Tiny Planet

China’s output per head of population is smaller than Albania’s. Except China could probably buy swathes of the planet.

Wooly mammoth DNA decoded. Am I the only one who wants to see this species roam the Earth again?

A gallery of the greatest conspiracy theories.

Prices at Dubai’s Palm developments are down 40% to a paltry $2.7m.

Vive la France (in digital library terms at least).

It seems 21% of Americans can’t find the Pacific Ocean on a map. On the plus side, 94% can find the US.

The fakir who was buried alive for 40 days.

So very tired, but here we go:

A chaffinch map of Scotland: “The work looks deceptively simple, while in fact it is a cleverly multilayered combination of poetry, cartography, ornithology, linguistics, and maybe just a hint of Scottish nationalism”. I love the oddities of the internet.

Strip websites back to basics.

Like ice, penguins, clouds and atmospheric disturbances? Then you’ll love this selection.

I can sympathise with the Transformers. But Pokemon? Super-soakers? C’mon.

And if you haven’t had enough after that, try love, romance and other natural disasters.

Even Times Square is getting climate conscious.

Living in the shadow of past glory is not easy for some Egyptians.

Well that didn’t take long, did it, Blizzard?

The journey so far… in numbers (Kathy Foley)

My Saks spree: How to spend $150,000 like Palin (Slate, chosen more for its oddness than me having an interesting in such shopping )

Is this the most eco-friendly car innovation since the hybrid? (Treehugger)

Leukemia drug halts, reverses MS (AFP)

New car targets 1,000mph record (Sky)

In Jordan, prayers for the persecuted (The National)

Fake cop busted after stopping real one (AP)

The return of micro-states? (Catholicgauze)

Dolls and toys that creep us out (Dark Roasted Blend)

X-rays made from Scotch tape (Boing Boing)

Ghosts and goblins and witches, roaming the streets in moonlight… here are some bits and pieces to get you in the mood.

Stephen Lynch, “Halloween”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImnMucno1ew[/youtube]

AFI, “Halloween”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ieydJaFcks[/youtube]

The Misfits, “Scream”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td-QoYceevk[/youtube]

Zombies in plain English — how to survive a zombie attack:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVnfyradCPY[/youtube]

Jonathan Coulton, “re: Your Brains”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjMiDZIY1bM[/youtube]

And because I’m so good to you, I also offer a geography of vampires.

Mulley ups the ASNO ante. 2FM dj Rick O’Shea has sworn off Facebook for the week, and is feeling the brunt of Damien Mulley’s mischief making. Send Rick your FB love!

13 strategies for breaking bad habits and cultivating new ones. We’ve all got them, now it’s time to kick their habitual asses.

Geography of barbecue in the United States. Why did I become a journalist? To find strange stories like this one and spread them across the interweb.

The future of electronic paper. And thus, the newspaper industry. Minority Report had something along these lines.

India plans to impose restrictions on foreign investors. The economy is steaming ahead but the plan almost crashed the stock market. Way to think ahead, guys!

Face transformer. Upload a pic of yourself and change it to a different age or even see how you look as drawn by one of the masters. Via Cian Boland.

If you’ve read this blog for any time at all, you’ll probably remember me mentioning alternative or virtual history. This, essentially, is an imaging of what might have been based on the possibilities that existed at any one time. This is a useful exercise for academics and authors alike; for instance, Robert Harris’ novel Fatherland is set in a Europe after Germany won World War II. Strange Maps has come across another map that envisions a Nazi hegemony, albeit masked by a “union”.

Ireland remains strangely out of said union, which reflects the nations that remained neutral during the war.

Two out of three Irish who surf the net log onto social networking sites. They’re bloody addictive. (Irish Examiner)

The future of news: rational business decisions. Some US publications are making the conscious decision to scale back on some services because it costs too much per subscriber — with consequences for the quality of journalism. (Scholars and Rogues)

The Kennewick Men. Catholicgauze continues his look at the pre-Columban settlers of North America with a post on Kennewick Man, who was of Caucasoid rather than paleo-Indian origin.

Band releases album on floppy disk. It’s 74 minutes of music compressed to fit into 1.44mb. (PC Pro)

Egypt plan to green Sahara desert stirs controversy. Well it was grassland and forest a few thousand years ago… though it may deplete already sparse water sources. (Reuters)