If the world were a village of 100 people, how many of the 100 would be white? How many would speak Spanish? How many would have a college education? Satisfy your curiosity by checking out “The World of 100,” a series of poster-infographics designed by Tony Ng.

It’s kind of amazing how much easier it is to process this info on the scale of 100 than on the scale of 6 billion, even though the proportions are identical. (Thanks to Andrew L for the link.)

I’ve received notes about this from several people, and boy, you were right.

This video features Susan Boyle, a contestant on the show Britain’s Got Talent. It’s as sticky as a story gets.

In the book, we talk about “Challenge Plots” — stories in which a protagonist overcomes a formidable challenge and succeeds. David and Goliath is the classic Challenge Plot. Well, Susan Boyle is an up-to-the-minute, emotional, inspirational, Challenge Plot protagonist – and you can get the whole story in 7.5 minutes.

Via the naming firm Eat My Words, the worst name of 2008 was a new “financial literacy” site for children called — wait for it — Shyrk. (I guess Pilfr wasn’t available.)

But then, before the trophy could even be engraved, there was an update:

We were tipped off that Shyrk renamed themselves with an even worse name: iThryv. Whaaaaaat? Did one of their software engineers say, “Hey, we need a name with vowels so let’s get drunk and play Scrabble again”? (Why not iShryk?) The website explains it all by saying “Shyrk changed the name of the corporation to iThryv in an effort to dispel any confusion related to the name of the company versus the name of the product. Now, when someone mentions iThryv — you know they are talking about financial literacy.” HELLO! What about regular literacy?!

You can now get a (RED) card from Starbucks. Here’s how it works: You can buy the card online, or in a store, and purchase credit on it, just like any other Starbucks card. But there’s a big difference: With every transaction you conduct, five cents is used to buy life-saving medicine for people in Africa who have AIDS. That’s five cents out of their pockets, not yours.

If five cents sounds trivial, keep in mind that, thanks to the people at (RED), almost a quarter of a billion dollars has been sent to buy AIDS medicines, and that extraordinary amount emerged from the sum of ”trivial” transactions just like these. This isn’t even charity, it’s just thoughtful commerce. It’s buying a latte with a (RED) card rather than with dollar bills.

I’ve got a (RED) card in my pocket, and every drink I buy at Starbucks this year will be run through it.

As a final note: Starbucks is the rare global juggernaut that seems to go out of its way to do the right thing. Is there another company with its reach that has a comparable record of Goodness? (Think health benefits for barristas, Free Trade expansion, etc.) Email me with your candidate.