Maps, especially online have always been restrictive in what you can do with them due to copyright etc. But there has been an international movement dedicated to providing unrestricted alternatives and as you can see, this map of my part of London is pretty good. I’ve put a blue rectangle around the area in the top map which the bottom map shows.
Like Google Maps you can zoom in and out and drag the map. No satellite data of course!
Not all streets are currently labelled- mine isn’t, but I could sign up and add it in. As more and more people sign up this becomes more and more valuable. One danger is of course that people will be lazy and copy data from commercial or copyright maps and that could be a problem. It’s not unknown for cartographers to introduce fake streets etc to try and spot when people copy their work.
So if you have a spare moment or two, why not help this map by signing up (no costs) and adding your local information.
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Popularity: 16% [?]
This is still in alpha so expect bugs, new features etc but it’s interesting. I love the name- it shows a bit of edginess as freebasing is a drugs term (not that I’m an expert!).
Put simply, it’s the web 2.0 Wikipedia. Using clever searching etc to enhance the user interface. I think Wikipedia is big enough to take competition and it might spur them on, although I love Wikipedia the interface is a little dull and searching is not great. Freebase uses its own API (Application Programming Interface) so users who are developers can create their own applications. This is what Facebook, Flickr etc (what is it with websites starting with the letter F?
So an interesting one to watch. What will Wikipedia do in reaction? (If any).
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Popularity: 11% [?]
This appeals to my subversive, resist authority nature. In their words Strictly no photography is a photo-sharing site for photographs taken where you are not allowed to take them. From the inside of the Kremlin to Kensington palace, from art galleries to war zones.
The rise in the number of compact digital cameras and phone cameras with increasingly good photo taking ability means that photography has become something that everyone can do. No flash bulbs needed or having to develop photos. My Nokia N73 phone takes some excellent photos. So it gets harder in fact probably impossible to ban photography in places as this website demonstrates. I just wish they’d change from white text on a black background!
Popularity: 16% [?]
This is another site a bit like Flickrvision but instead shows very recent Wikipedia edits using Google Maps.
It’s a bit of a toy but interesting nonetheless. It’s a clever application by László Kozma, a grad-student at the Helsinki University of Technology. I never knew about the recent changes page on Wikipedia which shows fairly frequent updates.
Popularity: 12% [?]
This is not a website to recommend to those of a monotheistic outlook on life (“One God”). But if you’re into pantheism or just interested this has lots of information on Gods from many cultures- American Indian, Chinese and many more, 154 gods in total, 316 with their alternative names.
There’s also a lot of related stuff such as 578 Saintans and their alternative names, ancient numerology, even Lego Gods. It’s very well done.
Popularity: 14% [?]
The title makes it sound like some sort of website for detecting animal droppings! This is a new BBC website for the TV series Earth which will be appearing soon.
The tracking part of the website follows migratory paths of penguins, polar bears, whales etc. This will be particularly invaluable for hunters everywhere (joke!). As you’d expect from the BBC the production values are high with gorgeous photos, though the flash animation about the series crashed my browser - I suspect you need a fast connection to get the most out of this site.
So if you’re in to animals, highly recommended. But if you aren’t or you think the BBC Licence is too high…
Popularity: 12% [?]
One of the big site sof 2007, Joost (pronounced “Juiced”) uses peer to peer technology (like Napster, BitTorrent etc) to stream video content just like a TV station to your PC. Not the kind of thing you can run at work!
This isn’t just another take on Youtube but with licensed content from the likes of Viacom (including MTV Networks, BET Networks and Paramount Pictures) and others there are currently 15,000 shows on there.
I find it slightly awesome and a little depressing that just as there are so many websites in existence that I will never ever see more than a tiny fraction of them. Likewise there are so many TV shows on Joost and videos on Youtube. No person will ever be able to say they’ve seen everything!
Joost lets you mix and match content so as to create your own channel and you can even blog (it includes support for main blog software) while watching content. Ummm, maybe…
It’s a clever idea using P2P to share content. Course that means your internet connection may get used a bit so just hope your ISP’s unlimited traffic limit is really that! Plus it’s another legitimate use of P2P so calls to ban that technology have less chance of ever succeeding.
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Popularity: 10% [?]
Newsmap is a news headline aggregator written in Flash. It’s pretty slick and shows headlines according to how popular the story is- judged by how many sources carry it. You can display them in a square look ( as shown) or an almost bookshelf type look.
Particularly clever is the way you can filter by major countries. If you click on a section, it shows you how many sites have this story and you can click through to one- though I’m not sure how it chooses.
Popularity: 12% [?]
It is believed that our ancestors originated in Africa and about 60,000 years ago slowly spread through the world.
In the last couple of years National Geographic Magazine and IBM created a 5 year research project called The Genographic Project to try and trace through DNA the path’s that early man took.
The Genographic Project has recently published a report on human mitochondrial DNA data from the first 18 months of the project, published in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics. Most DNA is contained in the cell but separate parts of the cell called organelles (akin to organs in a body) such as Mitochondria also contain DNA. Interesting stuff.
Popularity: 8% [?]
(Taken from Wikipedia)Yann Arthus-Bertrand (born March 13, 1946) is a renowned and internationally-recognised French photographer. He originally specialised in animal photography, but later turned to aerial photography of subjects in many locations across the world. He has produced over 60 books of his landscape photographs taken from helicopters and balloons. Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s work has often been published in the National Geographic magazine.
As you’d imagine, with that kind of background, the website has some stunning photography. There are three parts- the earth from above, the French people and animals. Since he started “the earth from above” project, he and his team have taken over half a million photos and put a selection on here. The website itself runs in Flash and is very nicely done.
You’ll also find more photos of his here on the yannarthusbetrand.com website.
Popularity: 13% [?]
This could be useful if you have clear skies and know that a satellite is approaching . The site updates slowly so you can see the satellites move but it’s about as interesting as clock watching, paint drying etc!
There is a lot of data on this site- big lists of satellites that you can track, up to 5 at a time. If you have an interest in satellite watching this is not a bad place to start.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Everyone loves a historical mystery, think back to the Turin Shroud, the island of Atlantis, the Egyptian Pyramids (How Did they build them?) and the Marie Celeste for example. I also think it’s why the Da Vinci Code was so popular.
So this top ten list of mysteries that have been overlooked is well worth a trip. Whether it is about Rongorongo, the mysterious Easter Island script, the Lost City of Helike or many others, it makes for an interesting read. Oh for a working time machine! If this is discovered in the future and you have a time machine, come and say hello!
Popularity: 5% [?]
Some of these statues are very strange indeed. Some aren’t exactly statues- like the Mini parked up the wall but they are all all a bit odd.
The rhino hanging in mid air is my favourite, followed closely by the women swinging the kid.
Popularity: 41% [?]
30 Years ago, a Golden Record was created and put on The Voyager 1 and 2 Probes. These are now a very long way away from Earth- a shade under 10 billion miles which is a pretty long way.
The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record that contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. It is intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it.
On this website you can hear the music and view the 116 images. It’s not a very welcoming website but the content makes it of interest. You can find out more background information from Wikipedia.
Popularity: 8% [?]
This is interesting and a bit different. If you plot countries of the world according to how they rate on the two scales of Traditional/Secular-rational and Survival/Self-Expression then you get the chart shown.
What makes it particularly interesting is how the cultures spread between countries. If you are into this type of thing then you’ll find the surveys and past survey data of interest on the site, plus a bigger version of the chart. (All pictures etc on Portent.org are reduced to 320 pixels in width)
Popularity: 18% [?]