Alright, today I have decided to share some things I think are very interesting and everyone should know, in case you get into one of those game shows, like “Cash Cab” where they ask you weird stuff, that supposedly is…”common knowledge”. Anyway!

Did you know that if you ever went to the Dead Sea, you could float on top of water as easy as laying down on your bed? You can’t do this in regular waters… Well if you are in Europe or have ever been before to the Dead Sea, you probably know what I am talking about, but do you know why? The answer is simple. Since the Dead Sea is so salty, much much saltier than regular sea/ocean water, the density of the liquid is very high, which enables us to float much much easier!

Did you know that 1.74% of our water comes from Glaciers, Ice Caps and Permanent Snow? Now, everybody, this is why you all have to stop contributing to Global Warming or it is predicted that by 2050 there will be no more artic sea ice (yes sea ice is also fresh water), it will all melt and sea level will raise by about 4 meters. Hmm, people leaving in shoreline cities will have a big problem then.

Did you know that the Mauna Kea mountain in Hawaii is actually the tallest mountain on Earth, exceeding the height of the more commonly known mountain Everest by nearly a mile? So now you ask yourself, how come everybody thinks Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain? The answer is, Mt. Everest is the tallest elevation on land. The hawaiian mountains are not as tall because they are half under sea level.

Well perhaps the first fact was the most interesting one (you gotta try it someday), and you did not need to know the other two, but knowledge is always good, so enjoy!

Posted in General, Science | No Comments »

Official Definition
Podcast: a Web-based audio broadcast via an RSS feed, accessed by subscription over the Internet.

Easier To Understand
Podcast: an audio file which you can download and listen to.

A couple of years back, not everyone knew what podcasts were, and perhaps now it is still not the case but it is obvious that their popularity is increasing very rapidly. While your tech savvy user probably is familiar with the term, it does not mean they are actually using them. By using them, I mean not just downloading the podcasts and listening to them in your computer, but doing what you are actually supposed to. Put them in your iPod or MP3 player and listen to them on the go.

However, this is about to change. Soon everyone will be using podcasts more and more on the go. A big step towards this is the increasing number of uses that are being found for podcasts. From radio shows, to interviews, to the latest and perhaps what maybe the best use thought of…college lectures.

As more students find out about the possibility of having lectures in podcasts, the number of courses offering this should increase. The first and most obvious benefit would be that, you could actually stay home if you didn’t feel like going to school and listen to the professor. But even better than this, is listening to the lectures while using mass transit.

If you happen to live in New York City and have to take the subway, train or the bus for an hour or more, you will find it more than useful to be able to listen to a lecture while traveling, rather than reading the book while your bus/train/whatever is moving. First of reading in a bus is uncomfortable and can damage your eyes due to constant focus change (ok im no expert at this but Its what I believe, correct me if I’m wrong). If reading, it is also hard to concentrate due to all the noise around you, whereas when you are listening to the podcast at max volume it will ease things for you.

If students are offered the ability to have lectures in podcasts I’m more than positive their performance will increase, leading to better grades. Colleges will be able to up their overall GPA so this is a two way street. Both colleges and their students will benefit greatly once podcasts start being used more and more. Oh hey, did I mention you can put it on repeat and listen to it while you are sleeping? You are guaranteed to remember your lecture material then!!!

Posted in Technology, Education | 1 Comment »

I’m not sure how many people have heard of the “Aluna Project” so far, today was the first time for me, and I found it interesting enough to blog about it!

The Aluna Project is kind of the Stonehenge of the future. The Stonehenge is believed to have been used to predict stellar phonemena thanks to Gerald Hawkins’ note of 165 key sites (at the Stonehenge) that align with rising and setting points of the sun and moon. Similarly, Aluna will use the moon and tides in order to create the very first tidal powered Moon Clock. Now the first thing that comes to mind is… Why in the world do we need a clock that is so expensive, after all it is just a clock and we have thousands of them right? Well the answer is simple, every era there is something built, it might be out of necessity, casual, or just to show off, but something new must be born to mark specific points in time. It would be boring if all of our history was presidents, wars, and what not. So why not be innovative and do something cool, that combines our top technology with our natural resources that we still have. I say still have, because, did you know that, the moon is getting further and further away from Earth with each orbit? Yes, this means everyday the moon is slightly further away from our planet. So in the future, not only the moon will be gone, but tides as well, since they are affected by the moon. (okay this might be millions of years away, but it will happen).

Aluna is planned to be situated in the UK and Australia, although the company who is going to build it says it is open for other waterfront locations around the globe. For more information feel free to visit their website at http://www.alunatime.org

Also check out this interesting article from The London Paper [PDF]

Posted in Science | No Comments »

When the Million Dollar Home Page launched everyone was surprised at the new concept of advertising. Many people were skeptic but at the end the creator proved them wrong, and by achieving incredible media attention his site became very popular and widely known. So of course, advertising on this site was worth it.

Shortly after, there was a whole new generation of “million dollar home pages”, of course, everybody wanted a piece of the new idea. However, without traffic, advertising on a site is pointless and a total waste of money. All these new sites did not seem to understand that it was not the idea that drove the Million Dollar Home Page to success, but rather all the free marketing he received for being the first one to think of it.

It has now been a while since the Million Dollar Home Page dissapeared, and even though exact copy cats have stopped appearing every few hours, there is a whole new generation of websites generated solely to sell advertising. Now the big question, do people really want to come to a site where all they will see is advertising?

Well surely the answer must be no, but webmasters have made it a bad habit to go around and buy links on these kinds of sites if they think its at least a little bit of a good idea. I can’t blame them, there was a good one, one of them worth mentioning is the Link Experiment. Another one which seems like a flop is Mmmzr, which at first looked like it was going to be big, but a good example of why such sites fail, shortly after its increase in popularity came its demise. I believe that most people checking the web site today are just webmasters to see if the poor webbies who spent $4K in a link have gotten their money back yet. The way things seem to be going I doubt there will be any more sales, as for a week things haven’t moved and the guy has not posted anything on his blog. This brings me to my next point.

Most of the people visiting these sites are webmasters, who are either: 1) like your site and try to create a competitor site, because they believe there is money in your idea. 2) forget about your site next day. And here is another big key to the problem with these sites, most advertisers are looking for other kinds of audiences, and yet they are still advertising on these kinds of sites. This has to stop. This advertising is definetly not going to get more Media attention, unless of course, your local newspaper has such boring news that it is going to write about one of the thousands of new sites of this type out there.

Bottom line is, open your eyes people, purchase some targetted Google Adwords clicks and you will have more valuable visitors than one that comes from this kind of websites, of course, unless you really are looking for curious webmasters to click on your link. Good luck either way!

Posted in SEO/Marketing | 1 Comment »

Welcome to the MapInteresting blog. This is the first post, just to introduce the concept of the blog. Here we will write about many different things that we find interesting. Most of the times it will include links to outside sites for further reading and of course our own opinion on the matter. Hopefully we will be able to write about many many sites or things that you haven’t found out about yet, so you can find out through us!

Posted in General | No Comments »