"OneLook's reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept. Your description can be a few words, a sentence, a question, or even just a single word."
TheCenter for the Study of Ethics in the Professions puts codes of ethics from professional societies, corporations, government, and academic institutions online.
The Education Index is "an annotated guide to the best education-related sites on the Web."
In case you missed it, check out today's AP story about how the The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention screwed up its obesity study.
The study, whose co-authors included the director of the CDC, had claimed that obesity could soon overtake tobacco as the leading cause of death.
Among the simple mathematical errors they made: Using numbers from the wrong year to calculate obesity deaths.
The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story, also reported that the study used different methods for computing death rates from tobacco and obesity. That meant the rates couldn't be compared, but they were compared anyway. And other CDC scientists raised doubts about the study before it was published, but those doubts weren't included.
Worse still, it was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a peer-reviewed journal. That shows you just how rigorous peer review really is.
It's a good reminder not to have an exaggerated respect for academic studies, regardless of how impressive the authors' credentials are.
And a reminder not to make the same stupid mistakes when you do computer-assisted reporting ...
Jim Malone found this spreadsheet online showing disciplinary actions taken by the Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services the last three years. Seems like there are a lot of drunk drivers and convicted felons who want to be EMTs. The site notes the disciplinary section is still under construction.
"The Justice Policy Institute is a non-profit research and a public policy organization dedicated to ending society’s reliance on incarceration and promoting effective and just solutions to social problems."
Google recently bought Keyhole, which sells satellite imagery of the world, and now you can get a free 7-day trial. "Fly from space to your home town. Visit exotic locales such as Maui, Tokyo, Rome and Paris. Satellite imagery makes it real. Explore restaurants, hotels, parks and schools. Think magic carpet ride!" More and more news organizations are using such imagery to illustrate their reporting.
morgueFile offers free image reference material for artists, photographers and anyone else.
North Carolina State U. offers a collection of links to "web sites of high quality of likely interest to researchers in art and design."
The Washington Post used 3D mapping software to produce very interesting images showing where Bush and Kerry got their votes.
Google unveiled a new scholar search this week. "Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research," Google says. "Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web."
The National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, a nonprofit organization in Oklahoma City formed in the wake of the bombing of the federal building there, has unveiled a "Terrorism Knowledge Database," Federal Computer Week reports. "The MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base is the one-stop resource for comprehensive research and information on domestic and international terrorism, terrorist incidents, terrorism-related legal documents, and terrorist groups," the site says. "In addition to content and raw data, the Terrorism Knowledge Base offers several analytical tools, including a GIS-powered interactive map, statistical reports, and user-defined graphing utility." The site specifically touts its value to journalists: "The Terrorism Knowledge Base contains background information on a wide array of terrorist organizations and leaders. The knowledge base contains information on groups actively engaged in terrorist attacks, as well as offering a historical record of groups that are no longer operating. Journalists might also be interested in the profiles of key leaders, including group founders and commanders. The knowledge base includes not only current leaders but also leaders of note throughout history." It also offers an image archive,"which includes pictures of terrorist attacks, leaders, terrorist training, and group logos and flags."
Jim Malone points out there's a directory of Kentucky hospitals on the Kentucky Hospital Association's Web site. It includes the number of beds, the owner and CEO, the Web site and will draw you a map of where it is.
The National Center for Health Statistics has a page devoted to trends in health and aging.
If you want to keep up with the doings of your favorite company, you can sign up for Gannett e-mail alerts here. Gannett's Investor Relations Web site offers lots of information for Gannettoids, including annual reports, SEC filings, stock charts and more.
A tobacco activist is blogging the federal government's trial against the tobacco industry, which is only being sporadically covered by the mainstream media.
City-Data.com, "As featured on Bay News 9 in Tampa Bay," collects "geographical data, crime data, housing, businesses, political contributions, weather, hospitals, schools, libraries, houses, airports, radio and TV stations, zip codes, area codes, user-submitted facts, similar cities list, comparisons to averages..."
The ResourceShelf offers links to good sports libraries on the Web. This includes libraries on stock car racing, cricket, swimming, and skiing, as well as the usual suspects such as baseball and basketball.
Yahoo and The New York Times offer online glossaries of financial terms.
The Heritage Foundation has put online data on global U.S. troop deployment from 1950 to 2003.
Sperling's BestPlaces lets you compare cities on nearly 100 categories, including schools, crime rates, cost of living, health care, economy, transportation, climate and more.
SearchEngineWatch describes two new meta search engines "with personality." Meta search engines collect results from multiple search engines at once. iZito lets you "park" results you like in a sidebar. Ujiko lets you quickly "trash" irrelevant links and rate links you like with hearts, which bring those to the top on your next search.
Still another is Clusty, which groups search results into subtopics, making it easier to zero in on what you're looking for.
All are worth trying to break the Google-only habit.
The Marion Street Press offers "Essential Books for Writers and Journalists," including The Concise Guide to Copy Editing, Math Tools for Journalists, Understanding Financial Statements: A Journalist's Guide, Pen & Sword: A Journalist's Guide to Covering the Military, and the Dimwit's Dictionary: 5,000 Overused Words and Phrases and Alternatives to Them.
GoHigherKY.org "is Kentucky's source for post-secondary education information, online applications, and much more." It is a government site sponsored by the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority.
NICAR offers the FBI database on crime from 1980 to 2002.
The Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission now has an online database where you can look up lobbyist spending. You can search by lobbyist name or employer. The site says it is updated twice a day.
It returns records going back to 1993, including breakdowns for food and beverage expenses; receptions, meetings and events; and more general lobbying costs. It also tells you not only a lobbyist's current clients, but his or her former clients as well. It also gives you phone numbers and addresses.
Given all the blather about red and blue states a healthy corrective is to checkout this online map of presidential voting by county from a Princeton prof. It's a fine example of using geographic information system (GIS) mapping to display data (we used the same kind of software to produce our precinct maps). It demonstrates how misleading it can be to color an entire state one color or another, since within those states there is much more diversity of opinion than using a single color statewide suggests. He also uses some techniques to show population density, making clear that those great expanses of red territory also happen to great expanses of relative emptiness...An AT&T researcher used the same data to create "cartograms" that readjust the counties so their shape reflects their population...
Starting Nov. 1 you will be able to get federal criminal records online. Now you can only get federal civil or bankruptcy records online. Details are here.
According to the federal court's new policy, "if a member of the public can access a criminal case file document at the courthouse, he or she should be able to access that same document through the court's remote electronic access system."
Personal identifiers won't be included, although they aren't supposed to be included on paper records either. Personal identifiers that are supposed to be removed include, "Social Security and financial account numbers to the last four digits; the names of minor children to the initials; dates of birth to the year; and home addresses to the city and state." But it's the filer's responsibility to remove them, so it's possible some records will still contain those.
The 2004-2005 edition of the U.S. Government Manual is out and available online. "As the official handbook of the Federal Government, the United States Government Manual provides comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches," the site explains. "It also includes information on quasi-official agencies, international organizations in which the United States participates, and boards, commissions, and committees." Each section includes a list of sources of information you can use to learn more about an agency or to track its activities.
