At least, that was the case until recently. Last Thursday, to be specific. That’s when Google — together with TIME Magazine, NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey — launched Timelapse, a zoomable, interactive web tool that lets you easily compare satellite images taken between 1984 and 2012 of nearly any location.

[ ALSO ON SCS: Carpet Designs Using Google Earth ]

Google declared their Timelapse project to be “the most comprehensive picture of our changing planet ever made available to the public.” Spot Cool Stuff declares it to be the most terrifying. Seeing the impact humans have had on our planet in less than 30 years is stunning. And not a bit mesmerizing. Consider the retreat of the Columbia Glacier in Alaska . . .

. . . the deforestation of the rainforest in Brazil . . .

. . . or the growth of irrigation in Saudi Arabia:

Another high profile example: the Aral Sea (now the Aral Seas) located between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. What was the world’s fourth largest lake not so long ago is today a collection of over-sized puddles. A dam might save the very northern part of the “sea,” but if you want to see the rest before it completely dries up you’d better stop reading this immediately and book your flight to Tashkent. (Not incidentally, the saga of the sea is told in the wonderful book The Devil and the Disappearing Sea: A True Story About the Aral Sea Catastrophe).

Of course, those are more high-profile examples. But there are few places anywhere on Earth that have been unaffected by humans. Check it out for yourself in the interactive tool, below:

LEARN MORE |

The Interactive Timelapse Tool

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Related posts on Spot Cool Stuff:

Folding Unnecessary: Crumpled City Maps
The Cool Blog of Wonderful Maps
A Google Street View Tour of the Amazon

In the latter category, Match is the most popular (and, as we argued in a previous review of dating websites, one of the best). But there are literally hundreds of other websites where you can search through profiles using whatever criteria you’d like.

On a personality matching site, you fill out an online questionnaire about yourself and the website matches you up with potential dates. In this type of dating website there are two major players: Chemistry.com and eHarmony. So what’s the difference between them? And which is better for you? Spot Cool Stuff takes a look:

Pros & Cons of Personality-Matching Dating Sites

To start, it’s worth knowing the benefits of personality dating sites. There are two: one widely acknowledged and one more the personal opinion of Spot Cool Stuff.

The first is this: A personality-matching dating website saves you time. If you live in a reasonably populated area and do search on Match.com — even a rather specific search — you’ll likely get dozens (or even hundreds) of profiles to wade through. A personality-matching site will do much (though not all) of the wading for you.

Second, a personality-matching site might do a better job finding potential dates than you could. After all, if you are single then, almost by definition, you haven’t found that right guy or gal yet. Which means, heretofore, you haven’t picked out the right person. That might be the result of circumstance or bad luck. But it could also be because you aren’t so good at picking the right people from the wrong. So maybe a personality-matching site could do a better job. At the very least, it will encourage you to interact with people who you might not give a chance to otherwise.

The Biggest Difference . . .

. . . between Chemistry.com and eHarmony is this: eHarmony has an extensive questionnaire that results in every user being ranked on 29 different personality aspects. Chemistry.com has a more informal questionnaire that tests for 4 different personality aspects.

As a result, eHarmony has the more rigorous matching system. Although eHarmony has more members (approximately 20 million to Chemistry’s 12 million), you’ll get few matches sent your way on eHarmony. Those matches are better suited for you — at least in theory and, we think, in practice too — than they would be under a less strict matching system like the one Chemistry.com sues. On Chemistry, you’ll get more matches but they’ll be less targeted.

Which of those is better for you depends partly on your personal preferences and partly on where you live. eHarmony is a better fit for people who want to spend less time on the site and/or who live in urban areas with lots of singles. Chemistry generally works better for those with the time to sort through more profiles and/or who live in more rural areas.

Note also that eHarmony’s more rigorous matching system extends to who they let on their site in the first place. eHarmony claims that around 20% of the applicants to their website are rejected. The number one reason: the potential user is married. In addition, eHarmony’s users have to be over 21 (Chemistry minimum age is 18) and been divorced fewer than four times. eHarmony has even been known to reject applicants if their questionnaire suggests they are deeply depressed!

Your view on all that, again, will depend on your personal preferences. Some people like that extra screening. Others find it overly judgmental.

Other Points of Chemistry – eHarmony Comparison

Best website user experience: Chemistry.com

This might be a matter of personal taste, but to us the Chemistry website has a cleaner design and a more intuitive navigation than eHarmony. That said, neither site is difficult to use.

Best for people who don’t like emailing: eHarmony
If you aren’t a creative writer, don’t like email or simply aren’t a fan of written correspondence with people you don’t know, you’ll find eHarmony much more pleasant to use. The site has a “guided communications process” that takes much of the guess work out of what to write about. Click to learn more about how eHarmony works.

Best website for meeting men: Chemistry.com

Like almost every dating website out there, eHarmony’s users screw female  — an estimated 67% are women. Chemistry is one of the rare dating sites that has a roughly 50/50 gender ratio.

Best for meeting women: eHarmony

For the same reason Chemistry.com is better for meeting men (see above), eHarmony’s large percentage of female users give men on the site an advantage.

Best for gays and lesbians: Chemistry.com

No contest here. Chemistry has excellent sections specifically for gay and lesbian dating. eHarmony is exclusively for straights.

Best for single parents: eHarmony

Chemistry and eHarmony have similar demographics in terms of age, income and educational background. But eHarmony has a lot more singles with children  — 42% to Chemistry.com’s 33%.

Best for those seeking marriage: eHarmony

After interviewing many users of both websites (and spending considerable time on each ourselves) our strong sense is that eHarmony users tend to be more marriage-focused. Singles on Chemistry are generally seeking long-term relationships too^† but, as a group, seem a little less eager to tie the knot.

Best for the price: Chemistry.com

Both dating websites don’t charge for setting up a profile but both cost money for full functionality. (Note: free dating websites offer a very low quality experience — click here for more on that). The exact price for each sites depends on how long you sign up for (see the Chemistry & eHarmony websites for the details) but, on average, Chemistry costs $10 less per month. In addition, Chemistry runs better sales.

At the time of writing, Chemistry.com was offering a great promotion: three months for the price of one. eHarmony’s current best deal is a 20% reduction on a 6-month membership (if you click through that link and use promo code EHCODE).

Our Verdict

Clearly, which personality-matching dating website is best for you depends on your circumstances. If you’ve read through this whole post hopefully one of them — Chemistry.com or eHarmony — stood out as a better fit for you.

If neither did, our suggestion is: sign up for both. It will take a bit more time, but both offer enough free functionality to get a feel for them.

Whichever site you choose, we wish you romance in your future.

GO TO CHEMISTRY.COM / eHARMONY |

^†  Those looking for casual let’s-maybe-just-be-friends dates tend to be on a site like HowAboutWe. Those looking for a quick hook-up are drawn to one of these fling-oriented dating websites.

Related posts on Spot Cool Stuff:

HowAboutWe: Search Date Ideas, Not Profiles
The Best Niche Dating Websites
All-Inclusive Romance: A Comparison of the Sandals Resorts in Jamaica

With that in mind, here are three new and growing social media websites that Spot Cool Stuff believes could make it big over the next year:

Nextdoor

What it is: A social media network for neighbors. Any neighborhood can set up a free, private social microsite exclusively for its residents on Nextdoor. Much of the emphasis is on disaster preparedness and reporting potential criminal activity  — imagine a virtual neighborhood watch  — but neighbors can also invite each other to block parties, list items for sale, post about lost pets or communicate about virtually anything related to their ‘hood.

How it works: Privacy is key  — the site isn’t even searchable by Google. So when you sign up, you must use your real name and address. The info is then verified, either by a credit card confirmation or through a postcard that Nextdoor sends to your home.

Why it’s cool: Nextdoor isn’t about collecting “friends” or spreading memes. It’s about sharing truly useful local info in a way that simply isn’t possible on Facebook. The design of the site is also makes it easy-to-use, with no clutter from banner ads, pop-ups or advertising messages.

GO TO THE SITE |

Pheed

What it is: A single platform for sharing all forms of digital content  — including text, web links, photos, audio clips, videos, live broadcasts and even voice notes — and the potential for making money while doing so!

How it works: Sign up for Pheed with your Twitter or Facebook account and start posting. (The well-designed Pheed smartphone app makes this especially easy.) Most of the content, and all of the functionality, on the site is free. But if you think users might pay for your content you can decide to charge (between US$1.99 and $34.99) either per month or per pay-to-view event.

Why it’s cool: Partly because of the monetary inventive, Pheed is a popular place for celebrities to post exclusive content; Miley Cyrus, David Guetta and Ashley Tisdale are among those that already do so. Given that list, it is unsurprising that the vast majority of Pheed users are in their teens.

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Sulia

What it is: The world’s first subject-based social network.

How it works: Posts on Sulia are all tagged according to per-determined topics — Architecture & Design or Automotive or Women in Business or the like. Users earn “trust” within a given topic. (Eg. Spot Cool Stuff is ranked number 218 in the Travel & Vacations topic.) The more a post is liked, and the more the poster is trusted, the higher up on the site the post will appear.

Why it’s cool: The use of topics makes searching by subject on Sulia much easier and more useful than it is on, say, Pinterest. And Sulia’s use of “trust” mostly works in keeping spammers at bay. Plus, it’s fun to sing Su-Su-Sulia to yourself Phil Collins-like while on the site.

FOLLOW SPOT COOL STUFF ON SULIA |

JOIN US ON TWITTER / FACEBOOK / PINTREST / GOOGLE+

More cool website reviews from Spot Cool Stuff:

Match.com vs eHarmony
FILMography: The Cool Tumblr Blog That Merges Movie Scenes With Real Life
Quirky Crowdsourced Products

Cook Your Cupboard is the brainchild of America’s National Public Radio, which put together the Tumblr blog for a piece on their show Morning Edition. Their goal was to share creative ideas for how to cook surplus food. But for Spot Cool Stuff the more fascinating aspect of Cook Your Cupboard is the glimpse into the strange provisions people find in their pantries when they go looking.

Like chocolate minted liqueur, chia seeds and a bag of dried seaweed.

Or left over matzo ball mix, butter beans and roasted pepitas.

Or how about Shake and Bake, a canned combo of pineapple and water chestnuts and some sweet bean paste brought over from China?

As for what to do with that Haggis, tomato paste, orzo pasta, Funyuns and orange syrup we started this post with — one suggestion on Cook Your Cupboard was to take the first three and cook a casserole together with veggies, topping with crumbled Funyuns after baking. The orange-flavored syrup can be put in a blender with some ice and cointreau to create a sort of candy daiquiri.

Sounds, um . . . . interesting.

GO TO THE SITE |

^†  For our readers who weren’t once broke, pot-smoking college students in the United States — and we assume there are at least a few of you — Funyuns are a sort of onion-flavored corn-based snack with a special ability to wreck havoc on one’s stomach approximately 30 minutes after digesting.

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Related posts on Spot Cool Stuff:

The Cool Tumblr Blog of Movie Scenes Mixed With Real Life
4 Delicious Foods (That Can Kill You)
Food That Looks Creepy But Tastes Delicious

But what if you want a business card that will really make you stand out? And — further — what if you aren’t a graphic designer and if you don’t want these business cards to cost a small fortune? Fortunately, there are a handful of cool websites where you can create unusual business cards that will wow that potential client or business partner — and do so inexpensively.

A review of Spot Cool Stuff’s six favorites:

#6 & 5 Vista Print / Print Place

Folding business cards

Several places will print fold over business cards — that is, business cards that fold open like a birthday card might. Of them, Tiny Prints offers some of the coolest designs, but they have only 22 templates to choose from and all are in a 3.25″ x 2″ format (pic below). That’s why, instead, we’ve chosen to feature these two websites for this spot in our review:

Vista Print is one of the largest online printers. So we aren’t surprised that they’d have the most fold over business card templates to choose from. But we were surprised to find that they had 4891 templates! That’s rather amazing! (See three example templates in the pics to the right.) For the inside of the card, choose between blank pages (not exciting but useful for people to take notes), greyscale or full color printing. Pretty much anything you can think of can be printed inside the fold: photos, text, graphics, even maps! Simply type in a address and Vista Print will automatically insert a map of the size and type you want. By the way, if you are looking for regular non-folding business cards Vista Print will print up some free ones for you.

Print Place is your website if you want to use your own design for a folding business card. The site provides clear, detailed instructions on submitting your design. There are, however, two potential downsides: First, the minimum number of cards you can order is 250 (although many people would want at least that anyway). Second, you have to fold the cards yourself after they arrive (although they are scored to make that easy). The good news is that the prices at Print Place are incredible. With the basic options, 250 folded cards will cost you around US$0.26 each. And, the overall cost of a 1000-card order isn’t much more than it is for 250 cards, bringing the cost-per-card down to just 8 cents!

GO TO VISTA PRINT / PRINT PLACE |

#4 Plastic Printers

Plastic business cards

Plastic cards both feel and look cool, especially when they have a translucent element to them. Unfortunately, they are also a bit pricey (typically around $2.50 each, though it depends on the printing method and how many you order). They are also rather environmentally unfriendly — much more so than paper (whether recycled or not). Still, if you are going to choose plastic cards then Plastic Printers is your place. We aren’t fans of their website design, but their email-centric customer service is outstanding, as is their quality of their work. If you want a custom-sized card, Plastic Printers will work with you on that too.

GO TO THE SITE |

#3 Night Owl Paper Goods

Wood business cards

Night Owl Paper Goods prints business cards on real birch, cedar and cherry wood. The resulting look wouldn’t work for everyone — the CEO of a hot high tech start-up, for instance. But if you want to exude an earthy charm, these cards make an impression. The wooden business cards have a bit of texture to them (hard to see in the photos below) and won’t easily break. They’re also less expensive than they look, though at around $1 each they aren’t exactly cheap. Happily, Night Owl uses eco-friendly, sustainably-harvested wood for both their traditionally-shaped business cards and their cool-looking square ones.

GO TO THE SITE |

#2 Snapily

Animated business cards

Two photos on one business card? Snapily — the cool printer of animated and 3D items — can pull that off. Face one of Snapily’s animated cards directly towards you and one image appears. Tilt it up or down and you’ll see the other one. Snapily has 47 templates to choose from. But the cool part is: You don’t need them. Upload two of your own photos to the Snapily website and they’ll print those in an animated card. As with all the websites in this review, the per-card cost for an animated card depends on how many you order. Snapily lets you order in any denomination of 20; for 200 cards you’ll pay a bit less than $1 per card.

GO TO THE SITE |

#1 MOO

When you’ve got the word “cool” in your name, as Spot Cool Stuff does, there’s a lot of pressure to present a business card that stands out. Which is why, since the first day we formed our company, our own business cards have been printed by MOO.

To be sure, there are other business cards that are more flashy, more unusual and more weird^†. But absolutely no other company offers business cards for so little money but with so much WOW factor as does MOO. Our MOO cards cost as a grand total of $0.25 each and we get raving comments (eg. “You really can spot cool stuff!”) on our cards all the time.

Here’s how it works: In a pack of 50 cards, every card can have a different image on one side. (You aren’t required to have a unique image on each card; images can repeat on cards if you like). What’s on the other side — typically your name and particulars — is the same on every MOO card.

Sounds simple, but the creative possibilities are endless. If you are a photographer or designer, you can show a different example of your work on each card. If you are a publisher, each card can feature a different book cover. Real estate agents can show photos of different houses they’ve sold. Restauranteurs can have photos of different dishes. What Spot Cool Stuff decided to do is have each of our employees’ cards have a different image from our website along with a redirecting URL to the corresponding post^‡.

If you don’t have your own images you want to use, Moo has hundreds of templates to choose from. Some of their designs are literal, others are abstract, but most are cool in some way. And several of the MOO-designed cards leave space for you to add your own logo. The pics below are all of standard Moo designs you can choose.

After you’ve designed your cards, you will be presented with a selection of paper types and a choice of straight or rounded corners. A minimum order of 50 Moo cards will only set you back US$19.95 in the United States, £10.99 in the UK or €12.79 in Germany and other Euro Zone nations. (MOO will ship elsewhere in the world from their main website.)

GO TO THE SITE |

^†  While living in Nepal we were once handed a business card that was an edible cookie! The man who gave it to us literally had his name and contact info engraved in the dough of his cookie-card. We thought it was a creative idea. And we would have sent him an email telling him so if a hadn’t bird hadn’t eaten his card after we left it too close to an open window.

^‡  We can see how many times people go to the redirecting URL. There are cards that we’ve only handed out 3 or 4 times for which the corresponding URL has been visited nearly 100 times. Maybe our cards are being passed around from person to person?

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Reviews of the Best Dating Websites

That last item is thanks to Barcelona-based start-up, Crayon Creatures.

Simply take a photo of your youngun’s masterpiece and upload it to the Crayon Creatures website (or send it by email). Crayon Creatures will then digitally render the child’s two dimensional drawing as a three dimensional model — a process that can require some creative human interpretation as well as serious software.

Once modeled, the plans are sent to Shapeways, a sort of Etsy for 3D printed objects and a cool website in its own right.

About three weeks later, the figurine based on the child’s drawing arrives to you in the mail. It will be about 100mm (3.9 inches) tall and made out of a material that’s described as “sandstone” but is really a gypsum-based powder bound together by adhesive and pigment. Lots of pigment. Crayon Creatures creations are super colorful and surprisingly detailed — and sometimes surreal.

You’ll want to carefully select which drawings to 3D-ify given Crayon Creatures’ price for their service: €99 plus a flat €15 for international shipping.

GO TO THE SITE |

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More reviews on websites where you can design your own . . .

Creative Business Cards
Dress Shirts
Gadget Skins
Chocolate Bars

Elsewhere on the web:

Hosting your own blog is MUCH better than having WordPress do it for you.

There are really only two disadvantages to arranging for your own blog hosting. First, you’ll need to find (and pay for) a good WordPress-friendly website host. Second, you’ll have to do the updates yourself.

Neither of those disadvantages are burdensome.

• Updating requires nothing more than clicking on the link that says “update.” And, anyway, updating is optional — your installation of WordPress (and all associated plugins) will continue to work even if they aren’t updated.

• As for the cost of a host, that needn’t be expensive. If you want to do something fancy with your WordPress installation, or want a lot of support around your blog, it is worth getting a hosting plan through WP Engine, a WordPress specialist, for $29 per month. But most hosts are less than that. One of our favorite hosts for a WordPress blog, FatCow, is very convenient for WordPress users and currently has a deal on hosting for only US$3.15 a month!

In comparison, the upside of hosting your own blog is significant.

• Most of all, if you host your own blog you own all the content you create. With a free blog through wordpress.com you are, in essence, giving your content to WordPress.

• You can do anything you want with a self-hosted blog — run any plugin, use any theme, display any content, use any analytics service. With wordpress.com you are bound by WordPress’s terms of service.

• If can try to make money from your self-hosted blog if you so choose. You can not run ads or otherwise monetize a free wordpress.com blog. And if you ever want to sell your blog, it will be worth much more if it is self-hosted.

• A self-hosted blog will, in time, have better SEO (and thus get more traffic).

• Self-hosted blogs tend to be taken more seriously than one with a _____.wordpress.com domain. Plus you can set up free email addresses using your blog’s domain.

To be sure, there are a few specific circumstances in which getting a free wordpress.com host might make sense. Eg. if you want to set up a temporary blog (to, for example, organize a family reunion). But, generally, self-hosting is far superior.

Check out the infographics below for more about starting a self-hosted blog versus wordpress.com. Or see our review of the best WordPress hosts for more detailed tips and advice on selecting a host.

GO TO WP ENGINE / FAT COW / WordPress |

Click on each to see in a full size in new window:

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Elsewhere on the web:

That’s many-a-child’s first skeptical query about the Santa Claus story. For parents so inclined to provide a modern answer to that question — and for anyone looking for some online Christmasy fun — there are several websites and smartphone apps that purport to give the exact real-time GPS coordinates of Santa as he makes his way around the world delivering presents on Christmas Eve. Below is a review of our three favorites.

A note to parents: None of these Santa-centric websites seem to agree on exactly where Saint Nick is at any given moment. We suggest you stick to looking at one, lest you provoke more questions than answers.

NORAD Santa Tracker

NORAD has been keeping an eye on treats to North American air space since the 1950′s. And, for almost as long, they’ve been tracking Santa’s reindeer-fueled flights too.

It started in 1955 when a department store in Colorado Springs, USA advertized a service that let children talk to Santa Claus by telephone on Christmas Eve. By mistake (or not?), the number published with the ad was for the military’s Continental Air Defense Command Center. The ranking officer on duty that night — one Colonel Shoup, who would deserve a place in The Christmas Hall of Fame if there were such a thing — instructed his staff to inform all the children who called what Santa’s “current location” was. And thus began a NORAD tradition of tracking St. Nick’s.

Since 2007, NORAD has run a website mapping Mr. Claus’s Christmas Eve voyage. The NORAD Santa Tracker initially launched using Google Maps, but in 2012 they’ll be switching to Bing Maps and The Cesium Virtual Globe. The website is available in a variety of languages and features HD videos of Santa’s progress. If you’d prefer your Santa updates in increments of 140 characters or less, there’s also a popular NORAD Santa Tracker Twitter account.

GO TO THE SITE |

Google Santa Tracker

NORAD’s switch to Bing officially ignited a Santa tracker war with Google, which is launching it’s own website this year. The Google Santa Tracker is the work of an entire team of Google engineers who, apparently flush with spare time, developed “new route algorithm” to keep tabs on Father Christmas.

In addition to following Santa on the Google website you can also get updates via an Android app, a Chrome browser extension, Google Earth and a Google+ account. Plus, you can request a phone call from Santa! It all kicks off at 2am PST (-8 GMT) on Christmas Eve.

GO TO THE SITE |

Santa Tracker 2012

Google’s Santa Tracking app (see above) is only for Android. But iPhone users needn’t be left out. The confusingly-similarly named Santa Tracker 2012 app pinpoints Saint Nick’s GPS coordinates as well. You can also use the app, which is especially great in its HD incarnation, to read the North Pole blog, send text messages to Santa and find out where your kids (or you) are on Santa’s nice & naughty list.

DOWNLOAD THE APP |

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Related posts on Spot Cool Stuff:

How to Arrange for a Letter or Phone Call from Santa Claus (Dot Com)
The Bizarre Hotel Where Every Day Is Christmas
Shidonni: The Cool Website Where Kids Design Their Own Stuffed Animals
The World’s Best Toy Store

Elsewhere on the web: