Ask-ing Cuil questions of Google

by | Tuesday, August 05, 2008

How do we evaluate a search engine? Chris Wilson attempts to answer this question (with help from the crowd) in his article on Slate “How To Talk to a Search Engine: Three queries to help decide if Google or Cuil or Ask is right for you?”

The three search items he suggested are, George W. Bush (with the W and the period), viagra and your own name. Read the reasons he points out…

Incidentally, I had evaluated Cuil (the day it was released) and was less than impressed, something that Wilson’s respondents also point out (read about that here). Also, Mike DeSchryver has been conducting some research on how search engines can potentially help teachers become more creative (find out more here and here).

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Acts of Translation

I recently finished reading three books: A case of Two Cities by Qiu Xialong, A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami, and Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations by Alexander McCall Smith. These are three very different books. The first two are novels and the third is a...

The end of the university II

From my end of the university as we know it series, here is another article, this time from The Washington Monthly, titled College for $99 a Month: The next generation of online education could be great for students—and catastrophic for universities. Here are some key...

East Lansing in the NYTimes

Olivia Judson has a great column in the NYTimes about evolution. Today's column titled "Stop the mutants" is a thought experiment on how evolution would fare if all mutations were to magically stop. It is an interesting article, and in keeping with her previous...

A tangent, a line & a circle, another Math-Poem

A tangent, a line and a circle A math poem Image credit: chrstphre (on Flickr) A point outside a circle, shoots out two lines one heading for the center the other more feline smoothly kisses the curve That delicate swerve of the ball and then, abruptly turns to the...

Baby Talk

This piece was written sometime early 1996 when we were expecting our first child. I posted it to the web when we were expecting our second. It still reads well... Connections A few weeks ago, Smita (my wife) and I found out that we were going to have a baby–our...

Cosmetic changes

I have made some cosmetic changes to the way the blog looks. The sidebars are now light blue, to differentiate them from the middle (content heavy) column. Once I did this I realized that I did not need that boxy border around the middle column, and pouf, it was gone....

Unpacking TPACK

Suzy Cox is a lecturer in educational technology and educational psychology at Utah Valley State College and also a doctoral candidate at Brigham Young University (working with Dr. Charles Graham). She is currently working on her dissertation which seeks to develop a...

véjà du for the first time ever!

I learned a new term today, véjà du. As we all know (didn't I write a posting about this earlier?) déjà vu (or paramnesia) from the French meaning “already seen” describes the experience of feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously. It...

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *