MIBAZAAR Blog

Mississippi tops the list of being the “most obese” state in United States with 33.8% of its adult population being obese. The least obese (healthiest) is Colorado with 19.1% of the adult population being obese. The obesity and other health risk factors are listed in the latest report titled “F as in Fat: HOW OBESITY THREATENS AMERICA’S FUTURE“.

I have compiled a list of all 51 states and mapped it out in this Google Maps Mashup. The numbered markers on the map indicate ranking. The information window which opens up above the marker provides information on % of adult population with obesity problem. Additionally there are links for Medical Weight Loss clinics in each state.

(cross posted from Michigan Indian Community Blog)
Bollywood stars have a huge following in Twitter. Some of the stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra have over 400K followers. Its fascinating to read some of the tweets from these fans. These tweets range from “I miss you” to something like “You will make my day, can you please tweet me”. And one Shahrukh Khan fan tweets him – “Sir, I cry whenever I watch Kal Ho Na Ho”. These tweets come in from all over the world. Here’s a map I put together which captures fan tweets for Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra.

There are radio buttons on the left where you can make your selection of stars and the region from where you would like to see the tweet from. The map moves on to next tweet after every couple of seconds.

Apple started selling iPhone4 yesterday. A lot of folks had lined up outside Apple Stores across United States hoping to be one of the lucky ones to get hold of their very own iPhone4. Now that some of those folks are the proud owners of iPhone4, they cannot stop letting the world know as to how they feel. Here is a iPhone4 tweet map which shows tweets from the proud iPhone4 owners and tweets from those who don’t like At&T “reception” (as shown in the image below). The map animates through the latest Tweets tagged with “iPhone4″.

Its now over 2 months since the oil rig explosion in Gulf of Mexico which triggered the oil spill which which has still not stopped. Folks along the Gulf Coast are worried. Twitter is a great tool to gauge the reaction from folks in the area.

Gulf Oil Tweet map was created couple of weeks ago which shows some of the reaction from South Eastern US. The map also shows (most current) extent of oil spill.

If anyone is interested in embedding this map in their website, here’s the code. Adjust the width and height parameters in this code, to fit the map in your website.

<iframe width="500" height="475" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://www.mibazaar.com/gulfoilspill.html"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://www.mibazaar.com/gulfoilspill.html" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small>

View Larger Map

There is a lot of talk about the economic impact of the Gulf Oil Spill from the Deep Water Horizon oil rig explosion, which is of course valid. Congress is also having hearings in this matter, the president is flying to Gulf every other week, clean up crew is at work along the Gulf Coast, folks are trying to rescue animals soaked in oil. This is all good but let’s not forget that the day this disaster took place 11 lives were lost, dreams shattered, new borns and children who would now never see their Dad or celebrate Fathers Day this coming Sunday.  Here is a Google Maps View of 11 victims of the Gulf Oil Rig explosion and their hometowns along with a little background on each of them.

Here’s another World Cup Soccer Tweet Mashup. This mashup when it loads up first displays tweets from users current location. The user can also input location information in the text box on the map to see soccer tweets from that region. The map automatically displays the next tweet location after 5 seconds.

I bumped into an interesting post this past weekend which compares World Cup 2010 Soccer Teams to a American Sports Team. I have taken the list from the Unlikely Fan Blog and translated it to Google Maps. Here it is…

Flash Floods in southwestern Arkansas triggered by heavy rains claimed 16 lives at Albert Pike Recreational Area in Quachita National Forest. The campgrounds were packed with families from Texas and Louisiana who were vacationing.

The tragedy took place at dead of night when most of the people were sleeping. The campgrounds are along the banks of caddo and little missouri rivers. The area received approx. 7.6 inches of rainfall during the overnight hours. The heavy rains caused the river to rise by 8+ feet between 2.45 am and 3.45 am. As can be seen from this Google Earth view, the terrain and the fact that most of the people were sleeping, did not help in rescue. (more at Reuters)

This is impressive. Google released Street View imagery for South Africa yesterday. This includes a Street View look at the World Cup Soccer Venues from the inside. Check out this Mashup I put together which includes Street View imagery from inside the World Cup Soccer Stadiums in South Africa.

Here are 3 new World Cup Soccer 2010 – South Africa, Google Maps Mashups I created.

1. Team News/Blog (News is via Google News and Blog is via worldcupblog.org)

2. Latest Geo Tagged YouTube Videos from around the World.

3. #Soccer, #WC2010, #fifa Tweets from around the world.