This Google Street View hack is my favourite urban-themed time-waster of a still young 2012. Basically it allows users to create polar panoramas with just about zero effort. All you have to do is select a street corner that you're interested in and — voila — the program will use the Street View Data to alter the scene into something akin to a planet or whirlpool.

"The hack uses data from Streetview to create stereographic images that either wrap a stretch of road into a planetary ball or conversely explode Streetview outwards, creating swirling vortexes of urban fabric," reads a post on the Atlantic Cities website, where I discovered this little toy.

The Atlantic post also features screenshots of the hack put to use on popular scenes that include the Colosseum, Eiffel Tower and the Las Vegas Strip. I've put together a few screen caps of Toronto intersections, but I'm quite sure there's way better scenes to found upon further exploration. Give it a try — you just might lose your day.