Google helps researchers with new tools

Google has lately added new research functionality to both Google Docs and Google Scholar.  YAY Google!

In Google Docs, you there's a new Research Tool.  It will appear as a right sidebar, in which you can search - without leaving Google Docs - for web resources, publications (via Scholar), images, videos, etc.

What's really, really cool is that you can then select a search result and, at a click of your mouse, embed the citation into the Google Doc either within the text or as a footnote.  And you can choose whether the citation will be in APA, MLA, or Chicago format!

It's not powerful enough (yet) for professional researchers, but it's a godsend for high-school students writing essays, for journalists, and for some university work.  It would be nice if it could produce a conventional "References" section at the end of the document - like most scientists and engineers like it - and it would be even better if it talked to zotero, mendeley, and other citation management tools.

But even in its relatively simple form, it's still a fantastic step forward for Google Docs.

In Google Scholar, you can now build a "My Citations" profile page, that will hunt down all your publications, show you how often they've been cited, and calculate various factors that are supposed to indicate how your publications rank compared to the rest of your research community.  (Mine is publicly viewable here.)  And you can get citations to export from Google Scholar directly to bibtex and a bunch of other citation management systems (but not to zotero or mendelay - sniff, sniff).

It's wonderful to see Google provide better support for researchers.

Putting on your pants two legs at a time

Sometimes, you don't even notice you had a problem till you see the solution.  Thereafter, you can't understand how you could have ever been so blind.

If you wear boxer shorts, you may have had some difficulty in keeping them from bunching up when you pull up your trousers.  It wasn't a problem back in the 1940's because trousers were far roomier than they are these days.

And, if you're like me and getting on in years, your flexibility will start to suffer, and getting one's shorts to un-bunch when one is of a certain age can be a bit of a challenge.

Well, here's the solution.  It's a brilliant designerly way to look at the problem: stuff the boxers into your trousers first.  Without your legs in the way, it's easy to line everything up.  Then you just pull them both on at once.  Presto!  No bunching of the shorts!

Retro self-improvement app may just help form good habits

A few days ago, DESIGNTAXI published an interesting little post, about a "hipster app" - aka a sheet of paper with writing on it - that purports to help improve yourself in just 30 days.

Now before your Woo-meter goes into the red, please consider this thing just for a few minutes.



It's a small booklet that you can print onto a single page and fold yourself using the pocket mod folding technique.  And it's free, here.

What this thing lets you do is try to develop a positive habit.  Too many people think that all habits are bad.  Well, if you're Charles Manson, or Jason Bourne, they probably are (but for different reasons).  For the rest of us, habits can be very useful things.  You want to make a habit of brushing your teeth.  You want to make a habit of checking your blind spot when you're driving.  Why?  Because they are (a) good things that (b) you don't really need to think a lot about to do.  By forming good habits, you will naturally tend to take care of yourself better, work better, play better - all without the cognitive load of having to consciously manage those tasks.

We tend to form bad habits without really knowing we're doing it.  That means we don't really know how to form a habit - it just happens.  So, when you want to form a good habit... What do you do?

That's where the "Hipster Habit App" comes in.  It's easy to use - ridiculously easy to carry around with you - and it provides a template for you to form pretty much any habit you want.

I haven't tried it myself, but I must admit it looks good.  It's not too saccharine, not too geeky, and not too hard.  Of course you can't change yourself - you are who you are - but you can adapt.  You can tweak yourself - hack yourself, if you prefer - without worrying about changing your base code.  You can't change it anyways, so get over it.  The Hipster Habit App is an interesting, low-overhead way to do that.  It seems based on sound psychology (as far as I can tell), so except for the usual Your Mileage Will Vary disclaimer, I think this could actually work.