The Mother of Smarts

Wired Magazine has always gone way beyond just putting a glitzy veneer on geekiness: deeply rooted in computer culture but spreading its wings from that fertile soil to soar over any kind of news landscape that is relevant to a citizen of Contemporania, the Wired website should perhaps not be your only authority for news coverage, but what is there is crucial, opinionated, smart as heck and usually quite different from what you find in most other places. Essential reading in times of the WikiLeaks controversy: the Threat Level blog that addresses issues of "Privacy, crime and security online".

www.wired.com

Chatting with Kirk

If you ever feel like asking all those tough questions about the Enterprise that have bothered you since your childhood, why not start a chat with Fake Captain Kirk the Chatbot and get the answers straight from the horse's mouth? I'm not saying you will be smarter than before, but you are guaranteed a pretty surreal little chat.
Or while you're at it, listen to the Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity (ALICE to her friends) and Kirk really hit it off - their conversation has its moments.
And if you think only an Artificial Intelligence can really understand you, get DAVE as a teacher for a month - they say his English is perfect.

alice.pandorabots.com
Two Bots Talking

The most heavily hyper-linked website you're likely to find

This website does what a dictionary or an encyclopedia used to do when you still had time to give a hoot: you look for the definition of a term and within that definition you find so many annotations in the form of hyper links that you will invariably feel the need to go on, go deeper, click on just one more cross-reference until you come out, maybe within shouting distance but at least a block away from your access point. So that's fun.
They also have an abundance of videos sorted by thematic categories like Business Tips, Career (better CVs!), Marketing, etc. and a selection of tips like The 3 Most Timeless Investment Principles or Hidden Dangers of Monthly Payments.
And of course, to get you started, the Term of the Day - ready to make an actuarial assumption, anyone?

www.investorwords.com

"The sound of fireworks"

Guy Fawkes Day is barely past, New Year's just around the corner - so how do you describe a fireworks?

www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/the-sound-of-fireworks

And after that you might find some other features interesting too, as for example the blog entries on different kinds of regional English, from Canadian to Japanese (Quiz question: What do you think the word "panikuru" means?)

www.macmillandictionaryblog.com

Q&A with the Man Who Killed Pluto

... but our icy distant cousin might still make a comeback. The interview below is taken from a nice page for discussions of things circling out there.

www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mike-brown-discusses-dwarf-planet-pluto-101119.html

"We provide the best tools and highest quality video in the universe."

Proud words! And sure as gravity you'll find at least one thing there to love...
http://vimeo.com

"This is a map of the wheel-ruts of modern English"

... or do you know where the word "kiosk" comes from?

www.etymonline.com

Little games to play while you're waiting for something else to happen

Flash hangman and audio snap (and some other things as well)

www.manythings.org

Keeping the world strange: The Urban Dictionary

The Urban Dictionary - where language makes babies:

www.urbandictionary.com