Spaced Out :: 05 2007

Well it’s a good question and something many authors want to know. ScienceDirect, one of the largest distributors of online journals, now has a site dedicated to listing article downloads. Called ScienceDirect Top 25 Articles it lists, not surprisingly, the top 25 articles at Science Direct. However whats powerful about the web based front end (and download statistics behind it) is that you can filter it by journal and time period. Of course it doesn’t include all journals worldwide, just the Science Direct stable, but it really is a good place to start.

There are various ways that this could be improved though. The time periods are fixed, whereas it would be nice to set your own. It would also be nice to be able to filter by author or institution. This could help you answer questions like “which institution has the most downloaded earth science articles?”.

Those of you who read this blog will know that I use WorldKit at the Journal of Maps to display locations where we have published material. Its lightweight, functional and ideal for a simple web map client. Well Poly9 have upped the ante in this area with a preview release of their Flash Virtual Earth client. Not surprisingly it mimics the way Google Earth works, but does it in Flash Player. And it does it all very nicely, so definitely one to watch.

Swim the bloody Atlantic Ocean!! All 3,462 miles of it!!

I love these Google people, they really have a sense of humour. What’s funny though, is that you don’t have to swim the channel first (Dover to Boulogne), then go across to Le Havre and swim the Atlantic. Funny that you then land at Boston. Must be the best places for swimmers!

This has been doing the rounds recently, so I thought I would share (came from my brother actually):

1. Go to http://www.google.co.uk

2. Click on “Maps”

3. Click on “get directions”

4. Type ” New York ” in the first box (the “from”box)

5. Type ” London ” in the second box (the “to” box)

6. Hit “get directions”

7. Scroll down to step #24

And what does it tell you to do? Well, read the Next Post!!

Well, its time for everyone else to have their say now. As a highly frustrated ArcGIS user at the moment, I think we need some alternative definitions for E.S.R.I. I’ll kick off, so maybe:

early system retirement inevitable
expensive, second rate investment
every sucker runs it

OK, so I’m not very good at this. Anyone else?