy by then, we might as well be herding yaks. I'm glad it's getting weird again. I didn't understand it when it wasn't weird. The C switch statement: Mmmmmm! Chock full of nooses! That would be like crossing the streams or something. Mmmm... Chicago style pizza! I've got my blankie, I'm good to go. A lot of this job is mental. "Mostly clockwise, sometimes reverses..." What's the sound of one luma clamping? I just wanna be in the app! Oh, rough and woeful music which we have! Cause it to sound! The Yak is a delightful creature... rather like a visit with a bovine Confucious Nobody might know anything. I don't know, somehow it just works. How do you tempt a Yak? Chocolate covered espresso beans! We're not the engineers you're looking for. Move along, move along. The little cartoon man is messing with my head! Speed kills, but sync maims. It's compatible with it's legacy. Twix bars: A brand-new bad habit! Many Yaks were exploited during the creation of this product. I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of nuclear weapons in this product. I'm concerned because the cow sounded pretty threatening. I am NOT a mad cow! I don't care who's on the other end of the phone... Hang it up! I have deniable plausibility. Note to the galley: Romulan Cosmos no longer to be served on school nights! Carrot and a footprint. Asteriskified? Where's a single Yak to go now that the Edit Bar is gone? Aaargh, I forgot to pay the rent! When you have a car that's that uncool, you just gotta drive stupid. Did it happen with yesterday's umbrella? When can I do color correction by the pool? Are you filling his head with chocolate? The lights going off at midnight, it's almost like a slap in the face... Hey, stupid, it's tomorrow! Yeah, that's covered under item #152. I was probably the last one to see him alive. We're not play'in poker here. All I want for Christmas is a stack trace! Think PIKE! Don't look at me. They're not my flying monkeys. What, were you expecting "Moo" or something? This is not a Yak Bite. Somehow I can't convince myself that this isn't all just one big hack. At least Spock had stone knives and bear skins! It's a single malt problems. Everyone drops it the first time. OK... who's job is it to write the Flush Wizard? Controlled evil is not necessarily bad. Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking? I think so, Brain... but can you do that with a Yak? It's like a gob of peanut butter for the roof of your brain. Savor the unbridled complexity that we've crafted for you. Look, there's no such thing as a 'Clacker'! Don't panic - everything is under control. There is no fire. Have a great day. Get rid of the spasmic "U". That's my fault originally, but many others are to blame since. The disco ball is spinning, but no one's home. There were many lessons learned during the early years. That movie had plot holes big enough to drive whole other movies through! Please refrain from sucking. I'm highly in favor of putting in code to do stuff. I want to see lots of deliminators. Can I get that for free? Wrong thinking will be punished. Right thinking will be as quickly rewarded. All right, Who replaced the Oscillation OverThruster with an AutoSyncDetector? Will, you're scaring the children. Didn't this used to be purple? Hellooooo! I'm trying to edit here! Remember-- thingies are free! ...and so forth and so on... That and a folded napkin will level a chair. Oops, It works! Free drink? That just cost me $200! Don't lick your zipper. I went to pull it out and it was like three feet long. Kinda cool; kind of a hack. Like so much of this business. Salad is a lot of work! The opposite of "weird" is "boring". Do or do not. There is no don't. Thirty quatloos says it crashes during launch! Check your Caps Lock key. ...by an expert. Worse, a committee of experts. There's a disease going around in QA right now. Stay away from those guys. What? You were expecting a paper clip? Personally, I _like_ editing under a tree! We're going to leave the underwear in the tutorial. Ok, Nobody prints, Nobody gets hurt! Please hold for the next available consumer. Cows didn't have dynamite and steam shovels. This is so lame it hurts. She's speaking in tongues. I was the innocent victim of a drive by coding. It's all wired up... we just have to turn it on. Where's the 'Poof' manager?It's the international symbol for "Your zipper's open". There exists, but you can't get there from here. There was a memo? That's a little too non-virtual for this group. These buttons are... Bonk with Wrench, I Love Lightning, and Enjoy Fireworks from Lakefront. It also doesn't read French novels. I am SO 29.97 all the way! Well, 7 is more than 6. Two "its" can be a "them". I assume you stayed away from the snapping turtles in the pool. I've been here before You can call me Bruce the Wonder Yak.

Apple developers are weird!! This is as random as random gets. Bold text denotes the differences of the string between versions 4.0 and 4.5. 10 bucks drugs were involved.

*Tested with FCP 4.0 and 4.5, other versions may or may not have this easter egg.

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The Growing List of the Digg Clones

Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Someone wrote their own digg code, made it open source, put it on the internet, and everyone got a copy of it. But some people didn't bother to change much at all other than the title! Here is a list of all the "Copy and Pasters", organized into different categories:

The Original
digg

Greens are Good for You
Pligg
Linux Filter - Part of the whole Steve Mallett controversy
iTunes Love - Part of the whole Steve Mallett controversy
Daily911
Wobble
APBNews

Microsoftesque
DotNetKicks
Kick - Irish digg

Foreign
Tape Moi
Scoopeo
Scooop
Fuzz
17dig
digg.de
r00lz
Eu Curti

The Spanish Brothers
Meneame - Posted the digg code which everyone copied
Domelhor

Miscellaneous
SpyMy
Social Porn - 18 or older
Staralicious
Bibilog
Fuddle-Duddle
At Hip Hop

The following aren't copy-pasters, but their website has the same function as digg's.

Same Concept, Different Design
Tag River
Blogmemes
Dig Log
SkimCSS
Wink
Shout Wire
Blink List
News Garbage
Reddit
Populicias
oKs

The Utter Embarrassment
Digg Zone

digg started a revolution! If you know of any sites that copied digg's idea, post them in the comments below and I will update this list promptly.

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Resources for Mesothelioma Patients

Mesothelioma Web has a lot of information about mesothelioma treatments, clinical trials, specialists, and
asbestos disease, for those that are interested.

Beautiful Aqua Button Template and Tutorial

Have you ever needed to make a pretty looking icon for a web page, but lacked the time / photoshop skills to make one? I find the Aqua buttons used in Mac OS X to be gorgeous. Using this tutorial, I created a template (with a few modifications of my own) with editable layers for you to download and use instantly whenever you need it! (Photoshop is needed).

digg this

Apple Logo Spotted in Iraq

The Unofficial Google Earth beta just came out for Mac OS X a few days ago -- and I love it. I can travel all over the world in my pajamas sitting at my desk. Well I was just touring the globe, and of course I had to see what Iraq was like. I was astonished -- it is a gorgeous country. Just judging by satellite images, Baghdad is much more beautiful than Los Angeles. I could not believe that stunning blue-green river! I don't know when those were taken (before or after the war -- images from Google's satellites can be up to three years old), but if Iraq still looks like that, and when if it will be safe, I truly would want to visit.



Back to the story though -- I was clicking around when I found an amazing resemblance of the Apple logo right in the middle of a street in Baghdad!



If you don't believe me, here are the coordinates: 18'07.87" N 23'55.86" E. Does anyone know what this really is?