Elijah, you wrote that I was coming across as a bit rude, even for an Australian ( whatever that means). If this is so, I apologise although with so many hardened academics in here I hardly think they could offended by anything I would have to say given the challenging environments they work in. Maybe I watch too much TV but isn't academia full of overheated debate, back stabbing and aggressive rivalry? Cant imagine a little mouse like me upsetting people from that environment :-) Anyhow, I won't argue with you as to whether there has been a lot or little number crunching going on or whether academia should be results oriented. I'm sure those arguments go on every day in universities and I'll let the taxpayers of the world worry about the results issue. I should point out, however, that I am no stranger to crunching numbers. For the past decade I have developed a global reputation in a few sports as a statistician who produces interesting and innovative results - results that have been widely published, results that could then be found easily, results that pleased an international audience with far more knowledge of the mechanics of the sport than I possessed. Results produced without concepts, without official "methods", but produced efficiently and by being relevant the statistics earnt myself an international reputation. I have designed web pages for the worlds largest single sport website, created globally accepted statistical rankings, had my statistically backed theories published in official sports annual journals and been quoted widely and used as a source in daily newspapers,TV and radio in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In my field of online sports statistics I was a world leader. I am no stranger to numbers, no stranger to getting from point A to B in a straight line and no stranger to being relevant. And it is my goal to produce relevant results in the field of Internet Research, without conceptualising/ hallucinating, without using geek speak, but producing results that are efficient, able to be understood by every English speaking person on the planet and published widely by the media for the benefit of the public - and my results will be relevant. That may be a brash Australian attitude, but its the only one I know and Im sure every Texan on the list would understand it !! Time will tell if I succeed or fail... :-) regards, time to do some assignments... ET