The Tyler Cowen

1. Neat infographic about the best albums of 2010 via Information Aesthetics.
2. Great article summing up relations on the Korean peninsula and looking forward to 2011. Not particularly chipper but well written and concise. Via North Korean Economy Watch.
3. Beautiful street art outlining shadows. Via The Awesomer. 
4. Inspiring recognition of our generation's limitations and the possibilities open to our decendents. Heady stuff but beautiful. Also via The Awesomer.

Walking in Circles

Brilliant video by NPR. Via The Awesomer

The Tyler Cowen

1. The evolution of deleted Wikipedia articles. 
2. Slow motion video of things bouncing. Something to do with physics and Newton. Via Information is Beautiful. 
3. A Wire-esque understanding of the B.I.G. murder and subsequent trial from Rolling Stone. (Via the Browser.)
4. Granted my computer is acting wonky, but I'm finding it hard to load this article about the decline and fall of the Google empire after finding it using Google Reader on a Chrome browser. Hey big brother?

3 Vital FBML Tutorials

Since we're in the middle of trying to do a bunch of fancy stuff for various Facebook pages, the research is fresh on our minds. As a result, we thought we'd help out anyone looking for their own tutorials on getting started on FBML.

1. Snipe.net on a host of simple tricks to add much needed functionality to your Facebook page. Check out the Facebook page for active examples. 
2. Web Design Tutorials with a great two-part tutorial on how to bring a FBML design from Photoshop into Facebook.
3. Mashable's 8 Essential Apps for Facebook. 

Smashing Magazine has a comprehensive list of these and others as well as a gallery of best-of FBML pages for those looking for more detail. But these three were enough for us to do everything we wanted. 

The Tyler Cowen

1. Science fiction ships to scale!
2. Marginal Revolution asking whether we should subsidize time travel. The comments are great. (Although isn't the fact that no one has traveled back in time to us yet proof enough that we'll never invent time travel? Or is this generation of human evolution deemed unfit for the bounties of a Utopian future?)
3. Tears are a turn-off for men. Presumably it goes both ways no?
4. Vacuum cleaner ad. Via The Awesomer.

The Tyler Cowen

1. The Sports Guy on the Brady-Manning rivalry. 
2. A look at the aftermath of the Canadian Junior Hockey championship and how Visentin is coping. 
3. The last will and testament and status update. 
4. Foreign Policy on military budget cuts. Similar to our own but better informed, better written, and with less interest on the Amazon. 

Happy Sunday. 

Meta-news in the Echo Chamber

Animals are dying! Birds are falling from the sky! Fish are washing onto beaches by the millions! It's the end of the world!

Indicators of SOMETHING

What does a death rattle sound like? In an animal, much like a human, it sounds like a severe case of congestion. In politics, is sounds like magnanimity. In business, it sounds like double-speak.

Does this sound like the death rattle of a regime?

North Korea removed a clause that made it mandatory for the party to hold a general convention every five years, the source said. Instead, the party can now elect senior members and revise its regulations just by holding a top delegates' meeting.

Or what about this?

The revision signals that the commission may grow more powerful than the National Defense Commission, the highest seat of power headed by Kim Jong-il but not yet joined by Kim Jong-un, he said.

Both quotes are from an article by Yonhap on leadership changes in North Korea. (Via NK Economy Watch.)

This newfound ability for the young Kim to re-organize party leadership in an instant creates a significantly more volatile power structure. Granted, Kim senior was more than capable of reshuffling the elites should one displease him. But the institutionalizing of this reorganization mechanism (more accurately, de-institutionalizing) does not fill me with confidence. Internal power struggles have never been pleasant for the DPRK's neighbors and these reforms seem to be laying the groundwork for further upheaval.

A brief history of the world

Incredible infographic presentation made all the more endearing by the charmingly nerdy host.

It's interesting to see some countries fluctuate wildly up and down (life expectancy) without changing their income early on. And the representation of the flu epidemic is equally impressive. But I'd love to know who the poor country is whose life expectancy falls below 25 years in 1943. It drops like a stone! And what is happening with a few of those countries that jump way up the income scale in the '70s? Could those be OPEC countries? It's also interesting to see China's life expectancy grow substantially before its income starts to rise. Could this be a product of universal improvements in standard health-care worldwide?

Great video regardless.

The Tyler Cowen

1. Good summary of the North Korean situation from a US-foreign policy perspective. It is far less organized, far less consistent, and far less informed than we would like to think. Provides an interesting comparison between China's obstinateness with regard to Pyongyang and the US's continued support of Israel. With so little known, our policies reflect far more about ourselves than about North Korea. (Via 38North.)
2. Awesome video from Open Stats (via Information Aesthetics) on how San Francisco is using public police reports to map crime is fascinating. (And because it's never too late to bring up these incredible maps again...)