Funding cool things

In a break from posting about blogs, I'm going to post about spending your money.  That's right, you can spend your money on nifty things.  These are alternatives to donating to charities, which I highly encourage you to do as well.

First there are sites like Kiva, which is a microfinance site.  You lend small amounts of money to other people around the world for different projects, businesses and such.  When those people pay the loan back, you don't get the money, but you get to reinvest it in another project.  Nifty.  They also give a $25 free loan away to new people who sign up.

Then comes Kickstarter and Indiegogo.  These are not loan sites, but crowd funding sites.  They aren't tax deductible, but they have a different bonus: neat stuff!  The people on these sites pitch their ideas, whether it's a school field trip to the LHC or a bookmark that holds your place automatically.  Then you get to choose if you want to donate to them and how much.  Typically the more you donate the more you get.  A small donation may get a mention on their website or a postcard and a large donation may get you a t-shirt or a ticket to the premier of the movie they just made.

The following sites are also either microfinance or crowd funding sites.  I have not looked into them and have not used them myself (unlike those mentioned above) so you're on your own.
http://www.petridish.org/
http://www.fundageek.com/
http://www.rockethub.com/
http://ready.33needs.com/
http://www.appbackr.com/
http://www.chipin.com/
http://cofundos.com/
http://en.fansnextdoor.com/
http://www.microventures.com/
http://peerbackers.com/about-us/
http://www.pozible.com.au/
http://www.quirky.com/
http://www.artistshare.net/v4/
http://www.pledgemusic.com/
https://www.sellaband.com/
https://www.zidisha.org/index.php
http://www.babyloan.org/fr/
http://www.veecus.com/
http://www.myelen.com/myelen/
http://www.vittana.org/
http://www.unitedprosperity.org/
http://www.myc4.com/
http://www.globalgiving.org/

Has anyone else used Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Kiva or a similar site?  What did you think?

Blog suggestions from our readers?

I'm currently working on posts about

* politics, local or otherwise
* charities and crowd source funding
* animals who have blogs

If you have any suggestions for blogs on these topics, or a topic you'd like to see in the future, let me know in the comments!

Warning: You may die of the animal cuteness.

We're going cute today!

Do you like rabbits, kittens or puppies?  What about baby zoo animals?

For the traditionalists, there's always ICHC's squee and cute overload which are full of the cute.

If you like celebrities of the internet, check out the famous Maru!

There's also holy cuteness, the cute project, snuzzy and the aptly-named cute things falling asleep.

Did I miss your favorite cute animal blog?  Tell me in the comments!

How do you take your science?

If you like your science in paragraph format, I suggest Bad Astronomy, which is one of the many Discover Magazine blogs and the Wired Science blog.  For weather there is Jeff Master's Wunderblog and the DC area Capital Weather Gang page.

For comic format there's always xkcd as well as the work of Sidney Harris.

If you like pictures better, I suggest Astronomy Picture of the Day and National Geographic Photo of the Day.

There's also video blogs... er, classrooms?  Crash Course (which has things other than science, like history) and Minute Physics are my favorites on YouTube.  Also not to miss is CGP Grey who takes an amusing track to complicated explanations about seemingly simple things, like leap years.

If none of those suffice, I suggest the many music videos of Symphony of Science.  Start with 'A Glorious Dawn'.