An Infographic worthy of the Konbaung Dynasty.

From the infographic desk at history teacher Joko's house comes a timeline that I want to print up and hang on the wall. The Konbaung Dynasty, Myanmar's last monarchs, were one of the most fascinating, successful and later incompetent line of kings in world history.

 I've been reading up on the rise of the Konbaung lately, and when I couldn't find a Gantt chart with all 11 monarchs on it, I knew with Canva, Sheets and a little AI, I could just make my own.

Starting with a table, I learned how to make a Gantt chart.  



Then I just went crazy. If you know your Burmese history, can you identify all the pictures?

I asked AI to show me a Ship-of-the-Line in a duel with a Burmese War Elephant and it complied!

4,234th Most Famous Ukulele Player in the World

My dad recently sent me this graphic to brighten my day:

Hilarious. 

Fame.  

I've occasionally quipped that I'm the 4,234th most famous ukulele player in the world.  The number hasn't always been exactly that, but some random number high enough to make the claim feasible but also ludicrous in being ironicaly proud of such a stat.  

Of course, there is no such list, but could one be made? With AI these days, I've been astounded on the kind of data compilation and research it can do. Here's some interesting results I've gleaned when asking AI (Google's Gemini) about ukulele players today. 

•  I wanted to know first how many people in the world today regularly post videos on youtube or other platforms featuring themselves playing ukulele.  Of course, it hedged when answering about the vagueness of the term "regularly", but after some refining its level of certainty using a ranges, it can be said that number is somewhere between 3,000 to 20,000 individuals.  
  
  
• People who make their living as ukulele players - either as musicians, teachers or both - is somewhere around 10,000. 
  
  
• There are over a million ukulele players in the world. 
  
  
• It compiled a list of the 100 most notable active ukulele players in the world...   In any case, asking it to expand that list into the 1000's to see if my quip was at all accurate, seemed a bit of a reach.  
  
  

  
  

  1. Jake Shimabukuro (USA)
  2. James Hill (Canada)
  3. Sarah Maisel (USA)
  4. Herb Ohta Jr. (USA)
  5. Taimane Gardner (USA)
  6. Brittni Paiva (USA)
  7. Andrew Molina (USA)
  8. Kaleo Trinidad (USA)
  9. Cynthia Lin (USA)
  10. Aldrine Guerrero (USA)
  11. Victoria Vox (USA/Luxembourg)
  12. Stuart Fuchs (USA)
  13. Lil Rev (USA)
  14. Craig Chee (USA)
  15. Abe Lagrimas Jr. (USA)
  16. Neal Chin (USA)
  17. Del Rey (USA)
  18. Bosko (Australia)*
  19. George Hinchliffe (UK)*
  20. Steven Espaniola (USA)
  21. Kalei Gamiao (USA)
  22. Kris Fuchigami (USA)
  23. Benny Chong (USA)
  24. Bryan Tolentino (USA)
  25. Jim Beloff (USA)
  26. Jake Wildwood (USA)
  27. Fred Sokolow (USA)
  28. Daniel Ho (USA)
  29. Ledward Kaapana (USA)
  30. Uke Mullens (USA)
  31. Buck Berger (USA)
  32. Marcy Marxer (USA)
  33. Cathy Fink (USA)
  34. Gerald Ross (USA)
  35. Andy Eastwood (UK)
  36. Peter Moss (UK)
  37. Samantha Muir (UK)
  38. Phil Doleman (UK)
  39. Sophie Madeleine (UK)
  40. Zoë Bestel (UK)
  41. Manitoba Hal Brolund (Canada)
  42. Ralph Shaw (Canada)
  43. Feng E (Taiwan)
  44. Honoka Katayama (Japan)*
  45. Hiroshi Okada (Japan)
  46. Kazuyuki Sekiguchi (Japan)
  47. Ryo Montgomery (Japan)
  48. Corey Fujimoto (USA)
  49. Dani Joy (USA)
  50. Perry Stauffer (USA)
  51. Liz Beloff (USA)
  52. Kevin Carroll (USA)
  53. Joel Eckhaus (USA)
  54. John King (USA)
  55. Paul Luongo (Canada)
  56. Sarah Spencer (USA)
  57. James Grant (Canada)
  58. Rachel Manke (USA)
  59. Casey MacGill (USA)
  60. The Quiet American (USA)*
  61. AJ Leonard (Australia)
  62. Mark Jackson (USA)*
  63. Ben Rouse (UK)
  64. Eva Eastman (USA)
  65. Susan Fink (USA)
  66. Jim D'Ville (USA)
  67. Freddie Coldwell (UK)
  68. Tobias Elofsson (Sweden)
  69. Grégoire Garrigues (France)
  70. Luca Stricagnoli (Italy)
  71. Marty Mulhauser (USA)
  72. Kimo Hussey (USA)
  73. Derick Sebastian (USA)
  74. Ronnie Blake (USA)
  75. Ukulele Simon (USA)*
  76. Kevin Kealoha (USA)
  77. Roy Sakuma (USA)*
  78. Sarah Jaffe (USA)
  79. Julia Nunes (USA)
  80. Vance Joy (Australia)
  81. Eddie Vedder (USA)
  82. Dominator Ukulele (Australia)*
  83. Eve Blair (UK)
  84. Ian Emmerson (UK)
  85. Jonty Bankes (UK)
  86. Elle-May Leckenby (UK)
  87. Neal Zaza (USA)
  88. Victoria Case (USA)
  89. Ukulele Tonya (USA)
  90. Ben Baker (USA)
  91. Christy Kuesel (USA)
  92. Daniel Ward (USA)
  93. Dusty Trails (USA)*
  94. Emily Arrow (USA)
  95. Heidi Swedberg (USA)
  96. Herb Ohta III (USA)
  97. Joel Mabus (USA)
  98. Kevin Richards (USA)
  99. Lori Cullen (Canada)
  100. Lynda Barry (USA)*