Students rate their professors… and in return, there’s a blog where professors rate their students. There’s some really interesting commentary there, but I wish they’d ease up on the italics.
Category: learning
Bill Gates has said, “ĶSearch today is still kind of a hunt, where you get all these links, and as we teach software to understand the documents, really read them in the sense a human does, you’ll get answers more directlyĶ” And branching off of that, here are some predictions for where search engines are headed in the next year. While some are pretty wild, like when “a single query will bring a gallery of results equivalent to running multiple queries about the meaningful variations of the same topic,” I’d be happy enough with evolution such that “a search engine will let users evaluate answers on the spot by displaying uninterrupted and coherent text snippets, often letting searchers forgo having to click through to links.”
Swivel is a web service that lets you compare public statistics, as long as they share some dimension (e.g. time, demographic, etc). For example, here’s a graph on coffee consumption and the rate of violent crime. Or accidental death, poisoning versus falls. And college student drug use. There’s some cool data sharing and some correlation features there. Get your Chi-square on.
I like that the UMich School of Information has a very simple graphic that tells you which classes you need to take for each Master’s-level specialization, like this one. Compare with my general requirements as an Emory undergrad. Granted, I’m comparing a more specific 2-year program to a more flexible 4-year one, but the UMich image is so much easier to understand quickly. It’s good to show the information in multiple forms, catering to those who want to read everything and those who just want a quick-and-dirty introduction.
WordCountѢ is an interactive presentation of the 86,800 most frequently used English words.
Leah Peterson has a great set of interviews with bloggers.Rebecca Blood has a great set of interviews with bloggers.
Leah Peterson recently interviewed Rebecca Blood.
I was at work today in the library and saw the most wonderful thing. Over in the magazine section, there was an old guy reading. Grey hair, wrinkles, hunched in his chair. Maybe in his 60s-70s. He even had a walker to help him get around.
So what do you think he’s reading? National Geographic? Time? Smithsonian?
Nah. He was flipping through Transworld Skateboarding. Just when you think you know your customers…
Rebecca Blood shares the hot tip from Dangerous Meta, that Encyclopedia Brittanica has a weblog. This could be really cool.
This set of typography lessons is wonderful. I have much to learn. There are so many cool links and tutorials in there. Well worth the time of anyone who cares about art and words and reading and writing and the nuances of presentation.
I like this comic-form introduction to lockpicking. Seems like a great media for something so visual, but somewhat complex.
I spent the morning listening to all the Productive Talks podcasts at 43 Folders, a series of dialogues between productivity gurus Merlin Mann and David Allen. They are excellent conversations on GTD philosophy and action, without much packaging fluff.
David has some hilarious ranting in the fifth episode about e-mail. Really, why are we still whining about e-mail? Another good moment came in a brief detour about kids being raised in a GTD household: “That’s great, Grandma, but what’s the next action here?” I love it. And then there’s this important philosophical bit to keep in mind: “Quite frankly, you shouldn’t be thinking about GTD.”
I’ve taken first steps to collect and process, and I can see how easy it is to get distracted by “perfecting your system,” when really it’s just another project to be evaluated and processed. Lastly, I love how fast they talk. It’s such a nice change from some other o-ver a-nun-ci-at-ed podcasts I’ve heard. Go listen, but you might want to read the book first.
TEDTalks are weekly presentations by “trusted voices and convention-breaking mavericks, icons and geniuses.” Among the talks already posted are those from Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Tony Robbins, Eve Ensler, and many more… [via nb]
If only everyone knew about research beyond Google. I love the Google but it ain’t always the easiest. One bright and shining day we won’t need to know all these hundreds of unique resources. In the meanwhile, Peter Morville suggests some intrepid soul create a Google Custom Search.
Some of the best Lifehacker articles and comments have been freshly collected, edited, and soon available in paperback.
This is exactly the sort of thing where Wikipedia dominates: a fresh, current article on internet phenomena and a list of internet memes. Take that, Britannica!
Visualizing Meaning is a project among scholars at Cornell, who were asked, “Of the many charts you have seen in your life, which has been the most important, remarkable, meaningful, or valuable?” [via rebecca’s pocket crediting seat 1a linking to infosthetics]
Salman Rushdie will join Emory University as Distinguished Writer in Residence, as well as hand over his archive, which is really cool. I’m interested to see the ripple effect from this in public events over the next couple years. Might be some good stuff if he’s hanging out in Atlanta more. Hopefully he’ll stir up some trouble. [thanks Rebekah]
Have you ever wondered what exactly the difference is between the United Kingdom and Great Britain? Or how exactly does Wales fit in there? And what’s up with Northern Ireland? What you need is a helpful Venn Diagram. [via monkeytime]
Mark Larson 
