If you’re feeling guilty for not keeping up with the news, try Newsmap. The site varies headlines by size and color depending on how much coverage a news item gets. This lets you quickly see top news items as well as biases and trends in news coverage. You can see Newsmap with a flick of the finger by combining it with Exposé and WebDesktop. Here’s how:

1. Download WebDesktop

• WebDesktop (It’s free)

2. Set up WebDesktop

1. Go to the WebDesktop menu and choose “Open URL” and enter “http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm” in the field. Press “OK”

2. Expand the WebDesktop window to the size you want.

3. Go to the WebDesktop menu and choose “Preferences” and set your desired opacity and refresh time.

3. Set Exposé preferences

1. Go to the “Dashboard and Exposé” preference pane in “System Preferences”.

2. In the “Active Screen Corners” area, choose the corner you want to use to reveal the desktop.

Once you’ve set everything up, just move your mouse pointer to a corner of the screen to reveal the news. Now you’ve got no excuse to keep up with what’s going on in the world!

The newsletters are great, but since Flavorpill’s still in beta, you may find parts of the service lacking. For example, the preferred way to subscribe is via e-mail instead of more convenient RSS feeds and calendering systems such as iCal. RSS feeds do exist but only for five of the ten newsletters. Since those feeds aren’t obvious, you can subscribe with these links:

• Flavorpill New York
• Flavorpill San Francisco
• Flavorpill Los Angeles
• Flavorpill Chicago
• Flavorpill London

If you live in San Francisco, Brett Lider’s kindly created a calendar compatible with iCal and Google Calendar:

• Flavorpill San Francisco via iCal
• Flavorpill San Francisco via Google Calendar

Once you’ve subscribed, the next step to increase your cool factor is to actually go to some of the events, or at least say you did.

Does anyone have resources for cool events in other cities? Don’t hesitate to post in the comments!