Predicting the Flu, Checking the Weather

Google.org, Google’s philanthropic arm, claims it can predict flu outbreaks about ten days before the CDC can.  Through this site, you can determine the severity of flu outbreaks in your area.  Google bases their predictions on a spike in search terms such as “flu symptoms” on the Google search engine. [Thanks NYTimes]
Compare this to a [...]

Influences on Tag Choices in del.icio.us

If bookmarking on del.icio.us is fundamentally about personal information management — organizing and re-finding your own bookmarks — then it’s important to understand why users choose the tags they do.  There are two major (possibly complementary) hypotheses for how tags are chosen: a social model (we’re influenced by what others on del.icio.us say) and a [...]

Syntax Errors in Javascript: JSLint saves the day

http://jslint.com
At runtime, firebug and Javascript Debugger will catch Javascript errors you need to worry about. But what it you’ve made a syntax error, and that Firebug completely ignores your js file… If you want to avoid hitting Ctrl-z until you find where you made the mistake, or worse, re-read line-by-line your 2000-lines-of-code script, here’s the [...]