FOR for the week of Jan. 10

Egiate.com

Egiate.com is a maps-based college search site that used 3-D animation to afford a clear view of the details of campuses.

The site uses google maps, and in some cases gives the standard google satellite view of a university or college you are looking for. But for many schools, it has 3-D models of buildings around which you can navigate 360 degrees, with tilting options.


Aside from the visuals, the utility also includes data such as tuition cost, majors, student demographic information, etc. You can search for schools with particular degree programs in particular region, layering multiple criteria in a search.


Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

Byting off More Than You Can Chew

Peta, Exa, Zetta, newly-coined denominations of computer storage, as explained by memeburn.com.

Censored Version of Huck Finn, Courtesy of New South

NewSouth, Inc., a small publishing house in Montgomery, AL, is releasing a new edition of Mark Twain's ubiquitous novel Huckleberry Finn that erases all two-hundred and nineteen instances of the word "nigger" from the original text.

The company waxes, one might say, creative, when explaining this choice:
"If the publication sparks a good debate about how language impacts learning
or about the nature of censorship or the way in which racial slurs exercise their
baneful influence, then our mission in publishing this new edition of Twain's works
will be more emphatically fulfilled."

If putting your shoes in a bowl of jello opens a dialogue about the evils of putting someone's shoes in a bowl of jello....

Here's what This Week In Blackness's editor-in-chief Elon James White has to say about the matter in Salon.com

Yahoo Claims It's Selling Delicious.com

A day after one of its employees leaked a slide from a meeting saying Yahoo! planned to "sunset" Delicious.com, the company now says it is instead trying to sell the social bookmarking site. Blogs and discussion boards erupted with criticism and dismay after the rumblings of Delicious's demise began. Yahoo! acknowledged customer anger in a blog post. Stay tuned.

Time Person of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg

They really re-touched his freckles: Here's the brand new online issue of Time, christening facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg the Person of the Year. As for the green lizard eyes, I was going to make a joke about the Geico Gecko, but I found out he has brown eyes. Pretty brown eyes.

FOR for Dec. 13, 2010

Featured Online Resource

December 13, 2010





OECD Stat Extracts

Sources for U.S. statistics are plentiful and well-known. But here's a great, frequently-updated selection of international statistics. The OECD is the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; the StatExtracts, part of the organization's i-library, pertain to many economic and commerce-oriented issues, but extend well beyond that, and can be considered an excellent source for all international-relations or foreign government questions.

Topics include:
Aid Activities
African Economic Outlook
Foreign, International Students Enrolled (by country)
Inland Waters by lakes
Monthly Statistics of International Trade
Purchasing Power Parities Statistics
Patents Statistics
Social Expenditure
Child Well-being

and many more. And, if you scroll to the bottom of the menu on the left, you come to the country profiles menu, which gives you a collection of stats for a particular country--the topics therein are nearly all the individual ones above in the menu, but not exactly.
To the largest extent, the data is for the thirty-four OECD member countries, but the menu on the left of the StatsExtracts page includes a "non-member economies" option, which is available throughout the OECD site.

With the StatisticsExtracts, you can work with the data to create spreadsheets, charts, etc. Choose from line charts, bar charts, pie graphs, and more.

The rest of the OECD's site is very useful, crammed full of original articles on competition, agriculture, education, on and on. Highly recommended!


Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

U.S. Students Not Doing So Well

Or...so good?
This is the kind of news story that seems to be in front of us perpetually. There's no surprise in it, or even a sense of newness, but its importance cannot be questioned. Here's msnbc's report on the U.S.'s poor performance on the 2009 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).