Choosing the right seat
It can be tricky picking the right seat at a dinner party. So much depends on how many people there are and what shape the table is. Luckily, Alex Cornell provides a guide on where to sit and when to arrive to get the best seat of the night. The 4-person circle is your best bet.
This is the ideal setup. You are safe sitting in any seat. Regardless how interesting everyone is, you pretty much can't go wrong. Note: as the diameter of the table increases, so too does the importance that you sit adjacent to someone you like.
Sorry for always sitting at the lonely end seat in the 7-person rectangle. [via kottke]
Word tree for any URL or Twitter username
In 2007, Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas created the word tree, a search tool for unstructured text. You enter the text, pick a word or phrase, and you can see how other words and phrases branch from the root. Data visualization developer Jason Davies rephrased the visualization in JavaScript, and you can enter a URL or a Twitter username (or enter your own text like with the original). There's also a nice sidebar that makes it easier to browse through the text.
So for example, the above is a word tree for The Cat in the Hat, and you can see what branches from Thing One and Thing Two. The phrase "and Thing Two" often follows "Thing One" as do exclamation points. The reverse feature comes in handy for text like Steve Jobs' commencement speech.
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