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Filed under: Audio, Web

How to Play Ohio like a piano - Time Waster

Ohio Piano
Here's an interesting fact: The state of Ohio has 88 counties. You know what else has 88 components? A piano keyboard. Andy Woodruff was thinking about those two facts this summer and he decided to take the obvious next step and create a map of Ohio in Flash that assigns a musical note to each key.

The result is Ohio is a Piano. Click on any county and you'll hear a musical note.

Of course, a piano keyboard is laid out in a logical fashion making it easy to create music by placing your fingers over the proper keys. Ohio's districts weren't exactly drawn with music in mind, and it's a bit tricky to pluck out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. But the map has a few built in songs that you can trigger like a player Ohio piano. Just hit the play button and each county will flash as its note is played.

You can also rearrange the notes based on various geographic and demographic data including county name, population, age, sex, and so forth. One of the neatest features lets you plot a course from one area of the map to another and listen to the tune that plays as you pass through each county.

Musically, Ohio is a Piano isn't that interesting. But conceptually it's pretty cool and for some reason I can't make myself stop rearranging the notes.

[via Neatorama]

Filed under: Business, Fun, Internet, E-mail, Yahoo!

$20 Million for your photo on Yahoo?

$20 million yahoo photoGetting a $20 Million paycheck for having your photo used on a Yahoo sign in page is not a bad deal, if you're a celebrity that is. That's what one Ohio woman and her legal team are hoping for. It seems like "Mary" discovered her photo being used without her permission on a sign up confirmation page for Yahoo's email system and nabbed up three law firms to fight her battle. Whats in it for the law firms? Exposure, and possibly a big payday.

Apparently "Mary's" right of publicity was violated. Now keep in mind she isn't a celebrity, just your average everyday woman from Ohio who wants her payday from a multi billion dollar company.

It seems odd that Yahoo would use her photo if it wasn't part of a stock photo library; there are tons of generic looking stock people out there to choose from. If they did use her photo from a service like Flickr or Yahoo Image search there most likely is something in the small print to protect Yahoo. We'll have to see how this one pans out.

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So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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