25 January 2011

On the next step in online searching

I gather this was launched today, but it is designed to grow by the accretion of user comments. My initial impression is that it is more suited to casual browsing than targeted searching, but it's welcome nonetheless, and who knows?

23 January 2011

On rejection

Why did no-one think of this before? Just think of how much effort it will save!


Acknowledgements to Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution.

21 January 2011

On a brilliant utility

Arising out of the previous post--probably this is old news to everyone else and I am the last to discover it (that's not unusual) but if you have a site or a blog, just register it on this site, and you'll get a few lines of javascript to past into your page or template or server-side-includes.

And thereafter whenever anyone copies and pastes from your material, the source URL will automatically be added to their paste.
  • At one level this is a nudge to any student attempting to plagiarise from your site (although of course it can be deleted), but
  • at another level it is a service to them if they are building up notes for an assignment, because a clickable trace back to the original is automatically generated.
Brilliant. (And free.)

On a useful link exchange

I don't usually rise to the bait of link exchanges, particularly if they claim that this blog is in the "top 100" of anything--albeit at 92, and based on one post.

But this one was interesting enough to be worth a visit, and repaid the effort. Lots of useful ideas and resources, including a few I would link to directly, except that would undermine the effort Jennifer and colleagues have put into developing it--which would itself be a form of plagiarism!

18 January 2011

On/in memoriam: Nat Lofthouse

I'm not a sport fan, at all. But having lived in Bolton, for whose team Nat played for his entire career (apart from his England appearances), I cannot but commemorate/celebrate the passing of an icon of another era.

09 January 2011

On the trustworthiness of research--again.

Sorry to keep coming back to this yet again, but there does seem to be a surge of interest in the topic.

03 January 2011

On the New Year

http://www.worldometers.info/


All the very best for 2011!