I decided just for fun to make wordles out of the four major speeches from the two major political conventions this year. Wordle is an online application that makes images out of large blocks of text. The more frequently a word is used, the larger it appears in the image.

I don’t know if there are any major revelations to be gathered from these, but I think they are interesting to look at.

Here they are, in chronological order (click each image to view larger):

A few quick observations:
1. Both VP nominees talked a lot about their respective running mates.
2. The Democrats talked about John McCain more than the Republicans talked about Barack Obama.
3. John McCain’s most used verb appears to be ‘Fight’. Barack Obama’s appears to be ‘Work’. (I’m assuming ‘Promise’ is generally used as a noun in Obama’s speeches, but I could be wrong.)

Anyone else have any interesting observations?

Google Sketchup is a really fun program to play with. It took me just a couple of hours to make this 3D model of our new condo.

We’re playing with furniture arrangements and have picked out some cool rugs, I’ll post more updates as we make progress.

It’s a great testament to the power of the Apple marketing machine that iTunes is the most popular digital music service, even among PC users. I have been using Napster for two or three years now and In terms of bang for the buck, iTunes doesn’t even come close.

It’s about renting your music vs. buying it. iTunes charges 99 cents per track for music downloads. Once you have downloaded the music, you may burn it to a CD or transfer it to your iPod or up to 3 other computers. Napster to Go (Named for the infamous Napster P2P system, though not closely related) charges a flat rate of $14.95 per month for unlimited downloads. If you download more than a dozen songs a month, well, do the math.

What’s the catch? First of all, it won’t work with your iPod. There are a lot of compatible mp3 players out there (You even get a free one when you sign up for a 1 year membership). When you download a track, it is rented with a 30 day license. These licenses are renewed on your PC every time you connect to Napster. You have to connect your mp3 player to your machine at least once a month to renew the portable licensing. Also, it will not work on a Mac and does not do movies.

Despite these limitations, the Napster system is still the best. Let’s say for example’s sake, that I downloaded 100 songs last month, they were downloaded practically instantly, and have been on my iRiver ever since. The cost? about $15. On iTunes, I would have paid $100. This is what I pay for 6+ months of Napster service, in which time I will have accumulated 600 or more songs. Remember you can always buy the songs too if you want to keep them forever. Think of it like iTunes but with an additional unlimited music rental option.

When I hear a new song I like on the radio, I download the entire album, legally, for what feels like free. If I really like the album and want to burn a CD of it, it’s 99 cents a track. But who uses CDs anymore?

Of course if you steal your music, the point is moot.

Check out this video. It is a very artistic and informative video on the history of the web, and what role it is beginning to play in our society as it evolves. The world wide web is really a machine that is learning from everybody who uses it.

Presidential Speeches Tag Clouds is a great variation on a data display technique known as tag clouds, a type of weighted list that is becoming very popular online. It is usually used on blogs and online communities for organizing what words are used most often in reference to a given article. Here it is used to organize the frequency of buzzword use in presidential speeches. Excellent illustration of how political focus has shifted from issue to issue throughout US history.