Fun with Information Design
Word Count [1] Visual representation of the 86,800 most frequently used words in English, way cool! Bonus points: the words whose ranks correspond to my date of birth are (drum roll, please!) "Feel Literature," and my Other Half's are "Certainly Gentleman." Even better, at #3130, "jean" falls between #3129 and #3131 to form the phrase "constantly jean dominant" - I wish!
Thinkmap's Visual Thesaurus [2] Visual representation of word meanings and relationships - much clearer than any print thesaurus and fun to play with. Limited use for free trial or buy/subscribe.
The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef [3] Yarn, Math, and the Environment, or, What Shape Is the Universe?
Wordle [4] A toy for generating pretty "word clouds" from text that you provide.
FlowingData [5] Stay up-to-date on what's new in data visualization.
Lovely Charts [6] Create pretty charts easily online.
Crappy Graphs [7] Browse other people's or make your own.
Information Is Beautiful [8]On this site, it sure is! Check out the "Goggle Boxes" [9] graphic and think about what real-world problem we might solve instead of just watching "reality."
Fun with Information
Podcast of Harry Shearer's "Le Show" [10] public radio program.
Gimundo [11] Battle the brainwashing - get good news every day!
Peculiar English [12] What if English words were all derived from Anglo-Saxon, or from Greek?
Schott's Vocabulary Blog [13] (NY Times) Fun with words. (Is there any other kind?)
The F'ing Word of the Day [14] Non-work-safe fun with words.
Wordnik [15] ALL the words (and they're not kidding!)
The Guardian Data Blog [16] All kinds of interesting stuff, from Dr. Who to the war in Afghanistan. Much of it is UK-specific but there's plenty of stuff for the rest of us, too.
Just Fun
Rob Breszny's Free Will Astrology [17] Simply the Best. Horoscope. Ever.—especially if you don't believe in astrology.
Pronoia Resources [18] Links to things from Breszny's weekly newsletter. Pronoia is the opposite of Paranoia.
The Book Quiz [19] Which book are you?
Mr. Picassohead [20] Make art!
The Geostationary Banana Over Texas [21] Hey, why not?
Structured Procrastination [22] Horizontal Organizers of the world, unite!
Online Magnetic Poetry [23] from your fridge to the Internet!