via xkcd.com on 11/16/08
I call Rule 34 on Wolfram's Rule 34.

via TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld on 11/12/08

If you are looking for something to do in Europe, check out Happenr, an events search engine that covers Germany, Ireland, Belgium, and the top 100 cities across the Continent. The site just launched after a year in development. It scours thousands of European tourism, town, and cultural sites to keep its events database up to date, and is available in English, German, and Dutch (events are displayed in their original languages).

The site is operated by a Belgian company called Oxynade founded by two Belgian engineers: Hans Nissens and Niko Nelissen. (Disclosure: One of our writers, Robin Wauters, is an investor and acting as head of marketing). The founders have put 50,000 Euros into the bootstrap startup, and received another 50,000 Euros in the form of a grant from the Belgian government.

Event databases are a dime a dozen, and Happenr is up against more established, better funded competitors including Eventful, Zvents, and even Yahoo’s Upcoming.org. Happenr thinks there is still room for a comprehensive events search engine in Europe, and it believes it has a better way of indexing events automatically.

I can’t really see too much difference in the quality of search results, but I do like the map view that places each event on a map, and goes down to the street level. The startup already has an API that lets other sites tap into its database, and has developed an iPhone app that is still awaiting approval (see screen shots below). Getting this on mobile phones is really essential. Soon Happenr will add the ability to create and subscribe to an RSS feed for any search result page. The company also offers a search widget that anyone can customize and embed on other sites.


The startup hopes to make money by licensing its hyper-local content to European media companies who want to incorporate the events search onto their sites (the free API links back to Happenr). The other sources of revenues will be ticket sales (not yet turned on) and advertising.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

via The Big Picture on 11/12/08
Yesterday was Veteran's Day (or Armistice or Remembrance Day, depending on where you live), a day set aside to honor those who have served in the military. Today, on the day after, it seems appropriate to share some photographs of U.S. soldiers currently in the thick of war in Afghanistan. Getty Images photographer John Moore spent some time recently in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, near the Pakistani border, with Viper Company of the 1-26 Infantry, and brought back these images, documenting what he saw. The final two photographs do not involve Korengal, but are striking examples of these difficult and complex times, and the sacrifice of one American family. (31 photos total)

A 50 caliber machine gun points out towards an Afghan village October 23, 2008 at the U.S. Army combat outpost Dallas in the Kunar Province of eastern Afghanistan. OP Dallas is located in the Korengal Valley, site of some of the heaviest combat between American forces and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. (John Moore/Getty Images)

via Lifehacker by Jackson West on 11/11/08


Want to join the polyglot set but don't have the time for foreign language immersion, world travel, or academic courses? One Minute Languages offers basic instructions in a dozen languages for English speakers including German, Russian and Japanese that will help get you started. The short lessons are released weekly as a podcast you can subscribe to via iTunes, or you can just visit the site to play back archived tips in your browser. If you want the complete package for a particular language, a full download of all the lessons is only £3.50. The Radio Lingua Network, which produces the series, also offers Coffee Break Spanish and Coffee Break French — for those of you with more than a minute to spare as you sip your java. Extend your lessons with ten new vocabulary items a day and the interactive language teaching tools at Mango.


via xkcd.com on 11/11/08
Also, is it just me, or do Japan and New Zealand look suspiciously similar? Has anyone seen them at a party together?

via Lifehacker by Gina Trapani on 11/11/08

When you've got a chart-heavy Excel spreadsheet, you can display one chart and let the viewer switch to see the others from a drop-down. The Pointy Haired Dilbert blog runs down the details of this nifty Excel trickery, which uses a formula and an image to conditionally show or hide the chart—neat stuff sure to impress the boss.


via TechCrunch by Jason Kincaid on 11/10/08

It seems that the tide of the App Store is finally starting to shift, as more developers look to tap into the iPhone’s online connectivity in an effort to separate their apps from competitors’. The latest app preparing to join the fray is Quick Draw, a Pictionary-like game that allows iPhone users to play eachother online using the phone’s WiFi or cellular networks. The app is similar to iSketch and XSketch (covered here), throwing a handful of players into a room and choosing one of them as the ‘drawer’ while the rest frantically try to guess a keyword. And if Quick Draw is half as addicting as those sites, it likely has a hit on its hands. The app is currently in beta testing, with plans to appear on the App Store within the next two weeks.



Last week we took a look at a pair of other iPhone applications that are leveraging the iPhone’s network effect to get a leg up on competitors: Chess With Friends is an asynchronous chess game looking to capture the addictiveness of Facebook’s mega-hit Scrabulous, and Smule’s Ocarina allows users to listen to music being played live around the world.

Here’s an unofficial video of QuickDraw in action (it was put together by one of the beta testers):



Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

via DealBook by DealBook on 11/10/08
The Federal Reserve on Monday evening granted a request by American Express to become a bank holding company, giving it access to low-cost financing from the Fed. The Fed said it had approved the application for American Express and a related company, American Express Travel Related Services, to become bank holding companies. The approval represented the [...]

via The Big Picture on 11/10/08
Down in Antarctica, November marks the end of spring, the beginning of austral summer, and the beginning of Antarctica's cruise season. The Sun just rose for the first time in 6 months on September 22nd, and is now visible in the sky all the time. Recent studies in Antarctica have brought new insights into the origins of deep sea octopus species (a 30 million-year-old ancestor from Antarctic waters), volcanic contributions to disappearing antarctic ice, and the effects of increasing numbers of icebergs scouring the seafloor. Collected here are 32 photographs of Antarctica from the past several years. (32 photos total)

After waiting for over two weeks for his mate to return from the sea and relieve him of nest duty, this Adelie penguin's hunger helps him make the decision to abandon his egg in search of fish and krill in the sea. Photo taken December 12, 2002. Known populations of the Adelie penguin have dropped by 65% over the past 25 years. (Melanie Conner/National Science Foundation)