This video is awesome! Some guys from the Zurich School of Applied Sciences built a simulation to display every commercial flight in the world over a 24-hour period. According to Wired:

While the map may look complex, Dr. Karl Rege tells us he and his team found it surprisingly simple to assemble using data readily available on the internet. “We used a commercial website called FlightStats to gather global flight and schedule information,” he says. “So there was no need to contact the different airlines.”

The team mined FlightStats for the departure and arrival times of every commercial flight in the world, then plugged it all into a computer to assemble their simulation. For the sake of simplicity, they assumed every plane traveled at the same speed and every flight took the most direct route to its destination. Then every flight was assigned a position on a Miller cylindrical projection, which is similar to a Mercator Projection but doesn’t distort the poles so much.

Keep an eye out for the day and night lines in the video. It’s interesting to see how traffic patterns change by time of day.
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I just had to give up my Sprint powered PPC8800 for a Blackberry Curve 8310 so I could be on the communal rate plan and also have real-time Exchange access for e-mail at work. After doing so it forced me to do a lot of research on applications and ways to better my Curve.

I figured some other people are going to go looking for this info as well, so I’ve compiled what I learned here. Its not my most organized post, but there is a lot of information and I didn’t want to spend forever getting the post out. Hopefully if anyone knows of other cool, free stuff for the BB you’ll drop a comment below and let me know.
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This week’s Links of the Week theme is… pictures.

• Bush’s Historical Approval Ratings
• Toys manufacture in China
• Awesome Military Photos of the Twin Towers
• Pictures of Walls
• US Poverty Map

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If you are one of those folks that has a set walking or jogging path that you like to follow, but you don’t know exactly how far you’re covering you can use the new Geodistance.com site to help you answer that very question.

It’s quite simple to use… just zoom in on the Google Map until you’re at the magnification level desired. You can click and drag the mouse to move the maps, then when you’ve got the map where you want it in the screen simply click on the starting point to insert a starting pin and then begin clicking along the route.
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How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars?

This map gives a brief history of the world’s most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds?
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I’m not sure about you, but I had some preconceived notions about American political parties tendencies to go to war. Interestingly, they turned out to be completely wrong.

Here is a historical recounting of all US wars, how many lives were lost in each, and the responsible ruling party at the time.

This is not to say that the US necessarily initiated the conflicts, but these parties were in power at the time the decision was made to go to war, so it still demonstrates willingness to fight.
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Ever needed (wanted) to know your exact coordinates? Well, the worldKit Geocoder is for you. You can enter any US address, international city, or use an interactive map to zoom right in on a place and simply select it to see the exact coordinates.

Yesterday I purchased a new Garmin Nuvi 660 portable GPS receiver to use in my new vehicle. So far, I’m going to have to give this little unit a rating of 8.5 out of 10.

Things that are fantastic about this unit:
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The Gmap-pedometer is one of the best little Google Maps mashups I’ve seen yet.

Say you want to determine how far you’re walking or jogging on a given route. Well, just head on over to Gmap-Pedometer.com, hit the “start recording” button and double click on points along the path you follow.

The program will keep up with the distance and even give you the option of computing the calories you’ll burn as a result.