I was annoyed by my previous post quoting the New York Times’ usage of “blue ribbon panel” (and the numerous appeals to authority in that entire article) that I looked it up using Google Search’s timeline: site:nytimes.com [“blue ribbon panel” OR “blue ribbon commission”]. There were 621 results.
NPR has a story on an algorithm created by researchers David Larcker and Anastasia Zakolyukina that can allegedly detect when business leaders are being dishonest about their company’s practices or earnings. Unfotunately, they don’t publish the complete wordlists used in their algorithm (pdf) , just these 2 categories: Extreme positive emotions amaz*, A-one, astonish*, awe-inspiring, awesome, [...]
Erin McKean makes the point in a TED talk that, unlike paper dictionaries, online dictionary searches do not provide serendipity: finding something you didn’t know you were looking for. I take this many ways: True, but… How many people regularly flip a dictionary? How exact is search? How many people just type the word into [...]
Tropic Thunder move Boogeyman dvd I’ve been thoroughly amused by the vetting process for political (and supposedly un-political) government positions. Recently there was the vetting for Sarah Palin, VP for McCain’s Republican ticket: Defending his choice and the team that helped pick her, McCain said Tuesday that “the vetting process was completely thorough.” Advisers said [...]
I’ve found the Lumifi Search / Research Platform useful at times, but it sometimes seems like a sledgehammer. They have a widget for just search that’s pretty useful. If I’m looking for specific things with a lot of noise (like “nonprofit culture”), it tends to give some interesting results. Get the lumifi widget and many [...]
On Slashdot today was an entry about Google Search if it was designed for Google. Basically redesigning the page for a higher pagerank. Fun, but the interesting thing was a comment from the comments: Should read: What if Google was a useless site… …and had to design for Google? Lets see… counter examples… how about [...]
