Smarty Pins

Do you like maps, love trivia, and you know where most cities are on the map, then you're going to love Google's new SmartyPins game. This map-trivia game runs on the Google Maps platform and allows you to spend 1,000 miles trying to mark the correct location to each question asked.

If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel - A Model of the Solar System

Artist and designer Josh Worth wrote on his blog:

"I was talking about the planets with my 5-year-old daughter the other day. I was trying to explain how taking a summer vacation to Mars in the future will be a much bigger undertaking than a trip to Palm Springs (though equally as hot). I kept trying to describe the distance using metaphors like “if the earth was the size of a golf ball, then Mars would be across the soccer field” etc., but I realized I didn’t really know much about these distances, besides the fact that they were really large and hard to understand. Pictures in books, planetarium models, even telescopes are pretty misleading when it comes to judging just how big the universe can be. Are we doing ourselves a disservice by ignoring all the emptiness?

So I thought I would see if a computer screen could help make a map of a solar system that’s a bit more accurate (while teaching myself a few things about javascript, SVGs and viewports along the way). Not that pixels are any better at representing scale than golfballs, but they’re our main way of interpreting most information these days, so why not the solar system?"

Click here to visit some of the big spaces out in space and be prepared to scroll!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game - 30th Anniversary Edition

The BBC has released a new version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy text-based adventure game to celebrate its 30th anniversary.

The original Infocom Game released in 1984

"There was a time when computer games didn't have graphics. Or at least they couldn't have graphics and sound at the same time. They certainly couldn't have graphics, sound and enough content to keep even a human being amused for more than a few minutes. The original game launched in 1984 was a text game where you type instructions and the game responds with a description of your surroundings and what has happened as a result of your last action.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game - 20th anniversary edition

The 20th anniversary edition was still essentially a text game. The Infocom origins of the game were still evident, from the opening credits to the 'Help' message.  It was not an attempt to produce a fully animated version, the graphics as followed in the tradition of E. H. Shepard's illustrations for A.A. Milne's books - they didn't reflect all the events described. Most of the images rightly remained, to quote Simon Jones, "in the universe of your head."

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game - 30th anniversary edition

The 30th Anniversary Edition game is still the same wonderful piece of interactive fiction that Douglas Adams wrote and Steve Meretzky programmed, but in finding it a new home, a few changes needed to be made. The old Flash game would not work on the new servers, and in porting it to a new HTML5 incarnation, several innovations took place. We were able to build in a larger, handier interface, with additional keys and functionality, and build in the ability to tweet from the game. The game remains essentially unchanged and the original writing by Douglas Adams remains untouched. It is still played by entering commands and pressing return. Then read the text, follow your judgement and you will probably be killed an inordiate number of times."

(Source for about the game)


Play The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game

I'm Just Walkin'

In 2010, Matt Green, walked across the United States from Rockaway Beach, Queens, to Rockaway Beach, Ore. The journey took five months, during which he averaged 20 miles a day. Now he's doing a new walk. He's walking every street in New York City. "This is the counterpoint to my walk across the US. Instead of seeing a million places for just a minute each, I'm going to spend a million minutes exploring just one place. By the time I finish walking every block of every street in all five boroughs, I'll have traveled about 8000 miles on foot — all within a single city."

View Just Walkin'

Best Airplane Seats

The best seat on the plane is what you'll find here. Seat Guru has a database of thousands of seat reviews submitted by flyers like you. They also conduct independent research.

Please Take a Seat

Normal Room

"Welcome to Normal Room - home for global homes
See how people live around the world! Explore the variety of lifestyles and cultural peculiarities!

Normal Room shows you interior design and home furniture from all around the globe. Search our image database and explore the differences and similarities in architecture and home decoration between people in different countries.

Join our community and upload your own photos for everyone to see!

Use our forum to discuss everything related to your homes - from mortgages to home improvement and from humidity problems to holiday decorations."


Visit us at: Normal Room - Home

MyApartmentMap Apartment Rental Search

"MyApartmentMap combines apartment listings with Google Maps to form a completely new way to find apartments. Need to find a one bedroom apartment close to the highway? How about a studio walking distance to the subway? MyApartmentMap.com makes it easy by visually showing you where apartments are located. Please select a city to start searching for apartments."

Visit: MyApartmentMap Apartment Rental Search. Find Apartments And Roommates On A Map

Running Routes

"Using cutting edge technology provided by Google Maps, USATF has developed a revolutionary service, America's Running Routes, that allows runners to map and measure their favorite running routes and then save them to the largest searchable database of running routes in the country.

America's Running Routes provides the running community with an array of functionality and shows USATF's continued commitment to offer runners of all ages and abilities information and services to make each running experience an enjoyable one. America's Running Routes allows runners to search all routes in a particular city or to narrow their search to find ones on a specific type of terrain, from hotels, in parks, from trailheads or from running stores. Business travelers can find routes to run from the hotel where they are staying or from local parks.

Ever wonder how far your run was? Just visit America's Running Routes, map out your run, and the distance you ran will be displayed, including mile marks along the route. Think others might enjoy your running route? Just hit the "save" button and your route will be added to the national database."


Ready to run? Visit: USATF - America's Running Routes

The Human Clock

"Humanclock.com shows a photograph of the current time, with the photo changing every minute of the day (all 1,440 occurring minutes on Earth!) Thus you end up with a rotating picture clock sorta deal.

How the time is actually displayed is a whole different matter. A lot of photos have the time written on a crummy cardboard sign, while other photos might have the current time in a more edible format, such as olives. There are photos below sea level and ones over two miles above sea level. There are even clock pictures with people who played at Woodstock.

Many people viewing this website end up sending in their own clock pictures, be they in an airplane, installing brakes, or on a playground in Missouri. There are clock pictures from all over the world ranging from Outback Australia to Canada to Pakistan to Antarctica to Italy to Brazil. Other people travel around the American Southwest and end up taking a clock photo on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. There are even enough clock photos now to have pictures from Phoenix Arizona, Tacoma, Philadelphia, Atlanta, LA, and Northern California."

What time is it? Check at: The Human Clock - A Clock Photo for Every Minute of the Day

Airline Meals

"This is a website about nothing but airline food. There are over 15,000 pictures, meals from more than 500 different airlines, sent in by travellers from every corner of the world. First class meals, business class meals, economy class meals, but also crew meals, vegetarian meals, gluten free meals, children's meals...or just a bag of peanuts."

Hungry for airline food, visit: Airline Meals.net - Airline catering * largest site about airline catering and nothing but that... :-)

A9.com Maps and Block View Images

Amazon.com has a search-engine subsidiary called A9.com. This site offers street-level photographs so travelers can see pictures of the buildings they're planning to visit and landmarks along the way (the photo above is 6th St. and Congress in Austin,TX). The photos are linked to maps from MapQuest. There are photographic images of many streets of the 24 U.S. cities they have done so far.

Check out one of the U.S. cities at: A9.com Maps

The Uffington White Horse in Juárez

"An oversized reproduction of one of England's most famous ancient artworks now gazes down from a mountain near the Mexican border city of Juárez.

The Uffington White Horse is a 110-meter (360-foot), highly stylized image of a horse created on a hill in Oxfordshire, England. The turf and sod was scraped away to expose, in the shape of a huge horse, the white chalk underneath.

By the time it reached Mexico, El Caballo de Uffington had grown to 960 meters (more than half a mile) in length. It was painted over three years and with 2,600 gallons of whitewash by Juárez architect Hector García Acosta and his son, Carlos."

Learn more about the The Uffington White Horse in Juárez

Celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans!

"Although Mardi Gras is celebrated around the world, no one does it like New Orleans -- the City that Care Forgot! This site will introduce you to the major participants of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, provide updated parade information, the truth about our Mardi Gras traditions, the best places to get your Mardi Gras beads, masks, and kingcakes... and more!"

Celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans! Mardi Gras krewes, live events, live cams, Mardi Gras beads, parade schedule, tips from locals.

Tropical Islands Resort - Pleasure Dome

In Brand Germany a new indoor resort called Tropical Islands is housed in what was originally an airship hangar. The dome contains sandy beaches, thatched huts and a blue fresh-water lagoon. The Tropical Islands dome has a ground surface of 66,000 square meters. With a length of 360 meters, a width of 210 meters and a height of 107 meters, it is large enough to hold 8 entire soccer fields. Even the New York Statue of Liberty (93 meters) could stand upright in it, and the Paris Eiffel Tower (322 meters) could lie in it. The Dome offers enough space for the skyline of Berlin's Potsdamer Platz including the Sony Centre, the Gatehouse and the Daimler Chrysler skyscraper.

Have a look at: Tropical Islands Resort -Pleasure Dome - open 24/7

Chef Rick's Southern cooking-Cajun Low Country and Soul Food

"If you're looking for the best of Southern Regional, Cajun, Low-country and All-American home cooking, you've come to the right place.

Chef Rick is serving up a delicious blend of Cajun, Creole, and Southern home cooking, along with a touch of Soul food and some good old fashioned down-home cooking. You’ll find cooking tips, food trivia, advice on choosing and using cookware,  and much more. Don’t forget the recipe page where you'll find delicious main dishes, Cajun favorites, and wonderful cakes and pies.  If you love southern cooking, you'll love chefrick.com."

Visit: Chef Rick's Southern cooking-Cajun Low Country and Soul Food

Cenoté

"East of the major Chichén Itzá ruins is a dark underground world the Mayans called Cenoté. They are deep water filled sinkholes formed by water percolating through the soft limestone above. Since the porous soil held little water, these underground bodies were extremely important to the city. A visit to one is a spine chilling experience. Entry is through a vertical hole with narrow stair steps carved by the Mayan's themselves. The air is thick and musty. One misstep on the slimy ledges threatens to send you falling over 20 feet."

Visit the dark underground world of a Cenoté

Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site

"The sport where YOU are the search engine. A GPS device and a hunger for adventure are all you need for high tech treasure hunting. Here you can find the latest caches in this fun and exciting sport. Geocaches can now be found in over 200 countries!

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache."

Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site

Abandoned Subway Stations in New York City

Abandoned Stations: Interesting look at New York's subway system. And remember this: "Please don't wander into non public parts of railroad tunnels. It is against the law, and it is dangerous."

Visit: Abandoned Stations

The Foliage Network

"Every autumn, nature puts on a brilliant show of color in many parts of the United States. From bright yellows to vibrant reds, the leaves transform, showing their rich and vibrant hues. From the Northeast United States, to the Southeast and Midwest United States, the foliage season begins in early September in the northern regions and ends in southern locations in late October or early November. Every year, people flock to these areas to take in the fall foliage, to catch a glimpse of natures splendor.

The Foliage Network was developed to provide accurate foliage information for various locations across the United States. During the months of September, October, and November, The Foliage Network collects data from our foliage spotters twice a week. This data is collected, plotted, and analyzed by The Foliage Network. The end result is The Foliage Network Report which is transmitted to newspapers, television stations, and web sites."

The Foliage Network - Providing accurate fall foliage conditions, fall foliage reports, and travel information for New England, the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest United States

Mars Exploration Program Landing Sites

A NASA Web site, Marsoweb, was developed so that scientists could help pick landing sites for the current rover expeditions. There are lots of maps and other data of interest.

Mars Exploration Program Landing Sites