"This is the third version of a guide I have been developing for the past 5 years. It takes the 200 best documentaries I have reviewed on my website True Films and puts them into one handy book." Free as a PDF download, Kevin Kelly's book True Films.
posted by Armitage Shanks on Dec 29, 2007 - 12 comments

World Wind is a global information system that pulls together a high resolution map of the entire world and layers into it satellite information from a variety of sources. The program lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth, leveraging high resolution LandSat imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) elevation data to experience Earth terrain (or any planet with the data) in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there. Virtually visit any place in the world. Look across the Andes, into the Grand Canyon, over the Alps or along the African Sahara. Check out the screenshots. (Windows only, 169mb download, torrent available.) While you're there, check out Virtual Lab, a virtual scanning electron microscope (screenshots), available for Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows.
posted by crunchland on Feb 18, 2005 - 14 comments

Wouldn't it be great if you could get the weather from a poorly synthesized computer-generated voice? Well, now you can. Call 1-888-573-8255 and ask Jupiter what the weather is like, or will be like, for nearly any city you want. (via Cool Tools)
posted by euphorb on Jul 19, 2004 - 12 comments

Gizmodo + Cool Tools + Whole Earth Catalog = Meta-efficient -a "guide to the most efficient things in the world."
posted by luser on Jun 3, 2004 - 8 comments

Let's go shopping! There's a wonderful thread on Kevin Kelly's site about interesting and offbeat catalogs, like this one. What catalogs do you love? And while you're at chez KK, check out all the "cool tools" added since crunch linked it last summer. Great gift ideas.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders on Dec 4, 2003 - 1 comment

Authors and journalists take note. Junglescan is a way to track the Amazon sales ranking of a book or product over time. One can follow the ranking of a novel, or CD, or you can collectively track the rise and fall of an idea, or group of items. Not everything is tracked only what it's asked to but for a free service that Amazon should/could provide it works well. See also Amazon Hacks (via Kevin Kelly Cool Tools).
posted by stbalbach on Oct 17, 2003 - 1 comment