Cartography: Strange Maps

The ultimate site for cartography geeks, Strange Maps has a seemingly endless collection of historical, speculative, analytical and informational maps, such as the one above depicting the location of McDonald's restaurants. A book version, Strange Maps: An Atlas of Cartographic Curiosities by Frank Jacobs, is also available.

Passion: Heads in the Clouds

At The Cloud Appreciation Society, they love clouds, and they’re not embarrassed to admit it. Read their manifesto and see how they're fighting the banality of "blue-sky thinking." For a minimal postage and administration fee, you can join the society and receive your very own official membership certificate and badge.

Online Documentaries: SnagFilms

SnagFilms offers a wide variety of documentaries online, well-known documentaries like Super Size Me and lesser- known but interesting fare like The Times of Harvey Milk, about the assassination of San Fransisco's first openly gay elected official, and Hell on Wheels, about the origins of modern women-only roller derbies. The films are almost all full length and of a high quality. Watching the videos is free and requires no login, but there are brief 10-15 second ads every once in a while.

Science: Rensselaer Researchers to Create Semantic Web Platforms for Massive Scientific Collaboration

Web scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will use the World Wide Web to compile and share scientific data on an unprecedented scale. Their goal is to hasten scientific discovery and innovation by enabling rapid and easy collaboration between scientists, educators, students, policy makers, and even “citizen scientists” around the world via the Web.
Funded by $1.1 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the research seeks to break science out of the hallowed halls of the laboratory and place it in the hands of the people. -- from the press release, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Talk: Optical illusions show how we see -- Beau Lotto

Beau Lotto's color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can't normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what's really out there.
Go to Optical illusions show how we see at TED.