greenspun's fantasy cs research lab   (link)

http://philip.greenspun.com/research/fantasy/
New graduate students in computer science often have a difficult time choosing among research projects and may never develop a broad view of the field nor think about the relative significance of efforts in various directions. When new graduate students ask me for advice I tell them to start by pretending that they are the lab director for computer science at a brand-new research university and to come up with a plan for how they'd populate their lab with projects. This is sort of like the fantasy baseball leagues that are popular with kids, hence the page title. In preparing a fantasy research lab plan, a student will need to familiarize him or herself with a broad range of problems and the current state of the art in solutions. This ought to give the student more perspective in planning a career.

also,
http://philip.greenspun.com/research/