Briefly

• Locksmiths gaming Google and Google Maps: from the New York Times. 

• We have “lead generation systems” here too, but I haven’t seen any suggestion that these are scams, just somewhat misleading advertising aiming to look local. Eg, from a site that’s appealingly honest about how it works

If your business covers the whole of Auckland for example then we would set up 200 websites for you which is one for every suburb in the city covering 6 districts

• What’s the first word that comes to your mind starting with SUPP? If you said “SURGERY”, you’re not alone — or maybe you’re not real. “Disturbing oddities” in a research paper.

• Identifying the gender of fictional characters (without cheating and using the pronouns, names, etc).  (via Richard Easther)

• A map of the longest flights — Auckland-Houston and Auckland-Vancouver don’t make it.

• A list of things that can be wrong with data, by and for data journalists. I may have posted this before, but it’s good enough to repeat.

• Herald Insights has an exploration of unemployment rates over the recession and recovery, by census ethnic group and age.

• A company that may be taking measurement too far: “Any meeting of at least three people is expected to hold at least one poll.”