Spamology: Finally a positive spin on spam

After collecting Spam messages for 10 years, Irad Lee and Santiago Ortiz created Spamology, an interactive audiovisual representation of popular words in Spam E-mail messages. Using your mouse and some keyboard commands (click "i" to read about the project), you can navigate the most common words in about 2,000,000 E-mail messages from around the world.

It's great to see someone finally do something worthwhile with the bane of the digitally connected world. Now how do we visualize the inaccuracy of blogs or the suckiness of MySpace pages?

HAV 2 GO P

Some rest stop bathrooms in Finland can only be opened by SMS messaging "OPEN" to a number printed on the door. The new system was introduced in January in the rest areas along Highway 1 in Paimio and Salo near Turku, following numerous breakages, arson attempts, and thefts in the buildings housing public conveniences for motorists.

Standard text messaging rates apply, but the government is not making any money off the "transaction". The hope is that by having the "users" phone number on file it will deter them from vandalizing the facilities. At this point, "HLP NO TP" does nothing for you.

(Via Helsingin Sanomat .)

Wable wobbles but it don't fall down

The Wable is a connected coffee table that displays a 3-dimensional bar chart depicting the current state of your online presence. Perhaps this is what Edward Tufte's living room looks like. Click below to check out the video.

The Wable Connected Table