Smart locales, maps (and Google)

+ Interact correspondent Bryan P sends in this article from Kiplinger's on The 50 smartest places to live. The criteria are things like affordable housing, reasonable cost of living, good quality of life, stuff like that.

#2 Minneapolis/St Paul - Aaron, watcha say?

#5 Austin - Macon lives there. It's too hot.

#7 Asheville is beautiful and Hippie Central.

#9 Pittsburgh: this is where BP lives. Great town. Love it.

#10 Iowa City. THE HEAT!

I looked and looked and couldn't find Buffalo, Miami, Greensboro, Turlock, Tulsa, Charlotte, Chicago... or Columbia. ;-)

+ I'm stoked about the new Google Notebook (of course).

+ John Hardy has a cool animation he made of world population trends using maps from Worldmapper.

I tell ya what: you look at the tourism maps over there, that's basically what Europe is: one big destination for and source of tourists.

Oh, yeah: and they export alcohol and cigarettes, too.

One more thought: most everything developed is largely in the global north. The south's pretty thin on that stuff.