A fascinating snapshot

Discovered a neat page that features a news-crawling algorithm. Every hour it scans a set of news feeds, performs a "weighted linguistic analysis" to determine the most frequently occurring words and phrases, and then links them to images from those same news stories. The results are made visual on a grid in Flash form, where you can click on images to see more of the stories, etc. Better for you to visit than for me to describe it more:

100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time

A bit sobering to see all the weapons and scenes of conflict in the current display . . .

Am reminded, too, of this other fascinating resource: Today's Front Pages from around the world. The power of the Internet, indeed!

(original reference lost -- apologies!)

Update: Along the same lines, but even more sobering, is this amazing feature at the Washington Post: Faces of the Fallen. Among those pictured in August, 2003, is a friend and talented haiku poet, Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman -- I was called for a comment on his death before I even knew he'd been deployed.