Mapumental – A really useful visualization that promises to help you find the ideal place to live, letting you interact and question the data in an intuitive way. This is exactly why I built OpenHeatMap, an interactive data map opens up so many possibilities. Now I’m eagerly awaiting the live product.
Guide to finding a technical co-founder – Vinicius’s guide rings very true to me, and most of his points also apply to finding a business co-founder if you’re technical. The short story is, it’s hard. Really hard. I spent a lot of time and effort on the hunt, and still failed. It will help a lot if you’re flexible about what you want to work on, then you might get lucky at co-founder dating events or via other random connections. My biggest regret is that I didn’t set myself a deadline, I kept at it long after I should have given up on the search and either dropped my idea or focused on getting traction instead (which is what I eventually ended up doing).
7,000 Neighborhood shapefiles – I only just came across this resource from Zillow, it’s incredibly handy who wants to talk a geographic language that users understand. We all talk about neighborhoods in our daily life, but this is the only open resource I’ve found that gives you definitions you can use.
Who is the greatest diva of the last 25 years? – I love this mostly because of the brutally honest description of their methodology (“We used computers!”). Truth be told, most of the visualizations you’ll see on the web don’t have much more behind them either, including some of mine on a bad day. Always try to look beyond the veneer of authority that charts and infographics give to any argument.
Twitter contour maps – Talking of substance before style, here’s a spartan visualization with some great data and ideas behind it. I’m looking forward to the next version of Twitterplaces from Ben, he’s digging deep in some interesting territory.
Pete Warden's blog 