Did you hear?

A couple of weeks ago, there was an instance reported in the press of thousands of bird deaths all at the same time, all in the same area. Speculation for the deaths at the time ranged from fireworks, to weather phenomenon, to signs from God. It must have been a slow news week, because the media became obsessed with this particular news item. Suddenly, every day brought a new batch of mass deaths of everything from ducks to crabs, to fish, to whatever.

Then the news started reporting that this was a normal occurrence and it happens all the time. Suddenly it was a non-story. Or was it?

A world without borders

Our world is defined by borders. Country borders. City boundaries. Job parameters. It's all about keeping us from one another. But what it those boundaries didn't exist? Could you still function?

Fat Morgana is a term specifically applied to mirages, but is used more generally by Damon Zucconi on this map page in which he has removed all of the normal boundaries, and lines, etc from a Google Map of the world. He's left the city labels, and even the road names, but everything else you expect from a map is gone. You interact with the map just like any other Google Map -- zoom controls, dbl-click to zoom, drag to pan, etc, -- he's just removed the borders.

I'm not sure of his philosophical intent when he created this site, if he had any at all, but it's an interesting exercize in what happens when the borders don't exist. It's a lot harder to navigate like this than you might think.

Though we should live our lives as though there were no boundaries in some situations (ignore the socio-economic, racial, class divides), perhaps some borders are a good thing.

Driving on Google Maps

Another interwsting mashup of Google's StreetView maps will automatically drive for you. Check out this beta StreetView Driver available at MapChannels.

Local News

Why read the local Observer & Eccentric news when you can see it all mapped out on a Google maps interface? :-)

Give mibazaar your ZIP code and it'll find local news and show you where you live on a map.

Locally famous

Tim Allen is famous for inserting local references into his entertainment projects -- his Home Improvement show, The Santa Clause movies, etc each make reference to his home town of Detroit, or to places around there where he grew up. Moviemappr (ala Flickr, remind me to blog about the naming of web sites later) allows you to find movies filmed in your area. You give it a city/state and it'll list all kinds of movies that spent some time filming in and around the area. Live in Cedar Rapids, IA? Did you know that Incident at Oglala, Miles from Home and, perhaps the most famous of the three - Starman were filmed in the area. Oglala might not be the summer blockbuster of 1992, but the others brought someone some money and had famous people involved...

Check out your city. Might be worth renting a movie or two just to see some local hangouts. The database seems pretty complete with movies ranging from the VERY low budget and audience to the most popular titles on the market.

Map your face -- or anything else!

Google's mapping interface defined the new standard for on-line mapping (draggable panning, dbl-click zoom, annotations, satellite and street-level views, etc), and it continues to get even better! Some people REALLY love the interface. If you're one of those people, you might like MapLib.

The site allows you to create your own maps. Big deal, right? So what! Oh, yeah. Something a little different from all of those other Google Maps Mashups -- This one allows you to use your OWN PICTURES! Not just maps, but anything. You can map your face. You can map a store. You can map Lord of the Rings. All of these maps can take full advantage of the Google Maps API -- the same features you'd see and use on maps.google.com.

Pretty cool!

Political Donations

Ever wonder which way your neighbors lean? Do they care enough about a particular candidate to financially contribute to their hopefully successful campaign? The folks over at Political Base have a handy Google Maps mashup that lets you visualize the political contributions to the 2008 US Presidential race. See the money from from each state all the way down to your local neighborhood. You might be surprised.

They also have a section that allows you to see contributions by "famous people." See who your favorite star is supporting. It might make you view them in a whole new light.