Cohenville

Google’s Knowledge Graph

brad — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:43:13 +0000

Google is rolling out their Knowledge Graph over the next few days. Looks interesting with a lot of potential applications. From Google:

When you search, you’re not just looking for a webpage. You’re looking to get answers, understand concepts and explore.

The next frontier in search is to understand real-world things and the relationships among them. So we’re building a Knowledge Graph: a huge collection of the people, places and things in the world and how they’re connected to one another.

Watch the video below for more information.

Source: Google Blog

2012 Election Map

brad — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:45:03 +0000

The Washington Post’s “The Fix” has a nice interactive graphic breaking down the 2012 election state by state and county by county. You can drill in at multiple levels, see views based on different criteria like unemployment and income, and see historical voting trends. They also have up-to-date analysis by Chris Cillizza and his team.

An American History “textbook”

brad — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:36:14 +0000

USHistory.org, created by the Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia, has three online textbooks/courses on American History. A lot of good information at the high-school level, an easy read if you are interested in US History. There are a number of other interesting features on the site that are worth checking out as well.

Designing a Good Presentation

brad — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:18:53 +0000

For years I’ve developed presentations for clients, colleagues and academia. Dr. Andrew Abela has written several books and holds workshops on “Extreme Presentations“, and has a blog with interesting tips and ideas. He has a 10-step approach to designing a presentation and it’s worth a read. Especially useful is the “chart selector“, which helps you decide what chart is best based on the data you are trying to represent.

America’s Historic Newspapers

brad — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:31:31 +0000

The Library of Congress has digitized newspapers from 1836 in their “Chronicling America” site, and it’s fully searchable by keyword. It’s quite slick and worth a look.

Finding movies on Netflix

brad — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:20:51 +0000

Lifehacker had a post on a new(?) website to help you sort through Netflix streaming options by using Rotten Tomatoes rankings as a guide. It’s called A Better Queue.

Source: Lifehacker

Free Online University Education

brad — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:21:44 +0000

For a while now, many prestigious universities have been posting their lectures (audio and video) up on the web – often with syllabus and course materials. But actual classes, the whole thing with a certificate for passing included, wasn’t prevalent (not for free anyway). Now Harvard and M.I.T. have paired up to do just that, described at the New York Times. The article also lists two other initiatives from major universities: Stanford, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan have Coursera and a Stanford professor started Udacity to do just the same.

Tracking Elections Online

brad — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:16:12 +0000

Wired magazine had a good article on cutting through political rhetoric to follow the elections. It lists a number of good sites of reference to track election progress, check facts, research candidates and follow the entire process for both national and local elections. It’s worth a read. Here are the contents:

A “No-Gym” Workout

brad — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:41:29 +0000

Lifehacker had another good post that consolidated information, videos and exercises that could all be done without a gym membership or any equipment – with nothing but your body. It includes exercises for all different parts of your body too – so whatever your need you should find some good tips.

Source: Lifehacker

Repair projects you should do yourself

brad — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:55:01 +0000

Lifehacker had a post about common repairs that you should not hire someone to do for you – they are simple enough to do on your own. It includes video tutorials.

Source: Lifehacker