Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Mayan Calendar Converter

Now that we know the Mayan calendar still works, the New York Times has a page that converts dates to and from the Mayan system. 

Friday, December 14, 2012

NYC Criminals take day off

The Guardian reports that on Monday 26 November 2012 no one was murdered, stabbed or the victim of a violent crime in New York City.
New York police department chief spokesman Paul Browne said it was "first time in memory" that the city's police force had experienced such a peaceful 24 hours.
It comes at the end of year when the city is on target to have its lowest murder rate since 1960.

I lived in New York in 1991 and I remember my colleagues there mentioning that one big advantage of living in Toronto was that if you were murdered you were guaranteed to make the news.  In NYC at the time you would have to be murdered in a particularly gruesome way to get a mention.

Sunday, December 09, 2012

Google Map of Canadian Census

This site has a nice map interface for viewing some of the data from the latest Canadian census.  It is interesting how the size of the areas being displayed changes as the map is zoomed in.

Saturday, December 08, 2012

Hindenburg Photos

The Atlantic has a nice photo article about the Hindenburg and its fiery end.

Monday, December 03, 2012

The British have Invaded all but 22 Countries

According to this article in the Telegraph, the British have invaded all but 22 of the 190+ countries on Earth.  They do stretch things a bit far to come up with the numbers though.  They basically use present day countries and their current borders.  Then, if the British have ever invaded any place that is now within those boundaries, they count that country as having been invaded by Britain.  Canada for example has never been invaded by the UK but is counted since territories presently held by Canada have been.

I was also rather surprised that the British have never invaded Luxembourg.