OpenStreetMap
One of the most enjoyable OSM distractions is mapping utterly random bits of America, courtesy of Yahoo! imagery (which you all know about) and what is possibly Potlatch's best secret - OpenTopoMap, public domain US cartography.
The streets are all there already, of course, courtesy of TIGER. But rivers, tracks, disused railways and so on can all be added from Yahoo and OpenTopoMap, greatly enriching the map and providing a fun form of virtual tourism.
I've just enjoyed a virtual visit to the town of Potlatch, Idaho, and started tracing the River Palouse.
Discussion
Comment from HannesHH on 9 September 2008 at 12:21
I love removing unnecessary nodes from the TIGER data. Straight streets with 15 nodes and such. It gives me the feeling of making OSM faster, huzzah! (Yes, more of a placebo, but feel-good is always nice.)
Comment from daveemtb on 9 September 2008 at 14:00
What an appropriately named town! Out of interest, where did the name for the editor come from? I'm assuming not Potlatch, Idaho?!
Comment from Richard on 9 September 2008 at 14:09
It's from the Lettrist International - a bunch of French ne'er-do-wells from the '50s who walked around Paris and made utterly impractical maps. Their journal was called Potlatch. They later became the Situationists who are a bit better known.
In turn they got it from a Native American custom - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlatch - which was a highly effective subversion of normal economic laws, based on giving everything away. I thought that was quite appropriate for OSM.
Plus there's a section on the Wikipedia entry called "Potlatch ban" which might appeal to talk-de. ;)