David K Smith

As usual, the neighbourhood went all out for Halloween.

Given Florida relies massively on child-centred tourism for much of its income, getting rid of vaccines is madness. Why would anyone want to take their kids there on holiday once Florida gains a reputation for massive outbreaks of serious and damaging childhood diseases?

We both always love a trip to Blackpool.

The funniest installation was 'Gull Power', celebrating in video, dance music, and a giant silver gull, the evil genius of the seagull and its ability to steal our chips! #Lightpool

The most charming installation was 'Chocolate Shop' by brothers Matt and Rob Vale, whose grandad, Bob Peddie, owned a high-end chocolate shop in Accrington. In this magical installation the chocolate boxes came alive with fairytale-style videos of chocolate making. #Lightpool

Have to applaud Blackpool's willingness to innovate, like with the 2-week artistic #Lightpool festival. Some crowd-pleasing installations on the prom but also some real art statements like Ataraxie, by Maxime Houot, reflecting on the void of the unknown. (Volume up on video for full effect).

Yeah - I think the slides have doubled since I first went in the 90s.

I wrote about it here...
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B09H...

Pier/Beer
On our very last holiday, Sam just managed to walk the whole length of Blackpool's Central Pier, and we sat in the setting sun drinking beer in the family bar, with its cheesy kids' disco. As the sun went down, I knew he wouldn't make it back again. It's now a mini pilgrimage spot for me.

Sandcastle, Blackpool
One of the 12yo's happy places - we've been through every one of those tubes!

In Blackpool, waiting for the tram to head to the 'Sandcastle' indoor waterpark.

Big Dipper

Big Dipper

Valhalla

Walkace & Gromit ride

Today was our Blackpool Pleasure Beach day. With the oldest ride dating back to 1904, lots of Art Deco classics, and some modern wonders, I think its a great theme park. As for the 12yo, he LOVED the Wallace & Gromit ride and Valhalla - both ridden multiple times.

Fudge shop on North pier with Tower behind

Blackpool tram and Tower.

Running from the waves with North Pier behind.

Blackpool

Fudge shop on North pier with Tower behind

Blackpool tram and Tower.

Running from the waves with North Pier behind.

Blackpool

It's the first time we've ever found anything!! The 12yo was sooooo excited to find the 'official' ghost! Its the 6th year of the 4-day event and it's become a pretty big thing - I'd estimate over a thousand people there hunting!

Today, we took to the streets of York with hundreds of people armed with torches for night 1 of the York Ghost Hunt. York Ghost Merchants hide 125 ghosts near the Minster. We found an official 'ragamuffin' ghost (right)! We also found an unofficial 'crying' ghost (no idea of the origin)!
#GhostWeek

If a metric can't use native data, and the data requires individual curation to give an accurate answer, then it is a risky metric. The vast majority of scientists will not edit Google Scholar data in this way, so the bulk of sh-indexes will down-weight collaborative work.

I live in a country where people complain there are too many ethnic minority people in adverts, say such people can never be English' and should be deported, and stick as many England flags as possible up on lamposts.
If Reform get elected, then I will live in a fascist country.

To save costs over the entire summer (12 weeks), there were only 2 catering outlets open on the whole of campus. And we are not in the city centre, so you can't just stroll out somewhere local to find something.

To be fair, coffee/tea is the least of our problems - the university has also had to shed 5-10% of all staff over the past 18 months.

Oh you could spend your own grant money on coffee for a meeting, IF it's an allowed expense. But things like 'Departmental Management Group' or 'Education Committee' etc. can't have tea/coffee in a 2-3 hour meeting.

In fact, we aren't even allowed coffee/tea in any meetings at all on campus - unless we buy our own from the cafe or provide our own tea bags/coffee.

Jealous! Here, we can't even publish open access in most key journals anymore, let alone dream of daily papers or free coffee!!

Google Scholar scrapes the data automatically so it all depends if the Google algorithm actually does that. If i look in my own Google Scholar profile, none of that information (which is in the papers) is actually captured.

As i said, this is exactly how h-index started, and now it's everywhere.

I dont think the problem is whether Google Scholar introduced the metric, or whether someone else used Google Scholar to develop the metric. The problem is the metric!

No - the metric exists, has been published about, and promoted by Nature. I have corrected the error of fact, making clear it is not integrated into Google Scholar but available as a plug-in. The discussion is valuable.

To correct my original post slightly, it's a plug-into Google Scholar, developed by others, not innovated by Google itself.

This is also how h-index started off - as a paper and an easy calculation from Thomson ISI. Now it is used to decide who to hire, who to promote, and who to fire.
But it's true this is a plug-in, not integrated into Google Scholar.
It's getting attention because Nature published about it.

People said similar about the h-index ('bigger fish to fry, hopefully it will go away'). It's now used at many places to decide hirings, promotions and even redundancies.