Maps of War has some incredibly interesting map-based visualizations, including an overlay of the various empires ruling the middle east and war-dead by political party.

I’m normally not a huge fan of animation on web sites, but these are very effective examples of data visualization.

The baby woke up at 4am. I am not a fan of daylight-savings transition days.

I’ve had a couple of folks ask me about my podcast-listening habits, so here are the ones I listen to each day (and highly recommend).

The podcast links will open up in iTunes, for ease of subscribing.

Now that I’m responsible for search at Boston.com, I need to keep on top of the industry. WebMasterRadio.FM has put together an excellent group of weekly radio shows/podcasts covering the field. These are all “inside baseball,” but they are excellent listening if you’re in the business.

The Daily Searchcast
Danny Sullivan’s daily podcast, reviewing all the search-engine news. He covers anything and everything having to do with Google, Yahoo, MSN and the rest.

Net Income
Jeremy Shoemaker’s radio show about all the different ways to monetize your site, including PPC, affiliates, sponsorships and others means. Targeted to small- and medium-sized sites.

SEO Rockstars
“Jammin’ and Spammin’” with a couple of the leading gray-hat SEO practitioners. Hit or miss, but often entertaining.

First and Fifteen
ESPN’s daily football recap.

Baseball Today
ESPN’s daily baseball recap

Slate Podcast
Smart daily podcast, generally reading one of the stories from the day. A special treat is the Friday Gabfest, a roundtable coming out of Washington.

NYT columnist podcasts
Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, David Brooks, Thomas Friedman.

The New York Times Book Review
Surprisingly entertaining weekly wrap-up of the Times Book Review, often including author interviews. Very entertaining.

Beat the Press
This is a weekly podcast of the Channel 2 Greater Boston show. It’s inside baseball for Boston media news, probably not all the interesting for folks not in the business.

Boston Globe’s Page One podcast.
This is our own summary of the Globe’s front page.

David Pogue
New York Times technology columnist David Pogue reads his weekly column.

American Public Media’s Future Tense
A daily public radio story about technology.

Jim Cramer’s Real Money
Podcast of Jim Cramer’s daily radio show. I’m entirely in mutual funds, but this is still highly entertaining radio.

NPR Business Story of the Day
Top business story of the day from NPR.

On Words, with John Ciardi
This is my little hidden pleasure. The late John Ciardi used to do “On Words” segments for NPR, discussing etymology of English words and expressions.

Wow, I’ve been a little behind. Here’s some interesting stuff from around the interwebs…

Where do you stand on the global richlist?

World of Warcraft ruined my life?

10 tips for moving from programmer to entrepreneur

Jay Rosen on citizen journalism

Confessions of a business geek

The myth of keeping up

Seduced by snacks? No, not you…

Don’t poke an angry leopard with a stick

Sadie’s starting to learn the meanings of some of our words and responding to them. Sometimes, if we ask real nicely, she’ll dance for us.

Then, of course, she’ll promptly do something forbidden.

We finally got a chance to go to the zoo last weekend. We went out to the Mendon zoo to see the animals and do a little petting in the petting zoo.

It was a little cold for Sadie.

But she liked it when I pointed out the goats to her.

Dear Internet:

I want to find someone who can plow our driveway (in Holliston) this winter. Google has been useless for this task.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Jason

Another month, many more changes.

Sadie has developed preferences, and much more of a personality. She is starting to test her limits, which is entertaining if sometimes a little annoying.

She loves the landing at the bottom of the stairs. She knows I hate when she goes there. She goes there anyway.

She knows which parts of the family room are forbidden. She’ll sometimes touch things with one finger to see if we’ll react. Then, she’ll put her whole palm on it. If we still don’t react, then she’ll go all out on it. It’s fun to watch her little schemes play themselves out.

She took a trip down to Nashville, visiting with friends old and new. It was her first time on a plane, and she was a little trooper. The Cheerios helped.

She took her first trip down the Cape, and we were able to bring her down to the bay shore. Unfortunately, it was about 60 degrees and really windy. She liked being near the water, though.

She still likes the kitties.

The kitties still dislike her.

We’ve had a rough couple of weeks. She caught conjunctivitis and gave us quite the view of her devil eyes.

She layered a fever on top of the conjunctivitis, leading to her first prescription for Amoxicillin, better known around our house as the pink stuff. We’re four days into the ten day run. No one in our house can wait for it to be over.

She loves her books. She has her own bookcase in our living room, and each evening we go over to it and she pulls all the books down and flips through them.

She’s a fan of the Pat-a-Cake book, exploring the subtle interactions between the baker and the customer, and memorizing the way one can pat the cake, roll it, and mark it with a “B.”

And put it in the oven for Sadie and me

Unplanned doctor’s appointments, managing work crises with a screaming baby, satellite installers who don’t show up, furnace breaking, NSTAR repairmen who don’t show up, and finally, Sadie’s first exciting trip to the emergency room.

I’m actually glad it’s Monday.