I've been a little lazy with the weekly link post, so here's an abbreviated catch up on some of my favourite things on the Internet over the past few weeks.

• Best Travel Books for Laughs - Baltimore Sun: A nice list of fun, summery travel reads. 
• 750 Words: Great online writing app that encourages and enables you to write 750 words per day, based on the idea of morning pages. Since starting, I've been on a seven day streak and have written well over 5,000 words. It's surprisingly motivating. 
• Let the Pill Go Free - New York Times: A convincing argument for why the birth control pill should be available over the counter without a prescription, which I happen to agree wholeheartedly with.
• Journalists Trash Palin Speech - Salon: Sarah Palin is truly a horrible person with a scary sense of entitlement. After student journalists found a copy of her contract to speak at their university in the rubbish and reported on her very high speaking fee, she banned them from her talk. Sounds like they didn't miss much though. 
• Info Graphic: The True Cost of Home Ownership - Moolanomy: People always say that it's silly to rent if you can buy. This graphic lays things out pretty clearly and shows what each actually cost and when you are better doing one over the other. Not that we ever need to really worry about this given in London it's completely unaffordable to buy anything. :(
• Inside a Wave: Epic Photography by Clark Little - Dark Roasted: Beautiful photos of the inside of giant waves - something most of us will never get to see in person. 
• Are DJs, Rappers and Bloggers Curators? - American Association of Museums: An interesting perspective in the seemingly endless argument about who is and is not a curator that is going on in web-land right now.
• When Good Things Happen to Bad People: Heart Advice for Difficult Times - The Rejectionist: We all like to believe that what goes around, comes around but that isn't always the case. This is a funny little post about how to cope when shitty people see great rewards. 
• Wimbledon Live Blog (All Eleven Hours!) - The Guardian: This account turns hilarious as the reported is forced to continue blogging for the record breaking Wimbledon game on 23rd June.
• Over 40 Mosquito Bite Itch Relief Tips - Tip Nut: Lots of good ideas here, including making use of things most people probably have lying around the house. I've tried a number of these in the past few weeks and tea tree oil works well. My favourite though, which is not on this list, is liquid aspirin.
• The Beauty of Paper Art - Smashing Magazine: Despite my recent Kindle fixation (an evil necessary because we're traveling and books are heavy), there is nothing comparable to the tangible, weighty loveliness of paper. This post features some lovely eye candy of art made from paper. 
• The Pantone Guide to Communicating With Colour - Apple: A great refresher for graphic designers, artists or anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of how we react to different colours.
• Publishing Restrictions on Night Time Photos of the Eiffel Tower - Photo.net: Just another ridiculous example of copyright restrictions gone wild. Did you know that it's actually illegal to publish photos of the the ET taken at night? Why? Well, the lights on them are subject to copyright. Yeah, dumb. 
• World Cup Planning App - Marca.com: Great online tool to help you plan all your World Cup watching activities and parties.
• Glee vs. Copyright - Do As I Say, Not As I Do - Boing Boing: Highlighting the hypocrisy of the stringent and unrealistic copyright rules Murdoch would impose on people by examining Glee, which is shown on Murdoch's Fox.
• The 10 Best Japanese Ghost Towns - Asylum: Beautiful pictures. Hard to believe these places exist in Japan, where most of us imagine wall to wall people a la Tokyo. We'll definitely try to visit some of these during our time in Japan this winter. 
• Online Database of Social Media Policies - Social Media Governance: Great resource. Also searchable by industry.
• How 'Old' Can a Young Writer Be? - New York Times: A bit depressing for those of us inching deeper into our thirties, it's an examination of the average age many of the great writers wrote their masterpieces.
• Ignite London Venue and Date Announced: Very excited that Ignite London has announced the date and venue for their next event. Those of you who are in London will want to pencil in 28th September - it's sure to be a great event.
• How Do They Get to Be That Way? - Roger Ebert: A thoughtful and touching response to the situation in Arizona where the face on a mural was painted white in response to a racist reaction.

Personal Links
Apart from here on Making Strange, I've been busy on Contentini, the Lost and Looking Project, I wrote an article for The Guardian, have some new posts up on The Januarist and put together a guest blog for Ignite London. In other self-serving news, check out danzambonini.com (my partner in tourista stomach) and his other project Amorphous Blog for more genuinely good content.

Please feel free to leave links to content you've enjoyed in the comments section!

Image Credit: Link by Dunechaser