Sometimes scanning for change is about finding information. Sometimes it’s about fueling your imagination, seeking out what Jane McGonigal called “brain grenades”—ideas that shake up your thinking and open your mind to new possibilities.

Here’s a good source for mental explosives: BLDGBlog

BLDGBlog features a news feed pulling from fringe sources such as their sister site Edible Geography, Wired Magazine’s Danger Room (“what’s next in national security”) and We Make Money Not Art as well as mainstream sources like the Guardian and the NYT.

It also conducts long, thoughtful interviews with writers and thinkers with a lot to say about the future, including author China Miéville  (one of my fav authors of science fiction) on the process of envisioning the future of the city, Ed Mazria (founder of Architecture 2030) on architecture and climate change and Sara Redstone (plant health and quarantine officer at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew) on the ecological risks of open borders.

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Then there is the blog posts themselves, which provide a wild tour through the realm of the possible and actual (and the strange intersection of the two). I always find it stimulating reading, whether it is:

• Examining reanimated animals to help us explore the strange and unfamiliar landscapes of robotics.
• Exploring a “different, more playful approach for future constructed architectural projects.”
• Or speculating on the preservation on micro-climates created by historic sites

So how should I describe BLDGBlog? It’s just…oh never mind. It’s kind of like the Museum of Jurassic Technology—explaining it spoils half the fun. Explore it for yourself, and see how it warps alters your perceptions of the world.