Google Labs has a new toy to play with: the Google Books Ngram Viewer. The tool graphs how frequently words and phrases appear in all the books in Google’s library, dating back to 1500.

As one simple example, a search for war will show some things anyone with a decent high school education would expect: the word was used far more frequently around 1916 and 1944 than at any other time on record. Meanwhile, a search for “hamburger” shows an inexplicable (at least to me) sharp uptick in use of that word between 1930 and 1940, consistent usage levels for 25 years, and then another dramatic climb lasting into the present.

What makes the tool especially interesting is that you can plot multiple terms on the same axes in order to draw comparisons. Here’s a search for “war,peace” that shows something a bit more subtle. After a slight uptick in use of the word “war” leading into 1970, use of both “war” and “peace” fall dramatically — both to lower levels than we’d seen in 200 years.

Every search I’ve tried has had interesting characteristics that suggest something about our society — or at least about what people are writing about it. See how often “Russia” and “USSR” have been used. Limit a search to just British English books and compare uses of London and New York over time. Search for “potato,rice,corn” and see which side dish is mentioned most often. Politics, entertainment, history, and fantasy can all be graphed. And while it’s not always obvious what the data are telling us (if anything), it sure is an addictive toy to play with.

In a TED Talk in July, designer David McCandless highlighted some interesting data, including data from Facebook analyzing when people end their relationships.

Plotting the information in 10,000 status updates shows what times of year see the most breakups, and it looks like we’re headed into one of the worst seasons. Apart from the strategically placed highs and lows (e.g., hardly anybody breaks up over Christmas) what I find most fascinating is the apparent constant, inescapable breakups that are happening every day of the year.

I’d love to see what the graph of people beginning relationships looks like. I’m betting some parts of it overlap (suggesting people are breaking up because they’ve found someone else) while others may show gaps indicating more people tend to be in (or out of) relationships at a particular time of year.

These data are reminiscent of those on the OkTrends site I found in April. Neither is an exercise in inarguable statistics from random samples, but for the people who are included (i.e., those who self-selected to use Facebook or OkCupid) we get a truly fascinating picture of their social lives we may never otherwise have seen.

(via The Atlantic, via designer Mathias Mikkelsen).

While baby Mila Enersen is sleeping, her mother imagines what Mila might be dreaming and enacts it in reality.

She might be a rock star, be surrounded by giant candy, or have an imaginary friend. Mrs. Enersen explains, “I use only few minutes per picture, including creating idea, implementation and editing, ’cause I don’t want to disturb her sleeping and most of my time is for my family.”

This reminds me of an Eddie from Ohio song titled Hey Little Man (recreated there by Madrigals at the Messiah Methodist Bazaar).

"A Space Odyssey 2010"

Are you gonna dream about the colors of the rainbow and the pot of gold that’s waiting at the end

May luck be by your side and the spirit be your guide

And may you know the blessing and may you know the joy and may you know the love of a true friend

(via Kottke)

I normally despise all things pertaining to Twitter, so it has perhaps taken me longer than others to discover that Charles Darwin is on Twitter now.

The posts are a real-time account (time delayed 176 years) of Darwin’s travels, culled from the Beagle Diary and from other journals, notes, et cetera that Darwin left for posterity. Upon first following the link I expected to find satire, but the reality is so much more interesting. It’s actually possible to get a sense of Darwin’s thoughts and the timeline of his voyage.

These sad updates, for example, were posted on April 7th:

What will become of me hereafter, I know not; I feel, like a ruined man, who does not see or care how to extricate himself

It is a comfortable reflection to me, that a ship – being made of wood & iron – cannot last for ever & so this voyage must have an end.

Behind the scenes of this delightful operation is David from metaburbia, a software developer in the United Kingdom.

I just stumbled onto OkTrends: the official blog of the free dating site OkCupid.

OkCupid asks members to answer questions that other members have written, and uses the answers to find good matches.  Because anybody can write a question, the topics are not limited to smoking preferences and pet ownership, but cover the entire range of human activity.  Have you been in prison?  Would you prefer to go to a movie or a musical?  How often do you shower?  Do you like trying new foods?  Should flag-burning be illegal?

The OkTrends blog studies this trove of data in the aggregate to derive some fascinating conclusions about dating in general and our society as a whole.

Consider The Case for An Older Woman. We see here, for example, what ages men prefer their partner to be.

Based on their “allowable match” settings, men are perpetually okay with women a little older, but are reluctant to give up on dating a young woman.

More importantly, the heat map shows whom men are actually contacting, with green areas indicating lots of messages.  A 30 year-old man will say he’d only date someone 22 or older, but he “spends as much time messaging teenage girls as he does women his own age.”

Read the full article to see how women’s preferences compare.

OkTrends also translates data into practical advice for finding a match.  For example, see Exactly What to Say in a First Message.

It’s heartening to see that messages with “netspeak” (like “ur” and “ya”) tend to elicit responses less than 10% of the time, compared to an overall average response rate of 32%.  The word “sexy” also discourages replies, while non-physical compliments like “fascinating” encourages them.  “Atheist” gets answers, but “God” does not.  And discussion of specific interests (“vegetarian” or “zombie”) goes a long way.

Finally, the blog dissects some of the implications of its data for our society at large, in posts like The Democrats are Doomed, or How a “Big Tent” Can be Too Big.

I like in particular this depiction of social vs. economic beliefs.  Perhaps we lose sight of our ideals as we get older?

Some of these broader conclusions suffer from the flaw that we can see only a snapshot in time.  People who are 50 today grew up under different conditions than people who are 20 today, and may favor their economic beliefs (for example) for reasons other than their age.  It’s fascinating either way.

Even though I’ll never need an online dating site again (nor any other form of dating, for that matter), I’ve still subscribed to this blog.

Design Milk published a pictorial a few days ago on offices built in people’s backyards titled The Rise of the Backyard Office. Evidently building a separate office in one’s backyard is a trend now.  Many of those pictured are elegant and intriguing (and make me jealous), but I can’t can’t quite get past this one:

If I worked in that office, I’d feel compelled to come home every evening (across the yard, of course) with a joyful greeting of, “Nanu, Nanu!”

(Mork & Mindy?  Anybody?  Is “Nanu, Nanu” still a usable catchphrase?  How about “Shazbot?”)

Clara Moskowitz at MSNBC reports on a study about traffic planning.

Researchers arranged oat flakes to mimic the layout of cities around Tokyo, and then set some slime mold loose.  This mold grows as a large, interconnected network that tries to get the most efficient access to food — in this case, Japan-mimicking oat flakes.

The resulting network of mold ended up looking suspiciously similar to the train network that connects the real Tokyo to its real suburbs.

Apart from the quip Freakonomics makes about whether transportation engineers are as smart as mold, there’s also something to be said for the similarities between what we humans do to our environment and what mold does in its own.

(via Freakonomics)