The entire Harper's index is now online.
posted by chunking express on Feb 14, 2009 - 29 comments

Dave Chalmers has just launched PhilPapers, a directory of nearly 200,000 online papers in philosophy. This is a jawdropping and amazing resource for philosophical research. For evidence of the scope of this project and the care that has been given to it, see the taxonomy of philosophy that was developed for the site.
posted by painquale on Jan 28, 2009 - 28 comments

Special 3-page edition of Harper’s Index: A retrospective of the Bush era.
posted by Non Prosequitur on Jan 13, 2009 - 37 comments

In the First Person "is a free, high quality, professionally published, in-depth index of close to 4,000 collections of personal narratives in English from around the world. It lets you keyword search more than 700,000 pages of full-text by more than 18,000 individuals from all walks of life. It also contains pointers to some 4,300 audio and video files and 30,000 bibliographic records." (Description from website.) You can also browse by repository, collection, subject and several other ways.
posted by cog_nate on Aug 7, 2008 - 9 comments

This one's for all the editors out there! Remember when index cards were actually used to create... indexes?
posted by scody on Dec 20, 2007 - 21 comments

Future Reading. Anthony Grafton explores what we can learn about the future of the text from the history of libraries, publishers, and the sorting of books. [more inside]
posted by Toekneesan on Nov 1, 2007 - 8 comments

First Global Peace Index Ranks 121 Countries
posted by acro on May 30, 2007 - 66 comments

iPod index. Not to be outdone by the Big Mac index, Australian investment bank Commonwealth Securities Ltd. has come up with a new benchmark for assessing the value of global currencies.
posted by Blue Buddha on Jan 24, 2007 - 20 comments

The UBS Bank calculated how long it takes an average worker around the world to earn enough to buy a Big Mac. Workers in Tokyo were the fastest: Tokyo 10 minutes, New York 13 minutes, London 16 minutes, Hong Kong 17 minutes, Paris 21 minutes, Moscow 25 minutes, Rome 39 minutes, Beijing 44 minutes, Manila 81 minutes, Jakarta 86 minutes. Is this a fair comparison? Is it something that will change people's perspective about the rest of the world?
posted by PetBoogaloo on Nov 17, 2006 - 53 comments

NewCROP index part of the Center for New Crops & Plant Products, at Purdue University is an amazing collection of commercial plant information. From Macadamia nuts and qinghao to Tumbleweed and Sweetgrass a broad range of plants are detailed. The information that is included for each ranges from a single paragraph for Quackgrass to dozens of internal and external links for Soybeans. Crops are listed both alphabetically by genus and common name. Warning: Web .95 navigation
posted by Mitheral on Sep 15, 2006 - 5 comments

Pssst! Wanna Buy A Reliable, Second-Hand Car? You could do worse than start with Honest John, a plain-speaking, fiercely independent Cockney motor car wonk who'll see you right, no problem. If you're obsessive about reliability, i.e. don't have the time or inclination to look after your wheels and just want the damn thing to get you from A to B and back again, check out the often surprising Reliability Index for the most and least trustworthy automobiles. [Eurocentric warning! Btw, what are the most reliable independent car guides - preferably free and online - in the U.S, Canada, etc?]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Nov 20, 2003 - 32 comments

Last words of fictional characters. [cached]
posted by Ljubljana on Aug 28, 2003 - 23 comments

Look at your hands. Is your index finger shorter or longer than your ring finger? Be careful because according to John T. Manning, those two fingers reveal a variety of characteristics about yourself to the world including assertiveness, attractiveness, reproductive success, hand preference, verbal fluency, autism, depression, health and disease, homosexuality tendancies, musical and sports aptitudes. [via Tigerbunny]
And while you are at it don't forget what the middle finger and a long second toe might reveal.
posted by oh posey on Oct 11, 2002 - 37 comments

The Rapture Index This rather bizarre site is the Dow Jones of the end of the world. From the site, "You could say the Rapture index is a Dow Jones Industrial Average of end time activity, but I think it would be better if you viewed it as prophetic speedometer. The higher the number, the faster we're moving towards the occurrence of pre-tribulation rapture. " Whacked...
posted by Coop on Sep 20, 2002 - 23 comments

Search-indexing video footage? Dremedia's software can analyze video footage -- either raw or edited -- and not only identify nearly every word spoken but also differentiate between speakers and even understand when a scene changes.

And who said the gee-whiz startup was dead? Well, it is, but Futureboy still has rent to pay, I s'pose.
posted by scarabic on Jan 4, 2002 - 4 comments

Another blog-tracking tool... Although I am braced for mefi attack for posting this one ("non-story - there are other web log trackers" etc, etc), I'm interested to hear what me-fier's think about the ultimate viability of such a product. Is a comprehensive weblog crawler a viable product? Would google-like algorithms work? What would this mean for said "memes" and their proliferation on the net? Further, is there a potential for a "commodification of the meme?" Would the corporates, in the style of viral marketing gimmicks ("I Kiss you!"), use such a "meme tracker" to identify and exploit net culture "hot spots?"
posted by preguicoso on Jul 30, 2001 - 23 comments

Blogdex at media.mit.edu (The link may not work, I've gotten through twice now, both times between noon and 4pm PST, but every other time I've tried I've gotten server not available errors.)Does anyone know what this is? The times I got through it looked like an interesting cross tabulation of what is being covered in the web log world, like a handy index for people looking for entries on a certain topic. It was not complete looking when I got in last, the site mostly consisted of the front, and an "about" section, but the front page did have a list of the top ten links being talked about on currently indexed blogs. I found the link in my referer log.
posted by Nothing on Jul 21, 2001 - 15 comments

Depressing as it is, I still love the Harper's Index.
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger on Jul 17, 2001 - 15 comments

The Rapture Index "by no means is meant to predict the rapture, however, the index is meant to measure the type of activity that could act as a precursor to the rapture." It tracks such data as unemployment, inflation, false Christs and, of course, plagues.
posted by philip on Apr 10, 2000 - 0 comments