I did a quick “man-on-the-street” interview on the Afghanistan elections for United Press International today. Check out 0:51-1:29 in the video.

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So, I was looking at DC on Google Maps, trying to figure out exactly where one of our small groups is meeting when I realized that the National Mall doesn’t actually run perfectly east-west. The west side is slightly south of the east side. I know, I know, this is a weird observation, but DC residents (or this DC resident anyway) think of it as stretching out due west from the Capitol.

UPDATE: As Ian Kitterman pointed out below, the Mall is actually flanked by Constitution Ave and Independence Ave, so technically only the interior of the mall is slanted.

Here’s the map so you can see what I’m talking about. If you line most east-west streets in DC up with the edge of the map, they’re aligned nearly perfectly. If you do that with Jefferson Dr & Madison Dr, that is not the case. And yes, it’s true on the satellite version of the map as well, so it’s not just a result of poor map-making.

View Larger Map

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(Warning: If you’re not a social media geek, this post will probably bore you.)

3. because they just acquired FriendFeed, which at least one avid user says has better real-time search functionality than Twitter.

2. because their user base is roughly 10x the size and they’ve just enabled Twitter-like features, such as real-time search and public sharing.

And the number one reason Facebook could beat Twitter…

1. because as I write this Twitter is down again.

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