Too many topics, too little time

Google as context renderer. Martin Terre Blanche:
“I suspect that most Google searches have as much to do with getting a
feel for context as with locating something specific.”

Great examples
in there of how search engines and related tools help us sense the
landscape surrounding a term in an impressionistic manner. (Recall is another tool in that constellation, which Martin didn't mention.)

By the way, Martin has just pushed out a very interesting manifesto on social science research in the knowledge economy, “an attempt to make good ol' research methodology _less_ boring by dousing it in
a mix of lefty politics and techno-triumphalism.” [Seb's Open Research]

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interesting paper linked by seb. i'm not sure social science in the knowledge economy amounts to what the author says yet, but i will opine soon enough…