I was wondering, what can you recommend doing on the web that's educational?
I can think of watching TED. Do you know of any other good educational video sites?
Of course, taking a break from the computer is always an option which I also pursue, but what do you consider quality time on the web?
Almost everything that's relaxing in the sense of "feels like TV" isn't go to be a good education. That doesn't mean learning can't be fun, but it means you have to set aside a block of time and let yourself sink into the material instead of glossing over it in 30 minute chunks.
I've also found time spent socially interacting with folks over the web - in an "involving yourself in their life" sense, not in a "post on the same message board" sense - to be very rewarding. Several online friends have since become RL friends after a couple years of commenting on their LiveJournal and talking to them on AIM. LiveJournal is great for this, FaceBook not so much, since the culture on FaceBook is very much about taking pre-existing RL friends and interacting with them online.
I also have reddit, slashdot, cnn, kuro5hin, and fark pointing to 127.0.0.1 in my /etc/hosts file. The only sites I allow myself to check now are news.yc and nytimes.com
Joining an open source project, or helping people out in a technical forum is honorable, but not what I'm looking for, since coding is what I usually do. Love citeseer and damninteresting.
I guess I'll go pick up some old books of mine too.
Thanks, keep stuff coming.