When you have the one perfect search term… … your searching is basically done. Searching for ideas that have a single, uncommon term that captures the essence isn’t hard. Once you get that term–e.g., zymurgy, Sisyphean, or even boogie-woogie–yo…
I’m traveling again,.. so I’ll be answered this past week’s Challenge a little later than usual. Don’t panic. This was a really interesting SRS Challenge, so I want to devote enough time to writing it up. Will be back online late tomorrow, Tuesday……
The first time I ran across this behavior in a field study I was deeply surprised: How could a literate person who goes web browsing and searching on a daily basis NOT know how to do a Find on the page? It was as if someone could read and knew the alp…
Where is everybody moving to? It’s a big political year in the US, with the presidential race heating up, preparing for the election this coming November. And, as usual, the candidates are debating this and that, mostly without much data to support th…
Why a giant arc of lakes?? Last week’s question was “Why is there an arc of lakes stretching across North America in a gentle arc?” Here’s that motivating picture (drawn from Google Earth with my annotation on top): What’s going on here? Is there s…
Where did the morning go? I ask myself that question at least twice a week, wondering where a couple hours of my day has gone.I finally have the answer: I think I’m doing something that’s different, and a little unexpected… I’m “syntopically…
You know that odd sensation you get… … when you first notice something that you should have seen before now? I mean, sometimes you’ll look at something you’ve seen for years, and then a new feature just sort of pops out at you. Ever have that hap…
These three images need different skills… Remember that our Challenge this week was to figure out where these pictures came from and what’s going on in each of them. All you know is that they come different universities AND that I took them. 1. Wh…
Next time I won’t react with such a blank stare. I was surprised when a student in my Internet Search Skills class at the public library asked a question 30 seconds into my class: “Umm… when you say that the presentation is linked off your home …
As I travel around… … I often visit different universities to give talks (often about SearchResearch), to visit with faculty members, or to teach classes. It’s a part of my job that I really enjoy–I love teaching, and I’m lucky to have a job that…
I’m happy to say… …. that we’re re-opening the PowerSearchingWithGoogle.com MOOC. As you know, this is the online course that covers a lot of basic search skills (such as advanced operators) and a bit of intermediate skills (such as how to evaluat…
None of these are especially tough… … but they’re all small things that you’d think you would have learned along the way. But somehow, there’s no course to take in this. 1. You’re driving a rental car and driving into the gas station. How can …
Every so often… something happens to make me worry that I missed something really big in my education. That happened again earlier this week. It shot a cold, sharp spike down my spine.It started innocently enough with a radio story on NPR about child…
A few questions to keep you searching for a bit… … questions that seem straightforward enough, but ones to which you might not know the answers. 1. You’re driving a rental car and driving into the gas station. How can you tell (without getting ou…
Turns out they’re the Tohono O’odham people… Yes, I know I asked about the Papago, but remember this: Things Change Over Time. This is one of those things you have to remember, especially when looking for cultural identities or political bodies–st…