Saturday I dug out the VibesMasto News Monitor so I could monitor news about the protests around the country. It was very useful but it also made me cringe. I first made this tool about two years ago when I knew a lot less about JavaScript, and its code is CRUSTY. Uncrusting it became yesterday’s […]
Monitoring Protest Hashtags With VibesMasto
Can’t go to the protests today but you still want to know what’s going on? Check out this tool I made to monitor hashtags at the larger Mastodon instances and aggregate them into a browser tab that refreshes automatically. I set it up because I have a tiny instance and our news flow isn’t great. […]
“Protest” as a Wikipedia Topic for Public Interest
After the protests this weekend, I wondered if there had been a surge in public interest in the general Wikipedia topic of “protest.” So I plugged it into Wikipedia Seismograph to find out. Oh yes, there absolutely was. This also gave me a chance to test Wikipedia Attention Surfer to see what other topics were […]
Grouping Concepts Temporally Instead of Topically, Using Wikipedia Data
There’s been so much talk about “vibes” in programming lately that it gave me an idea for a Wikipedia tool. If you accept the idea that Wikipedia page view data can be used as “fossilized attention” (indicators of public interest in a topic) then you can use information extracted from page view data — like […]
Video: How to Use US Local News Search
If you’ve got two minutes and seventeen seconds to spare, I can teach you how to use the US Local News Search. Enter in a city and state and discover the TV stations which serve that city as well as the newspapers and NPR stations which serve the state. Select up to 25 sources from […]
SearchTweaks.com Updated – 16 Free Tools for Better Web Search
I learned so much overhauling WikiTwister that I immediately came up with several ideas for improving SearchTweaks, my collection of 16 web-based tools for making your web search better/easier/more interesting. After a very busy few days I have uploaded the new version and I’m delighted to share it with you. SearchTweaks is free to use […]
A 3-Minute Video on How to Use Wikipedia Seismograph
EDIT: Someone asked me if this video is on YouTube. It is, right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8XxxvQ6alY . I wanted to make sure I provided it in a format that didn’t automatically come with advertising, which is why I didn’t share that link first. I have a phobia about doing videos because I have a goofy voice […]
Expanding Wikipedia Seismograph Into a Related Concept Explorer
Before, Wikipedia Seismograph used Wikipedia page view spikes to create date-bounded Google News searches, but I added in a bunch of different APIs and functionality. Now it’s a concept-exploring machine and I’ve barely gotten started adding stuff to it.
My Dream RSS Reader is Working WAY Too Well
In late November I put together a homebrew RSS reader to address some of my challenges in trying to keep up with thousands of RSS feeds. I knew at the time that I wasn’t going to immediately get a sense of how well it worked because we were heading into the December holidays. I’d have […]
Using Google Books for Web Search: Concept Compassing
I’ve been spending my weekend playing with how Google Books could guide Web search after someone asked me about #3 in Five Ways Google Could Improve Search In 2025 That Have Nothing To Do With AI. How could Google Books make search better? I had some ideas and I applied JavaScript to them. After a few days of doodling around I’m at that point where I’ve got something that works so well I keep falling down rabbit holes playing with it. 😂