http://users.california.com/~mcmf/ts202a.html
http://users.california.com/~mcmf/ts203a.html

"Altruism, Pity and Compassion: Significant (and ignored) differences" by W. Teed Rockwell

It's longish but clever and it makes a lot of sense to me...

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:bFAGdMsPaRoJ:www.scifi.com/scifiction/classics/classics_archive/tiptree/tiptree1.html&;strip=1

A short sci-fi story, no humans. Tell me what you think of it :)

http://home.netcom.com/~cowdery/command.htm

Possibly offensive to those who don't believe in smiling at some aspects of religion, among other things.

http://ballastexistenz.autistics.org/?p=61

"The Meaning of Power" by Amanda Baggs. Btw, everything else she's written is worth reading too.

http://qw88nb88.wordpress.com/2006/12/21/problems-with-solutions/

http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/icst/

Nice, interesting, still relevant. About comics on the web.

For those of us who read books for fun: http://www.librarything.com/

First, watch this:

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=hans_rosling

Then, go to http://gapminder.org/ and click around. And finally, have fun with this: http://tools.google.com/gapminder/ :)

http://emg-zine.com/item.php?id=173

Well... What can I say? Ursula Vernon is great, as always.

http://www.theoryoffun.com/theoryoffun.pdf

It's not as long as it looks, and quite enjoyable :)

http://www.atelier-v.ch/info.htm

30 unusual ideas. Which one is your favourite? :P

http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2006/08/things-you-really-need-to-learn.html

Long but good :)

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=ken_robinson

A very good talk (on education).

Of course, you can just watch them all, or pick the ones that sound interesting to you:

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/

:)

Warning: Contains graphic, NOT work-safe pictures!

http://wreckingboy.livejournal.com/318545.html

Not erotic or amusing either. Fairly long, but can be skimmed easily. I think it's important enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih3djTbpXOw

It's the first part of a 5-part video, a combination of a digital painting tutorial and a talk about life and work, and how to do something you love for money and not end up hating it. He talks about art specifically, but it really applies to any creative work (design, programming etc.) and maybe more than that. It's a bit slow and quiet, but still very good. You can get the other parts from the "Related" block on the right.

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=398998

*dies laughing*

...but it's quite sad, really.

http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?en_version

Yay! Free mini-Painter! Can you believe it? :P

And now for something slightly different... A quote.

"It takes true innocence to know your own darkness."

http://escherdroste.math.leidenuniv.nl/

http://www.soulcatcherstudio.com/exhibitions/blossfeldt/
http://www.artphiles.com/photophiles/KB.html
http://www.vintagesmith.com/images/Blossfeldt/BlossAlbum/
http://home.flash.net/~pdnb/Blossfeldt/blossfeldt1.html

Just some old photos of the ones that feed on sunlight...

http://www.gelnika.com/

OK, sorry for that. I just thought it was pretty good for such a short piece of writing. Here's some non-violent non-written non-fiction to cheer you up:

http://media.putfile.com/Lady-Goes-Crazy-on-Trading-Spouses