Bursts of Thought

There's nothing intelligent about the Internet. It seems to me something like a giant postal service, and like any postal service it carries about a lot of junk and spam, mixed up with content of real value. The trick is to get at the good stuff.
Here are three sites I think count as good stuff. They specialise in short bursts of thought - ideal for warming up the little grey cells, downloading a gadget to make train journeys more interesting, starting a discussion, and just generally opening new windows on the world.

The RSA (Royal society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) offers short lectures on a huge variety of topics on its video page. I love the RSAnimate series, where talks are accompanied by graphic annotations by artist Nick Park (of Wallace and Gromit fame). Also accessible through the RSA Youtube channel.

TED talks are short lectures by great speakers on a huge variety of issues. The TED channel on YouTube is nice and easy to navigate.

The bigthink is very focussed on the contemporary: 'Blogs, Articles and Videos from the world's top thinkers and leaders'. Plenty of stimulating material here.