(Analytical Data Mining discovers patterns in data). Visualization: Accelerates the process + Utilizes the brain's pattern recognition abilities + Facilitates interactivity and collaboration + Highlights patterns, trends and outliers + Aids distribution and action on results (from http://www.purpleinsight.com/aboutus/ ).

"Get mapping" As mapmaking becomes big business, citizen cartographers are creating free personal alternatives ; http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1453293,00.html Maps also shape our view of the world. The art of mapmaking predates the written word by several millennia and provided humankind with the first opportunity to read and write. When our maps change, our world view changes.

Semantic Web Subway Map (Berners-Lee, 2003) : http://infoether.com/template.jsp?page=semantic make the realization of system-to-system interaction viable by utilizing a set of “ontologies” which define information about information (metadata) that can be read and understood by computers.

US History TimeLine Map (Flash) : http://www.boltmap.com/ Animated Map and Timeline of the U.S. region showing political border changes from prehistory to 2000 A.D. The map advances at 10 years per second. You can play, stop, move forward or backward one year at a time and select dates from the timeline.

Discoverers Web : Links and information on voyages of discovery.

"Innovation and Visualization.Trajectories, Strategies, and Myths", by IONE, Amy (http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?BookId=CLA+1 ) relates the development of visual images to innovations in art, communication, scientific research, and technological advance.

Cook, James, (1728-1779), " Journal of the H.M.S. Endeavour" : http://nla.gov.au/nla.ms-ms1-s256r , http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.ms-ms1-s18v-e

Read last year: "A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer : The Life of William Dampier" : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0802714250/qid=1112889728/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-4468721-5628951?v=glance&s=books

Lanny Quarles; Layer upon layer of information can be seen in his work and it truly speaks to the nature of today´s intellectual milieu - a deluge of impossible to navigate knowledge sets that intertwine, interconnect and coexist along side of private, secret and personal worlds that will remain forever anonymous. : http://contemporary-art-gallery.touchon.com/quarles-lanny.html

"The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery." - Anais Nin
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." - Bill Cosby
"If there were dreams to sell, what would you buy?" - Thomas Lovell Beddoes