Interesting visual representations

[undyingking]

There are a few visual object browser things, but Modista is the nicest one I've seen for shopping purposes. It pulls images of objects from across a range of sites and shows them to you by similarity. Handy for things like shoes which are (I guess) a pain to browse by conventional hierarchical means. (Via the great info_sthetics.)

This one is more fun -- it's a directed graph of languages, based on the relation which for English is expressed as "It's all Greek to me" ie. English -> Greek. There are more and longer chains than I would have expected. Explanation and discussion here on Language Log.

Move over Guinness, the Universal Records Database is here. In a grand spirit of participation, you're encouraged to send in your own record claims, however minor or bizarre. "Corey Henderson displays a tremendous ability for horrendous video game driving by having 11 fiery crashes in one game of Pole Position. Henderson played on a stand-up arcade version of the game and used just one quarter. The record was set on September 20, 2008 at the Challenge Arcade in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania." (Seen on the excellent ResearchBuzz.)

And of course this wouldn't be complete without a Last.fm visualization. I'll be honest and say that the maths of this is a bit beyond my capacity to immediately grasp,but it certainly looks very nice.

Comments

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

Does that mean that Romanian (at either 5 or 6 levels above Heavenly Script, depending on route taken) is the easiest language to understand?

Forget Esperanto, I'm learing Romanian. After all, look what the Romans accomplished!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Romanian is actually pretty easy, from what I've heard - it's very regular. Although Heavenly might be more useful in the long term.