Students trust high Google search rankings too much: “As seasoned Internet veterans know, just because a site shows up high on Google's search rankings doesn't mean it's the most credible source on a topic. That little bit of wisdom has apparently not made it all the way down to the current generation of college students, however, according to a paper published in the International Journal of Communication. According to the research out of Northwestern University, students barely care about who or what is showing up when they click on that top link—a behavior that undoubtedly affects their quality of research when doing schoolwork.”

Sent from my iPhone: ““Sent from my iPhone”, “Sent using BlackBerry”. Why am I beginning to dislike those little tags at the bottom of email responses?

Because there’s an implied apology built into them.  In longhand, I think they say “I know there may be typos or I may have been a bit terse, but gimme some credit. I’m typing this on 5mm keys with my thumbs while waiting for my sushi, so be happy I triaged your email to be important enough to respond to right away instead of making you wait until tomorrow when it might get lost in my email pile.  Gotta go … mmm, this food looks delicious …”

In fact, one email I received had modified that tagline to read “Sent via blackberry please excuse any typos.” (note the built-in irony of the missing capitalization, comma, and word ‘so’. She may as well have misspelled it “tipos” to make the irony complete)”

Tøff liten robot...

Mars Rover Sets Endurance Record: Photos From Opportunity’s 6 Years On-Planet | 80beats | Discover Magazine: “In January 2004, the Mars rover Opportunity, along with its brother Spirit, landed on the Red Planet. Eight months later we were wowed by their longevity, as both the machines had crawled long past their expected 90-day lifetimes. This year Spirit got intractably stuck in the sand and NASA announced that its days of wandering were finally at an end. But not Opportunity: The less mechanically troubled of the twins, Opportunity continues to rove the surface of Mars, and this week it passed the duration record for time on Mars set by NASA’s Viking 1 lander when it died in 1982. As of today, Opportunity has been operating on Mars for six years and 118 days.”

Are You Becoming a “Productive” Moron? - Stepcase Lifehack: “A recent article in the New York Times on recent research by Intercall, noted that 30% of workers in the U.S. who use technology to do their jobs feel the need to stay connected to work 24/7, even during weekends, breaks and holidays. One in two workers also say that taking time off is becoming increasingly challenging.

Today, 25% of workers think that their supervisors expect them to be online and connected to work after hours and that their job security depends on this. Almost 15% of respondents say that they plan to attend at least one work-related call or web meeting during their next vacation and 17% say that it is frowned upon if they don’t connect to work during their vacations.

I’d like to make a bet.

Without the active intervention of management in your company, these numbers are only going to get worse. They are fuelled by fears and anxieties that have increased during this recession, and technology has allowed bad habits to spread across companies like wildfire.

Turning the ship around is no easy task.

After all, where does the accountability for “worker productivity” lie in most companies? Is it with line managers? The CEO? The CFO? Someone in Human Resources?

It’s one of those issues that’s likely to continue to fall through the cracks, and anyone who does try to change it is faced with the fact that they’ll need the consensus of a number of executives and managers in order to turn things around. In other words, there will have to be public, broad agreement to not send or reply to emails, IM’s and text messages after 12am and before 6am.

Until that happens, more workers will feel like they need to connect to work 24/7, and more managers will make employees feel as if they need to be online and connected after hours, and even more will believe that their job security relies on adopting behaviors modeled by the productive moron.

In the meantime, corporate productivity will continue to suffer as more employees are given smartphones, and bad habits become defacto operating standards.”

ReclaimPrivacy Bookmarklet Rates Your Facebook Exposure Levels - Privacy - Lifehacker: “Facebook's privacy settings are notoriously complex, and the results of changes hard to see instantly. ReclaimPrivacy.org has a handy bookmarklet that shows which potentially insecure and privacy-invading settings are enabled on your Facebook account when you click it.

ReclaimPrivacy's bookmarklet focuses on just a few key areas where Facebook can share information with the public—having your contacts, connections, and tagged photos exposed to the public, as well as allowing your friends to accidentally expose that information themselves. It also looks at your relationship with Facebook's personalization, applications, and other aspects to see what Facebook and independent developers can find out about you, then rates your exposure level in simple Good, Caution, or Insecure levels, along with offering links to change those settings.”

How to Quit Facebook Without Actually Quitting Facebook - Facebook - Lifehacker: “With all the privacy issues surrounding Facebook, many people are considering quitting the site altogether. If you're not ready to take it that far, here's how to avoid the privacy breaches without completely deleting your account and losing touch with your friends.”

iPad Usability: First Findings From User Testing (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox): “iPad apps are inconsistent and have low feature discoverability, with frequent user errors due to accidental gestures. An overly strong print metaphor and weird interaction styles cause further usability problems.”