Chatroulette.com is about as simple as it gets: you turn on your webcam and are connected with someone else with their camera on. I kind of ignored this one until arbiter of internet-style, Jason Kottke, described his experiences (and also, NY Magazine).

As one can imagine, a site which broadcasts anonymous webcam streams features mostly lonely men looking for breasts and lonely men flashing their—well certainly not their breasts.

But there were some interesting exceptions:

                         

Click here to download:

If_youve_ever_wanted_to_connec.zip (1026 KB)

It’s just raw internet:

Once you dive in, there’s no way to manage the experience—to filter users, search for friends, or backtrack and reconnect with someone you chatted with an hour ago. There’s only the perpetual forward motion of “next.” It’s the Wild West: a stupid, profound, thrilling, disgusting, totally lawless boom. [from NY Magazine]

(If you're ever pissed off at lawyers, click on a few of these ads. Why? Read this article.)

     

Click here to download:

Google_is_giving_me_100_worth_.zip (340 KB)

Update: I set up a sample campaign to try it out. If you search for 'hyfen', you may see something interesting.

Update 2: The high-roller that I am, I bought Andrey some ads for tweepsect.

Spotted on a bike on Bloor+Major

           

Click here to download:

While_you_all_were_curled_up_i.zip (1162 KB)

Beautiful night for winter cycling: not cold, not windy, and the snow is still sticky.

Except for: McCaul St. It's a death trap. Or "treachery", as Ivor put it: 

McCaul is treachery! Do not attempt on two wheels!

The problem: since streetcars are so infrequent, one always forgets that there are streetcar tracks on the road—and now that snow is covering them, it's even easier to forget. I did a long (but very graceful) powerslide tonight.

A Wikirace (IPA: /ˈwɪ.ki.rɛɪs/) is a race by as many people as you wish, using wikilinks to travel from one Wikipedia page to another. The first person to reach the destination page, or the person that reaches the destination using the fewest number of links, wins the race.

Wikiraces are common in classroom environments in which kids are bored.

A race from Jesus Christ to Subway (restaurant) would be more of a challenge, however. For a true test of skill, attempt Roman Colosseum to Orthographic projection.

If that gets boring, you can try some variations (man, I love the internet):

• '5-Clicks-to-Jesus': A form of Wikiracing that mimics golf, the challenge in this version is to get from a Random Article to the Jesus entry in as few clicks as possible. Reaching the article in 5 clicks is considered 'par', with clicks over or under five being referred to as 'bogeys' and 'birdies' respectively. Players can either play the course (aiming for 'par' or better) or as a competition. In the latter case, players start from the same Random Articles and add their score between rounds. Lowest score wins!
• 'One-Can't-Go' rule: Essentially, if you find yourself in a doomed-scenario (i.e. stumbled into a stub with no wiki-links) you are allowed to use one of the Category links at the bottom of an entry (e.g. 1904 deaths or Philosophy). Each player can only use this option once though, so use it wisely.
• 'Find Hitler!' Believed to be the original form of 'The Wikipedia Game,' The objective is to begin by selecting the 'Random Article' link. From there you look at the selected article and click the links in the main body of the article that are believed to lead to the Adolf Hitler article. Two players or more can play and they count the number of articles it takes to get to Adolf Hitler. The person who gets there with the least number of articles wins.

A few minutes ago, I tweeted a picture of awful design inside Union Station. To cleanse your typographic palate, here's some good design at Harvey's:

     

Click here to download:

And_now_for_some_good_design_i.zip (343 KB)

I love how the menu items are separated with nothing but the shadows in the food photographs.

The Helvetica even works ok with the logo's original Cooper Black.