This is another interesting link that may be useful for anyone needing to undertake research using the internet. Granted this does use Google and more specifically Google Scholar but you may be able to get similar results using more privacy friendly search services such as duckduckgo.
A description of advanced tips and tricks for effective Internet research of papers/books, with real-world examples.
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Exoplanet Watch
NASA are looking for help from citizen scientists to find exoplanets. This was posted to fedi, so am sharing here to help with reach and hopefully find people to take part.
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Fediverse Trunk
Just reposting this as since Elon Musk bought Twitter, there has been a big migration over to Mastodon.
Joining a new network can be daunting, especially if you don't know anyone. This is especially true with decentralised networks, such as the Fediverse.
However with the Fediverse help is at hand, in the form of Trunk. The website helps you find other users by interest, gives you their id so you can search and follow them.
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Searching for information – Debian release notes
One essential skill is to be able to search for information. This is expected of people before they ask questions. In looking for Debian release notes I tried a search on the Debian website, only to find a link to Debian 3, and also Debian 12 which is the next release.
If you get a similar issues, I would suggest redoing the search in something like DduckDuckGo or similar . Searx, is a privacy respecting meta data search engine.
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Duck Duck Go Search
Duck Duck Go is a privacy friendly and aware search engine that does not track you or your activities online.
Enter your search terms in the box and you can either click the go button or select one of the suggestions.
Search results page
Website we were looking for
Clicking back to the search results we can click in the corner (as shown) and add duck duck go to our browser and make it the default search engine (recommended).
The video below shows searching, themes and how to add the extension to google chromem, plus how to make ddg the default search engine.
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PodCast Search
I found this on the Fediverse last year, so am sharing again as it was originally shared on the Devon & Cornwall Linux user group website.
As the name suggests this allows you to search for a pod cast in a good range of topics.
Libre Lounge is another podcast that has covered different aspects of the Fediverse, this includes some of the more technical aspects including a multipart discussion on Activity Pub. Activity pub is one of the protocols that allows posts to be federated across the network.
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Searching for objects with Kstars, is pretty simple.
I have just signed up to a short OpenLearn course on the Orion Constellation it makes sense to perhaps search fpr Orion in Kstars. This may make it easier to observe given the current weather isn't exactly friendly for astronomy.
Pointing (menu) —> Find Object
should bring up the following dialogue box.
From here you can search for stars, constellations, planets and other objects.
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