San Antonio Police Misconduct, College Transfer Credits, Black Family Archiving, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 31, 2023

San Antonio Police Misconduct, College Transfer Credits, Black Family Archiving, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 31, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

San Antonio Express-News: Police accountability advocacy group launches online database of officer firings. “ACT 4 SA on Thursday announced its launch of the website… which contains information regarding San Antonio police misconduct from 2010 to 2022. The website features a dashboard that illustrates the suspensions in various forms, including pie charts and bar graphs, and offers perspective on trends identified amid the data.”

YouTube Blog: A new path to higher education that begins on YouTube!. “Starting today, students can sign up here for four ‘College Foundations’ courses which start on March 7, 2023 and offer eligibility for transfer credit. This suite encompasses the most common first-year college courses at many higher-education institutions: English Composition, College Math, US History and Human Communication.”

EVENTS

UNC University Libraries: Panel Discussion: Finding Your People. “This panel discussion will bring together faculty researchers and archival practitioners to discuss the representation of Black families in the archive, the history, and impact of collecting, examine where we are at this current moment, and what the future of Black family collections might look like.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NiemanLab: @nytimes is now on TikTok. “When The New York Times launched its flagship TikTok this week, on January 24, it started with hard news, featuring Brandon Tsay, the 26-year-old who disarmed a gunman at a dance hall in Alhambra, California.”

USEFUL STUFF

PC World: Get your email privacy in order with these free must-use tools. “Getting unwanted messages in your inbox can feel like a major breach of trust, and knowing senders can see a record of everything you’ve opened and clicked can feel downright creepy. That’s why it’s worth getting familiar with all the ways you can protect your email privacy. From resistance against email tracking to masked email addresses that hide your identity, here are some of my favorite free tools you can use right now.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Big Issue: The UK has 2,500 museums, but not one dedicated to Black British history. That could soon change. “If you’re looking to learn more about the storied history of the pencil, there’s a dedicated museum located just off the A66. Those curious about lawnmowers can make their way to Southport for a journey of discovery at the British Lawnmower Museum. In fact, the more than 2,500 museums in the UK cover a dizzying range of topics, from wide-ranging history to esoteric household items. But among that vast number there is no museum devoted to telling the story of Black British history. A group of campaigners is on a mission to change that.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

United States Courts: Judiciary Studies Use of Online Tool in Presentence Reports. “The Federal Judicial Center (FJC) will soon begin a two-year pilot study of the impact of including data from a U.S. Sentencing Commission online tool in presentence investigation reports used during the sentencing phase of criminal cases. Called the Judiciary Sentencing Information platform (JSIN), the publicly available tool provides five years of cumulative data for people who were convicted of a similar or the same crime, have a similar criminal history, and have been convicted of an offense that falls under the same sentencing guideline.”

Wall Street Journal: Virtual Birkin Bags on Trial in Hermès Case Testing IP Rights. “Mason Rothschild created a series of 100 digital images he called MetaBirkins, depicting fur-covered purses in the same shape and style as the Hermès luxury product, which he sold as digital tokens on virtual marketplaces. The NFTs sometimes have sold at prices similar to the real handbags. Beginning Monday, Mr. Rothschild’s MetaBirkins go on trial in New York in a case at the intersection of trademark law and constitutional protections for freedom of expression.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Ukraine’s Scientists Receive a Funding Lifeline From Abroad. “Larissa S. Brizhik didn’t have to stay. Like many Ukrainian women and children, she could have fled the war zone. But as a department head at the Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyiv, responsible for a staff of 18, she decided to remain on the job. Late last year, Dr. Brizhik’s institution received a one-year grant of $165,000. The funds were part of a tranche of $1.2 million in grants by the Simons Foundation that was announced on Wednesday.”

PsyPost: Tweets with moralized language are more likely to get replies that use hate speech.. “Researchers at Justus Liebig University Giessen recently investigated the relationship between moralized language used in a tweet and hate speech found in the replies. Their findings indicate that the more moralized words are used in a tweet, the more likely the replies to the tweet will contain hate speech. This research may provide clues to what triggers the expression of hate speech in social media contexts.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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February 1, 2023 at 01:51AM
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Andi Search Engine, Suffragette Journals, Calculator Emulators, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, January 31, 2023

Andi Search Engine, Suffragette Journals, Calculator Emulators, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, January 31, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Fast Company: This smart new search site is like a mashup of Google and ChatGPT. “Futuristic as that description may sound, Andi actually sits somewhere between the traditional search sites, such as Google, and the completely conversational, chat-emulating challengers like ChatGPT. It aims to blend the best of both worlds into a new sort of search experience that’s both fresh-feeling and familiar. At a time when so many folks are asking questions about what search should even be, it’s an interesting balance that moves toward the future while still embracing the past.”

Haverford College: The Early Days of Women’s Suffrage, Archived. “The College’s Julia Wilbur collection is composed primarily of her personal journals from 1844 to 1895. The materials were digitized as part of the In Her Own Right project, which contains items that illuminate the efforts of women to assert their rights and work for the rights of others in the century leading up to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. The project was organized by the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL) and contains materials from at least 12 institutions.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Internet Archive Blog: A Calculated Move: Calculators Now Emulated at Internet Archive. “While we have an excellent family of emulators assisting MAME in making programs work in the browser, the vast majority of the items in our Internet Arcade (and Turbo Edition), Console Living Room, and Handheld History collections mostly have MAME to thank. And now another can as well: The Calculator Drawer.”

Search Engine Land: Yandex ‘leak’ reveals 1,922 search ranking factors. “This leak has revealed 1,922 ranking factors Yandex used in its search algorithm, at least as of July 2022. Perhaps Martin MacDonald put it best on Twitter today: ‘The Yandex hack is probably the most interesting thing to have happened in SEO in years.'”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ars Technica: The flight tracker that powered @ElonJet has taken a left turn. “A major independent flight tracking platform, which has made enemies of the Saudi royal family and Elon Musk, has been sold to a subsidiary of a private equity firm. And its users are furious. ADS-B Exchange has made headlines in recent months for, as AFP put it, irking ‘billionaires and baddies.’ But in a Wednesday morning press release, aviation intelligence firm Jetnet announced it had acquired the scrappy open source operation for an undisclosed sum.”

9to5Google: Google TV ads now include physical products instead of just movies and shows. “Advertising on your TV has become something expected of virtually every platform, and it’s something that has hit Android TV OS over the past few years. Now, though, Google TV is taking things a step further by introducing ads for physical products and stores.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Montclair State University: Global Center on Human Trafficking Partners with Department of Homeland Security. “The Global Center on Human Trafficking (GCHT) at Montclair State University and the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Newark Division signed a Memorandum of Understanding on January 25 for the development of a web-based application and website to aid in the fight against human trafficking.”

Engadget: YouTube accused of using return-to-office policies to thwart union organizers. “YouTube Music contractors in the Austin area who voted to unionize are accusing their employers of abusing return-to-office policies to stifle labor organizers. The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleging that YouTube parent Alphabet and staffing firm Cognizant are using an abrupt return-to-office move, due in February, to punish remote workers, many of whom are reportedly pro-union.”

Decrypt: White House Blames Congress for Failure to Enact Crypto Regulations. “The White House pointed the finger at Congress Friday for stalling on a comprehensive, national crypto regulatory framework, outlining numerous actions lawmakers could take to reign-in fraud and bad actors in the crypto sector.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNN: How Google’s long period of online dominance could end. “…even though the lawsuits drive at the heart of Google’s revenue machine, they could take years to play out. In the meantime, two other thorny issues are poised to determine Google’s future on a potentially shorter timeframe: The rise of generative artificial intelligence and what appears to be an accelerating decline in Google’s online ad marketshare. Just days before the DOJ suit, Google announced plans to cut 12,000 employees amid a dramatic slowdown in its revenue growth, and as it works to refocus its efforts partly around AI.”

Michigan Daily: The TikTok detectives have gone too far with the Idaho murders . “Curiosity is natural, especially with a case as jarring and gruesome as this. There is a difference, however, between theorizing in a casual, private manner and mindlessly pointing fingers at innocent individuals on a public social media account, one that true crime content creators have utterly failed at distinguishing in the case of the Idaho murders. ”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Boing Boing: Fun game makes you guess what year a photo was taken. “Chronophoto presents the player with a photo and a timeline ranging from 1900 to current times. The closer you get to the exact year of the photograph’s creation, the more points you’ll be awarded.” Good morning, Internet…

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January 31, 2023 at 06:33PM
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Datamuse Word Tools, Solar PV Photography, Jazz on the Tyne, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 30, 2023

Datamuse Word Tools, Solar PV Photography, Jazz on the Tyne, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Datamuse Blog: Our 2022 Waterloo co-op term: In which organising words is a labour of love!. “This past Fall, Datamuse hired three talented computer science students from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Over the course of their three-month co-op they improved our word-finding apps and built a new game. These projects required a diverse set of skills, spanning topics in natural language processing (NLP), data visualization, distributed data processing, design, and web application development. In this post, we will showcase eight of the projects the students completed during the Fall term.” I use the Datamuse API for one of my Search Gizmos, Smushy Search. If you like words and word games, you definitely need to check out the Datamuse site.

Data Descriptor: A crowdsourced dataset of aerial images with annotated solar photovoltaic arrays and installation metadata . “Overhead imagery is increasingly being used to improve the knowledge of rooftop PV installations with machine learning models capable of automatically mapping these installations. However, these models cannot be reliably transferred from one region or imagery source to another without incurring a decrease in accuracy. To address this issue, known as distribution shift, and foster the development of PV array mapping pipelines, we propose a dataset containing aerial images, segmentation masks, and installation metadata (i.e., technical characteristics).”

London Jazz News: Colin Muirhead (new JazzontheTyne website + broadcasting on Hive Radio). “Colin Muirhead has presented Jazz on the Tyne on Hive Radio since 2019, giving news of gigs and events in North East England and supporting musicians with airplay and interviews. … He has just launched a new website which will offer all episodes of his programme and give listeners an easy way of getting in touch.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Observer: Bored Apes Were at the Center of the NFT Boom. Now They’re Mired in Lawsuits and Plunging in Value. “In the past few months, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection has been the target of SEC probes, falling sales and questions regarding copyright protection.”

Boing Boing: BBC took down own Modi documentary from Internet Archive. “Twitter’s censorship is readily explained, but the documentary was also removed from the Internet Archive. The archive’s Chris Butler explains what happened: the BBC itself DMCAd it.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

WIRED: Why Velma Is the Internet’s New Punching Bag . “HBO MAX’S LATEST entry into the Scooby-Doo canon, Velma, has the kind of pedigree that usually signals hit. Executive produced by veteran TV auteur Mindy Kaling, who also voices the animated series’ title character, it’s a show about one of pop culture’s most beloved nerds. Like Riverdale before it, Velma also takes a kids’ entertainment staple and gives it a new, winkingly adult twist. Yet, with all of that going for it, the show has still become the internet’s new favorite punching bag.”

New York Times: His Boating App Needed a Boost. His Daughter’s TikTok Audience Came Through.. “Mr. Foulk, who calls himself Captain Jeff, loves his app so much, he even has a shirt that reads, ‘Warning: I will tell you about my app.’ So when Mr. Foulk’s daughter, Megan, tagged along to a boat show in Chicago in January and saw that some attendees were bypassing her father’s booth as he tried to tell them about Argo, she decided to turn to one of the apps on her phone: TikTok.” Come for the inspiring story, stay for the “Whiz Khalifa” correction at the bottom.

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Google services to offer more accurate information in compliance with EU. “Many of Google’s offerings will soon be updated to provide clear and accurate information in compliance with consumer protection laws in the EU. Announced by the European Commission on Thursday, the Alphabet-owned company has agreed to introduce changes to Google Store, Google Play Store, Google Hotels, and Google Flights following discussions with the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) in 2021.”

National Security Archive: Inter-American Court Orders Opening of Military Archives. “On Friday, January 20, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights set a new legal precedent for access to human rights information when it ordered the government of Bolivia to open historical military archives concerning a case of assassination and forced disappearance.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Slate: It’s the Perfect Time to Break Up Google’s Ad-Tech Monopoly. “It may seem contradictory, but an economic downturn is actually the perfect time to enforce antitrust laws in the ad-tech industry. First of all, Google is fine. It generated $54.5 billion in ad revenue from July through September 2022 alone, an increase of 2.5 percent from the same quarter in 2021…. The real casualties of any pending financial crisis will be the much smaller players that also depend on digital advertisements—newspapers, magazines, and local businesses—and that directly suffer from Google’s dominant position in the market.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Check out Search Gizmos when you have a minute. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.

January 31, 2023 at 01:53AM
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Congressional District Health Dashboard, Alexander the Great Manuscripts, Free COVID-19 Test Sites, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, January 30, 2023

Congressional District Health Dashboard, Alexander the Great Manuscripts, Free COVID-19 Test Sites, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, January 30, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Health IT Analytics: New Tool Provides Population Health Insights in US Congressional Districts. “Researchers from New York University (NYU) Grossman School of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) unveiled the Congressional District Health Dashboard (CDHD), an online data tool that provides health data for all 435 US congressional districts and the District of Columbia.”

British Library Blog: Three Alexander the Great manuscripts newly digitised. “In preparation for the exhibition, we have digitised three more of our illustrated Alexander manuscripts, so that, in addition to the pages on display in the exhibition, all the images and accompanying text can be viewed online. One of the newly-digitised items is an early collection of Latin works; the others are French versions of Alexander’s life story, as told by the Roman historian, Quintus Curtius Rufus.”

CDC: CDC launches website to help consumers find free COVID-19 testing sites . “Tests offered may include laboratory-based nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs), including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, and rapid antigen point-of-care (POC) testing. Results are typically provided within 24–48 hours. Testing is available at pharmacies, commercial laboratory sites, community sites, and retail locations.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TED Blog: TED launches “Good Sport,” new sports podcast with Jody Avirgan . “Hosted by veteran sports producer Jody Avirgan in conversation with superstar athletes, journalists, sports psychologists and more, Good Sport is a show that uses sports as a lens to explore big ideas around work, leadership, psychology and science.”

Bleeping Computer: Yandex denies hack, blames source code leak on former employee. “A Yandex source code repository allegedly stolen by a former employee of the Russian technology company has been leaked as a Torrent on a popular hacking forum.”

CNN: Plagued with errors: A news outlet’s decision to write stories with AI backfires. “News outlet CNET said Wednesday it has issued corrections on a number of articles, including some that it described as ‘substantial,’ after using an artificial intelligence-powered tool to help write dozens of stories. The outlet has since hit pause on using the AI tool to generate stories, CNET’s editor-in-chief Connie Guglielmo said in an editorial on Wednesday.” I have removed CNET completely from my RSS reader and will do my best to avoid including them in ResearchBuzz from now on. In the almost 25 years of doing RB this is only the second time I’ve banned a publication completely. I hope you’ll call me out on it if I slip up and you see CNET here.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Associated Press: UN: Parts of internet becoming `toxic waste dumps’ for hate. “The U.N. chief warned on the day to remember victims of the Holocaust that ‘many parts of the internet are becoming toxic waste dumps for hate and vicious lies,’ and urgently appealed for guardrails against hate speech. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that anti-Semitism is everywhere, and it’s increasing in intensity.”

Mother Jones: “Lies Have Short Legs”: Inside the Brazilian WhatsApp Group Exposing George Santos. “[Adriana] Parizzi is one of the members of the highly active Brazilian WhatsApp group, aptly titled in Portuguese ‘mentira tem pernas curtas,’ or ‘lies have short legs.’ Participants include former roommates and friends—some of whom live in the United States—and they compare notes, exchange theories, and work together to get the word out about the ‘true story’ of Santos.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

PC Magazine: Bitwarden Warns of Scam Ads on Google Posing as the Password Manager. “If you rely on Bitwarden, be careful using a search engine to look up the password manager. That’s because scammers have been spotted creating fake ads on Google to lure unsuspecting users to malicious Bitwarden sites.”

KHOU: Katy ISD students will no longer have access to Twitter via the district’s Wi-Fi. “Starting Friday at 5 p.m., Katy ISD students will no longer have access to Twitter via the district’s Wi-Fi. This change comes after issues were brought to the district’s attention about students being able to access inappropriate websites through Twitter via the district’s ‘BeTheLegacy’ Wi-Fi, Katy ISD said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Toronto: Researchers find a daily dose of politics leads to stress – but avoiding it can hinder civic engagement . “From 24-hour news cycles to social media posts from your angry uncle, it’s almost impossible not to get a daily dose of politics. But new research finds that daily exposure to politics can cause chronic stress. Disconnecting from the hectic news cycle has its own repercussions, however – strategies aimed at avoiding those negative emotions might result in becoming less politically engaged.”

Wall Street Journal: TikTok Is Bad, but WeChat Is Worse. “Congress banned the use of TikTok on government devices recently, and the Biden administration is reportedly seeking to go further by, for instance, limiting access to user data to mitigate the app’s dangers. Given the zeal to address threats emanating from a Chinese app, why is WeChat being ignored?” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Check out Search Gizmos when you have a minute. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.

January 30, 2023 at 06:32PM
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West Virginia Grants, Library of Congress, Google Business, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 29, 2023

West Virginia Grants, Library of Congress, Google Business, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WDTV: New websites launch to distribute grants, infrastructure funds in W.Va.. “Gov. Jim Justice announced the launch of two new websites to improve the state’s distribution of grants and infrastructure funding. The new website for grants distribution is a one-stop-shop for personal and business-based grant funding opportunities in West Virginia.”

Library of Congress: What’s new online at the Library of Congress – January 2023. “The Signal shares semi-regular updates of new additions to publicly available digital collections and we love showing off all the hard work of our colleagues from across the Library. Read on for a sample of what’s been added recently and some of our favorite highlights. Click here for previous updates.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: Google rolling out cars for sale in Google Business Profiles. “Google is opening access to the local car inventory beta feature to all US dealerships using the cars for sale feature in Google Business Profiles. Greg Gifford reports that Google has opened this beta feature now to all US-based dealerships.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hackaday: You Can Help Build A Resin Printer Review Database. “Even for advanced users, it is a chore to stay on top of all the goings-on within the world of resin printers. This is why [VOG] (VOGMan, formerly VegOilGuy) has started a resin printer review site that asks for feedback from the community.”

NextGov: OPM Previews Its New Cyber Workforce Dashboard. “The Office of Personnel Management plans to launch a federal cyber workforce dashboard to provide agencies with a better tool to address workforce needs, according to a demo of the proposed dashboard held during a National Institute of Standards and Technology webinar on Tuesday.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Balkan Transitional Justice: Montenegro’s Attempt to Create Database of Wartime Paramilitaries Fails. “The state prosecution said it failed to create a database of Montenegrin citizens who were members of paramilitary units during the 1990s wars because of a lack of cooperation from other former Yugoslav countries.”

WIRED: China Is the World’s Biggest Face Recognition Dealer. “EARLY LAST YEAR, the government of Bangladesh began weighing an offer from an unnamed Chinese company to build a smart city on the Bay of Bengal with infrastructure enhanced by artificial intelligence. Construction of the high-tech metropolis has yet to begin, but if it proceeds it may include face recognition software that can use public cameras to identify missing persons or track criminals in a crowd—capabilities already standard in many Chinese cities.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Europeana Pro: Discover how the J-Ark project connects data aggregation with preservation. “The J-Ark project aims to explore how aggregation of cultural heritage content can be connected with its long-term preservation. Find out more about the project’s work, discover how its insights are relevant to data spaces, and join an upcoming event which explores this topic.”

Center for American Progress: The Dangers of a Twitter Bankruptcy or Acquisition. “One of the ironies of the Musk takeover is that Twitter — a mismanaged company with great tech and a captive, influential user base — was probably a pretty good candidate for a competent leveraged buyout operation. Musk, egged on by his friends and their weird psychodrama about ‘blue checks,’ has now eliminated any possibility that his takeover will be smooth and inexpensive.”

Stanford University: Designing Ethical Self-Driving Cars. “Ford has a corporate policy that says: Always follow the law. And this project grew out of a few simple questions: Does that policy apply to automated driving? And when, if ever, is it ethical for an AV to violate the traffic laws? As we researched these questions, we realized that in addition to the traffic code, there are appellate decisions and jury instructions that help flesh out the social contract that has developed during the hundred-plus years we’ve been driving cars.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Check out Search Gizmos when you have a minute. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.

January 30, 2023 at 01:40AM
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Scientific Text Reuse Dataset, Zillow, Making YouTube Videos, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, January 29, 2023

Scientific Text Reuse Dataset, Zillow, Making YouTube Videos, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, January 29, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Nature: A large dataset of scientific text reuse in Open-Access publications. “We present the Webis-STEREO-21 dataset, a massive collection of Scientific Text Reuse in Open-access publications. It contains 91 million cases of reused text passages found in 4.2 million unique open-access publications. Cases range from overlap of as few as eight words to near-duplicate publications and include a variety of reuse types, ranging from boilerplate text to verbatim copying to quotations and paraphrases.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

PR Newswire: Zillow’s new AI-powered natural-language search is a first in real estate (PRESS RELEASE.) “Now home shoppers can enter phrases like ‘$700K homes in Charlotte with a backyard’ or ‘open house near me with four bedrooms’ directly into the Zillow search bar, rather than starting with a location and having to filter their way to the homes they want. They can also save their searches and have Zillow notify them when new qualifying listings come online.”

USEFUL STUFF

Backstage: How to Make a YouTube Video. “With a user base of over 2 billion, YouTube is one of the best social media sites to post content if you’re looking to reach a wide audience. It’s particularly helpful for creators, actors, and performers who can use the platform to grow their careers. Making a YouTube video is a matter of making your own channel, creating unique and engaging content, and uploading videos to the platform.” This is a ridiculous outline. It’s REALLY good. When you’re ready to learn about making YouTube videos, print out this article, then take each step and search it for more in-depth guidance. Terrific work by Dacy Lim.

WIRED: How to Encrypt any File, Folder, or Drive on Your System. “How the most popular operating systems have handled encryption has changed over the years, and there are third-party tools that give you more encryption options to choose from. We’ll guide you through everything you need to know about these options to help you pick the right one.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: Elon Musk ‘doesn’t seem like’ right person to own Twitter, says co-founder. “Elon Musk ‘doesn’t seem like’ the right person to own Twitter, the social media platform’s co-founder has said, adding that improvements to morale and content policies at the business have been reversed under its new proprietor. In an interview with the Guardian, Biz Stone said positive changes he had helped oversee in recent years had been unwound by the Tesla chief executive.”

New York Public Library: The New York Public Library Acquires Archive of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. “The New York Public Library has acquired the archives of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. The dual collection comprises the couple’s literary and personal papers and stands as a rich testament to two of the most successful and important writers in postwar America.”

Bloomberg: Twitter’s trust and safety head ditches protocol for Elon Musk’s whims. “Twitter’s decisions are often later probed by politicians and regulators, and so they are typically made with careful documentation pointing to specific policy justifications for the action, the current and former employees say. But now, internal documentation shows a decision-making process amounting to little more than unilateral directives issued by Twitter’s new owner. In late November, an account belonging to the leftist activist Chad Loder was banned from the platform. In Twitter’s internal system, a note read, ‘Suspension: direct request from Elon Musk,’ according to a screenshot viewed by Bloomberg.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Ukraine’s Odesa city put on UNESCO heritage in danger list. “The United Nations’ cultural agency decided Wednesday to add the historic center of Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa to its list of endangered World Heritage sites, recognizing ‘the outstanding universal value of the site and the duty of all humanity to protect it.’ The decision was made at an extraordinary session of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in Paris.”

Hartford City News-Times: Indiana lawmaker wants to tax social media apps to stop bullying, suicides. “The purpose of the bill is two-fold. Any social media platform with more than 1 million active account holders in Indiana, generates at least $1 million in ad revenue from the state and gains financially from the data created by Hoosier users would be taxed. The tax would be based on the app’s calendar year ad revenues, multiplied by 7%. The apps would also pay $1 for each active account in the state.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: What happens to our data when we no longer use a social media network or publishing platform?. “My peers and I built personal websites on GeoCities, blogged on LiveJournal, made friends on MySpace and hung out on Nexopia. Many of these earlier platforms and social spaces occupy large parts of youth memories. For that reason, the web has become a complex entanglement of attachment and connection. My doctoral research looks at how we have become ‘databound’ — attached to the data we have produced throughout our lives in ways we both can and cannot control. What happens to our data when we abandon a platform? What should become of it? Would you want a say?”

University of Central Florida: UCF Researchers Help Restore the Lost History of Indigenous Prisoners in St. Augustine. “During the Plains Wars of the mid-1800s, thousands of indigenous peoples were forced from their homelands. Dozens of their leaders and warriors were imprisoned over a thousand miles away from home in Fort Marion (now known as the Castillo de San Marcos) in St. Augustine, Florida. Today, UCF researchers are collaborating with the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma, the National Park Service, the Florida National Guard and Flagler College to help restore the lost prisoners’ experiences for their descendants and the public.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Texas at Dallas: New Carbon Nanotube Yarn Harvests Mechanical Energy. “Nanotechnology researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas have made novel carbon nanotube yarns that convert mechanical movement into electricity more effectively than other material-based energy harvesters… UT Dallas researchers and their collaborators describe improvements to high-tech yarns they invented called ‘twistrons,’ which generate electricity when stretched or twisted.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Check out Search Gizmos when you have a minute. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.

January 29, 2023 at 06:31PM
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AI Writing Check, DoNotPay, Wearable Tech, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 28, 2023

AI Writing Check, DoNotPay, Wearable Tech, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Fast Company: Nonprofits release free tool to detect AI-written student work. “The tool, called AI Writing Check, was developed by the writing nonprofits Quill and CommonLit using an open-source AI model designed to detect the output of ChatGPT and related systems. It enables teachers (or anyone else) to copy and paste text and within a few seconds receive a determination on whether the work in question was written by ChatGPT.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Jail threats stop AI ‘robot lawyer’ from making its debut in court. “Joshua Browder, the CEO of New York startup DoNotPay, recently announced that his company’s bot will represent a defendant fighting a traffic ticket in the courtroom on February 22nd…. a few days later, Browder announced that DoNotPay is postponing its court case after reportedly receiving jail threats from state bar prosecutors if he was to go through with his plan.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Verge: How to use wearable tech if you’ve got tattoos. “The bad news is that tattoos and wearables aren’t always compatible. It’s a known issue among wearable makers but isn’t apparent to many consumers. You can still occasionally stumble upon social media posts where tattooed folks strap on a new smartwatch only to find that the device doesn’t work well — if it works at all. In the case of the Apple Watch, for example, tattoos can interfere with wrist detection, making the device unable to recognize that you’re actually wearing it.”

Fast Company: How to start fresh by resetting algorithms for YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and more. “You can kill your algorithms very easily with many of the most-popular streaming-video services. Others require more finagling. Here’s a quick guide to resetting recommendations on the web and your phone (typically the same for Android and iOS) for YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, and Paramount+.”

Six Colors: New tool generates more useful Mastodon link previews in Messages. “Just the other day, I was lamenting one of my big frustations with Mastodon—that links to posts, unlike tweets, don’t display nicely in Messages. Instead you get a preview that shows the poster’s profile image and their name, rather than the actual text or image of the post itself…. Well, the ball may be in Apple’s court, but not everybody’s waiting for them to return the serve. iOS developer Tyler Hillman has come up with a workaround: a web service that can provide the necessary metadata to show post content in Messages.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Context News: Wikipedia Middle East editors ban shows risks for creators. “Rights groups have accused the Saudi Arabian government of ‘infiltrating’ and seeking to control Wikipedia, after the Wikimedia Foundation banned 16 users for engaging in ‘conflict of interest editing’ in the Middle East and North Africa.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: Archives weighs asking past presidents, VPs to look for classified items . “The National Archives is weighing whether to ask living former presidents and vice presidents to review their personal records to verify that no classified materials are inadvertently outstanding, according to two people familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail private conversations.”

Politico: Avoid TikTok for government work, Dutch officials told. “Public authorities in the Netherlands are being told to steer clear of TikTok amid growing concerns across the EU and U.S. that the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform poses privacy risks. Dutch ministries and agencies are mostly following a recommendation to shun TikTok accounts and stop government communication and advertising on the platform, two government officials told POLITICO.”

Cybernews: Yandex source code leaked on a hacking forum . “Someone has uploaded an archive on a popular hacking forum with over 44GB of data, revealing Yandex source code. The attacker claims to have downloaded the data in July 2022. According to Arseniy Shestakov, a researcher who claims to have investigated leaked data, the archive contains the content of a repository without any additional data. Shestakov says that all files are dated to February 24, 2022, the day on which Russian forces invaded Ukraine.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Clemson News: Clemson Libraries receives $1.2 million to develop free textbooks for advanced manufacturing classes . “The Collaborative Development of Robotics Education and Advanced Manufacturing Open Educational Resources (Co-DREAM OER) project received $760,000 last year to develop three openly licensed textbooks and other digital educational materials on robotics ­— one at the technical college level, one at the bachelor’s degree level and one at the graduate education level. The latest round of funding will allow for the development of six more textbooks in the areas of advanced manufacturing and mechatronics, subjects that were chosen because they support the growing advanced manufacturing industry in South Carolina and other parts of the country.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Vanderbilt University: New technique unlocks ancient history of climate and wildfires recorded in California cave rocks. “Jessica Oster, associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences, worked with scientists at Johannes-Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany to develop and apply a new technique that allows researchers to reconstruct fire activity above caves based on chemicals trapped in stalagmites as they grow from water dripping from the soil and rocks above. With this new advancement, scientists can now measure unique chemicals in stalagmites to reveal fire activity from tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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January 29, 2023 at 01:33AM
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PIRATE Act Enforcement, Solitary Confinement Legislation, LGBTQ+ Arizona, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, January 28, 2023

PIRATE Act Enforcement, Solitary Confinement Legislation, LGBTQ+ Arizona, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, January 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Radio World: FCC Publishes Pirate Enforcement Database. “The PIRATE Act became law three years ago. But thanks to the pandemic and delays in funding, the Federal Communications Commission has been slow in carrying out several of the law’s requirements. Now the FCC has published a database listing the people against whom it has taken pirate radio enforcement actions. It has posted field agent openings, begun sweeps of major markets and planned the purchase of a half-dozen specialized vehicles.”

Solitary Watch: New Report And Public Database Track Legislation To Limit Or End Solitary Confinement . “The first-of-its-kind report utilizes new data made available through the Unlock The Box Legislation Tracker, an interactive database of solitary confinement bills from 2009 to present day. Justice advocates, government officials and policy makers, and public citizens can freely access the Legislation Tracker to review state by state proposals and actions, as well as trend-based data visualizations.”

New-to-me, from The State Press: Asu’s BJ Bud Archives Works To Preserve LGBTQ+ History. “Phoenix Pride and Marshall Shore, Hip Historian, responded to the reality of vanishing queer history by launching a project called the Arizona LGBTQ+ History Project with the intent to preserve the under-documented history of the state’s LGBTQ community. They found a natural partner with ASU’s Bj Bud Archives, the largest LGBTQ+ collection in Arizona.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Hill: Nick Fuentes Twitter account suspended less than 24 hours after reinstatement. “Twitter has suspended the account of white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes less than 24 hours after his reinstatement on the platform.”

TechCrunch: Google to make changes to Android business terms in India after antitrust blow. “Google is revising its business agreements with phonemakers and other partners in India and making a series of other changes in the South Asian market to comply with the local antitrust watchdog’s directions in a major shift that could invite regulators in other regions to make similar suggestions.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

PA Media: Trump baby blimp inflated again to establish ‘how best to preserve it’. “The return of the Donald Trump baby blimp, the huge inflatable depicting the former US president in a nappy and clutching a mobile phone, has begun with a test inflation by the Museum of London. A conservation analysis of the blimp has led staff at the museum, its ‘final resting place’ after it took to the skies above Parliament Square during protests over Mr Trump’s state visit to the UK in June 2019, to blow the balloon up once again.”

San Diego Union-Tribune: Bram Dijkstra’s $2.3 million collection of rare albums, once bound for SDSU, is headed to Stanford University . “Stanford University has acquired the $2.3 million vinyl record collection of San Diegan Bram Dijkstra, just 11 months after a signed 2020 agreement for the one-of-a-kind collection to go to SDSU’s Love Library imploded. Numbering more than 8,000 jazz, blues, gospel, soul and reggae discs that span nearly a century, The Dijkstra Black Music Collection will be housed at Stanford’s Archive of Recorded Sound.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ProPublica: What to Know About TurboTax Before You File Your Taxes This Year. “Under the Free File agreement, Americans who make less than $73,000 per year should be able to file their taxes for free with one of the tax preparation companies that partners with the IRS. But this program has been historically underutilized, with just 4% of eligible Americans filing for free in 2021. The story of the Free File program is long and twisting, and it can seem more like a fight against free tax filing than a fight for it. One of the biggest players is Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, one of the largest tax preparation software companies in the country.”

Ars Technica: Ransomware victims are refusing to pay, tanking attackers’ profits. “Two new studies suggest that ransomware isn’t the lucrative, enterprise-scale gotcha it used to be. Profits to attackers’ wallets, and the percentage of victims paying, fell dramatically in 2022, according to two separate reports.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Undark: Wanted (by Scientists): Dead Birds and Bats, Felled by Renewables. “[Todd] Katzner, [Mark] Davis, and other biologists are working with the renewable energy industry to create a nationwide repository of dead birds and bats killed at wind and solar facilities. The bodies hold clues about how the animals lived and died, and could help scientists and project operators understand how to reduce the environmental impact of clean energy installations, Davis said.”

The Verge: Elon Musk thinks Twitter is real life. “Apparently the steady growth of his own Twitter presence is all the evidence he needs that his tweets are right and good and his online antics are beyond reproach. No mention of the white supremacists he’s let back on the platform (and then kicked off again after they have reverted to type and said Nazi things) or the worrying rise in hate speech and harassment. No mention of his own declining reputation or the growing calls to ditch his post at Twitter and refocus on the company that actually matters, Tesla. Just look at that scoreboard.”

Washington State University: COVID-19 conspiracy theories that spread fastest focused on evil, secrecy. “In the early pandemic, conspiracy theories that were shared the most on Twitter highlighted malicious purposes and secretive actions of supposed bad actors behind the crisis, according to an analysis of nearly 400,000 posts.” Good morning, Internet…

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January 28, 2023 at 06:27PM
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Animal Protein Professing Resource Database, Shutterstock, Custom iPhone Widgets, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 27, 2023

Animal Protein Professing Resource Database, Shutterstock, Custom iPhone Widgets, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Meat+Poultry: New database provides information hub for meat processors. “The launch of a new resource allows meat processors to find answers to common industry questions. On Jan. 24, the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI) announced the release of the Animal Protein Processing Resource Database. The digital database offers information on training and financial programs, which users can filter by topic, species and location.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ReviewGeek: Now You Can Create Your Own AI Images with Shutterstock. “While some stock photography and image websites are fighting AI-generated content, others like Adobe and Shutterstock are embracing it. After partnering with DALLE-2 back in October, today Shutterstock released an AI-generation tool for its customers.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: Explore the World of Custom iPhone Widgets. “You’ve probably seen iPhone Home Screens that just look cool, sporting dynamic text, fun images, and custom icons…but even with iOS 16’s new Lock Screen editor, there’s no way to use Apple’s built-in tools to make them. For that, you’ll need to look outward. Fortunately, there’s a simple way to turn a boring iPhone Home Screen into something interesting and fun, without getting into the whole ‘Home Screen aesthetic’ thing. All you need is a custom widget app like Widgy.”

How-To Geek: The 5 Best To-Do List Apps of 2023 . “Are you still writing your to-do list? If so, you may find that a to-do list app makes managing your tasks easier. However, with so many apps out there, which do you choose? Here’s our list of the best task management apps for 2023. This list of to-do list apps is in no particular order. Because each one offers the basic features you’d expect in a task management app, we’ll highlight notable features that make it stand out.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Daily Dot: What creators need to know about Logan Paul’s ‘CryptoZoo’ NFT scandal. “When an influencer promises an investment on their project will soar in value only to disappear with any capital, the Web3 community refers to it as a ‘rug pull’ scam. Accusations of rug pulls often fly, but it’s often unclear and difficult to prove if the founders of NFT projects did cash out for millions at the expense of their followers, and even if they did, if it was premeditated and intentionally malicious.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NewsWise: “Flexible electronics” may one day secure classified documents. “Both President Biden and former President Trump have had issues with having classified government documents in their possession that they were not supposed to have. But there may soon be a relatively simple way to prevent situations like this, according to Paul Berger, professor of electrical and computer engineering at The Ohio State University. Flexible electronics enables the production of thin, flexible stickers, like the radio frequency identification tags one finds on some items in stores to prevent shoplifting.”

Bloomberg: FBI Examines Snapchat’s Role in Fentanyl Poisoning Deaths. “Federal agencies are questioning Snapchat’s role in the spread and sale of fentanyl-laced pills in the US as part of a broader probe into the deadly counterfeit drugs crisis.”

City & State Florida: Francis Suarez, un(block)chained . “Suarez’s championing of cryptocurrency outfits like FTX is emblematic of his tenure as Miami’s top elected official. Entering the second year of his second term, critics say Suarez, a Republican, is more concerned with elevating his national profile and fueling his presidential ambitions rather than tackling the city’s wealth gap, crumbling public infrastructure and affordable housing crisis.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Map Room: The Return of Paper Maps, Again. “… there’s always at least one thing the old tech did better that gets lost when you switch to the new. Compared to computers, typewriters encourage disciplined, distraction-free and linear writing. Vinyl encourages active, purposeful listening. And paper maps aren’t just used for immediate navigational needs: you browse them, you study them. Each of these technologies fulfil needs that haven’t gone away and haven’t been met by their replacements.”

Purdue University: Purdue launches new AI-based global forest mapping project. “[Jingjing] Liang is developing an artificial intelligence model that will combine information collected about billions of trees measured on-site with satellite and other geospatial data to map local forest growth rates throughout the global forest range.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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January 28, 2023 at 01:12AM
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Global Mine Production, Creative Modern Languages Hub, Microsoft, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, January 27, 2023

Global Mine Production, Creative Modern Languages Hub, Microsoft, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, January 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Data Descriptor: An open database on global coal and metal mine production . “… presenting an open database on global coal and metal mine production on the level of individual mines. It is based on manually gathered information from more than 1900 freely available reports of mining companies, where every data point is linked to its source document, ensuring full transparency.”

Aberystwyth University: Language teachers could ditch essays in favour of graphic novels. “… a team of Modern Languages academics are inspiring teachers and students to adopt new and creative ways of researching language and assessing language learning – through art. The team have launched the Creative Modern Languages Hub, a free online resource which provides examples of creative assessment and artistic research from the UK and beyond.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Microsoft expands its pact with OpenAI in ‘multibillion dollar’ deal. “Microsoft is once again pouring money into OpenAI as part of an expanded partnership. The tech giant is making a ‘multibillion dollar’ investment that will lead to wider uses of OpenAI’s technology, as well as stronger behind-the-scenes support.”

USEFUL STUFF

Larry Ferlazzo: The Best New – & Free – Artificial Intelligence Tools That Could Be Used In The Classroom. “I also thought it would be helpful to readers – and to me – to begin yet another AI list where I collect various free (or ones that let you do enough free stuff to make it worth our time before they start charging) AI tools. I’ll add them to various specific other ‘Best’ lists too – if they fit and as I have time – but this list will also be more-or-less an AI potpourri of sorts. Who knows how long this list is going to end up being!”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hollywood Reporter: Elon Musk’s Twitter Bows to India Request to Censor Links to BBC’s Narendra Modi Doc. “Despite the Twitter owner’s self-proclaimed stance as a ‘free speech absolutist,’ the platform has removed all links to videos from a documentary exploring allegations against Modi for fanning the flames of prejudice against Indian Muslims.”

Inverness Courier: Highland Archive staff rescue records after heavy snow falls. “Staff with the Highland Archive service sprang to the rescue after a leak was spotted at one of its records stores due to heavy snow falls. The incident happened on Friday after the Inverness area was hit by wintry weather and freezing temperatures.”

The Nation: The Growing Political Power of TikTok. “Because of the short-form video platform’s unique content-sharing algorithm and vertical-swipe interface, TikTok allows tens of millions of users to quickly access political information directly from community organizers, candidates, and journalists. Crucially, though, it’s the platform’s video-first focus that sets the app apart from competitors like Twitter.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Classified records pose conundrum stretching back to Carter. “It turns out former officials from all levels of government discover they are in possession of classified material and turn them over to the authorities at least several times a year, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of classified documents.”

The Hindu: Blogger arrested for throwing currency notes from flyover to garner social media attention. “Commotion prevailed at the busy City Market junction and the flyover above it, as a man with a wall clock around his neck, carrying a bag, stopped his scooter and started showering currency notes from the flyover on to the road below on January 24, Tuesday. As motorists stopped their vehicles abruptly, and people cheered and gathered to pick the ₹10 currency notes, traffic on the flyover and the junction below came to a grinding halt.”

Bloomberg: Twitter Sued in Germany Over Vetting of Anti-Semitic Posts. “Twitter Inc. was hit by a lawsuit in Germany by an anti-hate speech organization and a European group of Jewish students in a bid to force the platform to remove antisemitic content. HateAid and the European Union of Jewish Students filed the suit against Twitter to require the platform to clarify basic obligations when moderating criminal content, according to a statement on Wednesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Curtin University: Everyday Aussies’ social media posts help find missing plant species . “Scientists have identified six new or rediscovered Western Australian plant species from photos taken and uploaded to the internet by members of public, including a nature photographer from Jurien Bay, a pair of wildflower enthusiasts from Dongara and a farmer from near the Stirling Range National Park.”

Sydney Morning Herald: ‘An ethical and moral imperative’: One woman’s quest to save Australia’s dying songs. “Australia sits at the centre of an extraordinary web of linguistic and cultural diversity. More than 2000 of the world’s 6000 languages are spoken in Australia, the South Pacific and South-East Asia. Within the next 100 years, the number is predicted to dwindle to just a few hundred as communities age, traditions break down, and the climate crisis claims islands across the Pacific. The archive contains field recordings from the village of Tahal Nessa on Paama Island – a part of Vanuatu that is no longer inhabitable due to climate change.” Good morning, Internet…

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January 27, 2023 at 06:29PM
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Mitsubishi Rallies, Google, Microsoft Edge, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 26, 2023

Mitsubishi Rallies, Google, Microsoft Edge, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Drive: Mitsubishi Just Uploaded 40 Years of Spectacular Classic Rally Footage to YouTube. “Uploaded to the YouTube channel Mitsubishi Motors TV, the footage spans four decades from 1967 to 2007. It encompasses both the World Rally Championship and Dakar Rally, both of which Mitsubishi won multiple times consecutively to establish itself as racing royalty.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Google will once again apply Gmail spam detection to political campaign emails. “Google doesn’t plan to let political campaigns dodge Gmail’s spam detection for much longer. The Washington Post has learned that Google plans to end the email filter bypass pilot program by the end of this month.”

ReviewGeek: Microsoft Edge’s New “Split Screen” Will Change the Way You Use Tabs. “As discovered by Reddit user u/Leopeva64-2, Microsoft is working on a Split Screen feature for the Microsoft Edge browser. The idea behind this feature is very straightforward—it lets you view two tabs in a single browser window.”

Reuters: Ad spending on Twitter falls by over 70% in Dec – data. “Advertising spend on Twitter Inc dropped by 71% in December, data from an advertising research firm showed, as top advertisers slashed their spending on the social-media platform after Elon Musk’s takeover. The recent data by Standard Media Index comes (SMI) as Twitter is moving to reverse the advertiser exodus. It has introduced a slew of initiatives to win back advertisers, offering some free ads, lifting a ban on political advertising and allowing companies greater control over the positioning of their ads.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

UMass Amherst: New England Quaker Records To Be Digitized. “The New England Yearly Meeting of Friends Records—rich and voluminous materials of Quakers going back to their mid-17th-century beginnings—will be the focus of a new digitization project by the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center (SCUA), in the UMass Amherst Libraries.”

Villanova University: Villanova University’s Falvey Library Acquires Senatorial Papers of Former Pennsylvania Senator Patrick J. Toomey. “Villanova University’s Falvey Library has acquired the senatorial papers of Patrick J. Toomey, who served as US Senator from Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2023. The collection includes extensive electronic records and media, as well as papers from Toomey’s service as a member of the House of Representatives for the 15th District of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2005, campaign materials and social media archives.”

Prospect: Meet the archive moles. “Most of the time, my work feels more like that of a detective than an editor. Falling down endless online rabbit holes is an occupational hazard. I read old reviews in digitised newspaper archives, and trawl obituaries, looking for interesting titbits. Internet Archive—the non-profit digital library that houses millions of books—is an indispensable resource, not least because so many of the titles it holds can’t be easily found IRL. But none of this would work without access to various bricks-and-mortar collections, especially the London Library. You’ll find me in the stacks, rootling out books that—as revealed by the stampings inside—no one’s read since the 1980s, or earlier.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Inside Higher Ed: Fake College Prompts Scrutiny. “Prospective students be warned: not all college websites are what they say they are. That’s the message the North Carolina attorney general sent when he tweeted about the ‘so-called, unlicensed King’s College.’ Attorney General Josh Stein announced on Jan. 18 that the state Department of Justice is working with the University of North Carolina system to stop a fraudulent website purporting to belong to what once was a real institution in Charlotte, N.C.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ars Technica: Appliance makers sad that 50% of customers won’t connect smart appliances. “Appliance makers like Whirlpool and LG just can’t understand. They added Wi-Fi antennae to their latest dishwashers, ovens, and refrigerators and built apps for them—and yet only 50 percent or fewer of their owners have connected them. What gives?”

Stuff New Zealand: Learning to lie: AI tools adept at creating disinformation. “Artificial intelligence is writing fiction, making images inspired by Van Gogh and fighting wildfires. Now it’s competing in another endeavour once limited to humans – creating propaganda and disinformation.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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January 27, 2023 at 01:55AM
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Belgium Genealogy, Working-Class Poetry, Trove, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, January 26, 2023

Belgium Genealogy, Working-Class Poetry, Trove, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, January 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

Hey! Did you see my article about my Search Gizmos in ONLINE SEARCHER? Go look! https://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/jan23/Calishain–Creating-Search-Gizmos-to-Simplify-Web-Searching.shtml

NEW RESOURCES

Brussels Times: Tracing Belgian family trees made easier by massive new archive. “On this new platform, you can search for useful sources to learn more about your ancestors, provided they lived in Belgium. In total, millions of pages of documents have been digitised: birth, baptism, marriage, death or burial certificates, as well as all the registers (called decennial tables) that list these documents. You will be able to browse more easily through no less than 28,527 parish registers and 36,780 civil registers, which have a total of 2.2 million pages. Consultation of these digitised archives is free of charge, but limited to ten downloads per day.”

University of Stirling: Burns’ influence on working class English writers revealed after the discovery of ‘lost’ works. “The influence of Robert Burns saw poets in the north of England writing verse in Scots, say researchers who have uncovered a host of ‘lost’ literary works penned by industrial workers in the 19th Century. The team, led by Professor Kirstie Blair of the University of Stirling, has discovered a deluge of poems, songs and short stories penned by navvies, shipbuilders, railwaymen, factory workers and miners, from Scotland and the north of England, which give unique, first-hand accounts of their lives in the late 1800s and early 1900s.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Cosmos: Trove in trouble: why does it cost money to keep the resource online?. “The online database Trove may go offline in the middle of the year without additional funding. Trove, which is owned and operated by the National Library of Australia (NLA), is a free resource which provides access to billions of digital documents, images, media and records of physical documents. It also contains millions of digitised Australian newspaper pages and issues.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 6 Free Job Tracking Templates to Organize Your Job Search . “Do you need help tracking your job applications? When looking for a job, it’s common to feel overwhelmed or miss out on an important task. To avoid the stress of job hunting, use a pre-made template. Here are some job-tracking templates that you can download for free.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Michigan Daily: Nichetok/Corecore: TikTok’s trendy nihilistic echo chamber. “Calling someone ‘scenecore’ is the same as saying ‘you look scene’ in an adapted, chronically online way. There exist dozens of these -core terms, creating an almost absurd amount of micro-niche aesthetics and tastes. So now that we understand the -core suffix, what does ‘corecore’ mean? What does it look like? The answer is rather simple: Its purpose seems to be against this hyper-specific trend culture. It doesn’t fit any defined look or aesthetic, it just exists to compile feelings.”

Wall Street Journal: The Chess World’s New Villain: A Cat Named Mittens. “Mittens—or technically the chess bot known as Mittens—might look cute. Her listed chess rating of a single point seems innocuous. But her play over the past few weeks, which has bedeviled regular pawn-pushers, grandmasters, and champions who could play for the world title, is downright terrifying. And as it turns out, people are gluttons for punishment.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: DOJ sues Google over its dominance in online advertising market. “The Justice Department and eight states sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the company of harming competition with its dominance in the online advertising market and calling for it to be broken up. The move marks the Biden administration’s first blockbuster antitrust case against a Big Tech company. The eight states joining the suit include California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia.”

Washington Post: Ex-Twitter engineer tells FTC security violations persist after Musk. “The former employee has told members of Congress and staff at the Federal Trade Commission that any Twitter engineer can activate an internal program until recently called ‘GodMode’ and tweet from any account today, three months after Musk’s takeover. The allegation was also made in a complaint filed in October by the nonprofit law firm Whistleblower Aid with the FTC, which is continuing to interview former employees.”

Bleeping Computer: GoTo says hackers stole customers’ backups and encryption key. “GoTo (formerly LogMeIn) is warning customers that threat actors who breached its development environment in November 2022 stole encrypted backups containing customer information and an encryption key for a portion of that data. GoTo provides a platform for cloud-based remote working, collaboration, and communication, as well as remote IT management and technical support solutions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Larry Ferlazzo: How I’m Using AI Art Generation To Teach English To Newcomers. “I’ve previously shared THE BEST RESOURCES FOR TEACHING & LEARNING WITH AI ART GENERATION TOOLS, which included some preliminary ideas on how to us AI art creation sites in the classroom. I thought I would share how I’ve been using them in my ELL Newcomers class over the past few weeks, and hope that readers will share even better ideas.” I have a great deal of respect for Larry, but this time I want to disagree with him about terminology. I don’t think we should call them “art generators”. I think we should call them “image generators.” Referring to the output as “art” gives it a cultural credibility it does not deserve.

ABC News (Australia): Murray River flood photos on social media to help create archive for future planning. “When water levels along the South Australian stretch of the river started increasing in mid-to-late 2022, so too did the number of photographs capturing the changing landscape. Multiple social media pages dedicated to sharing visual updates of floodwaters have gained thousands of audience members far and wide.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

New Lines Magazine: Who Invented Paper?. “A new discovery at a long-neglected site suggests the ancient Egyptians used it more than 2,000 years before the Chinese.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. Check out Search Gizmos when you have a minute. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.

January 26, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Minnesota Lakes, Internet Archive, Internet Video Archive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 25, 2023

Minnesota Lakes, Internet Archive, Internet Video Archive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources: News release: New DNR tool provides health information for thousands of lakes. “The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has created a new online tool, called the Watershed Health Assessment Framework for Lakes (WHAF for Lakes)… Users can compare a lake’s health measures to other nearby lakes. Along with graphics showing lakes’ relative water quality, biology, and hydrology, WHAF for Lakes includes information about basic lake characteristics and lake stewardship.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Hindu: Internet Archive takes down upload of BBC’s Modi documentary. “The Internet Archive, a US-based repository of webpage archives and media uploads by users around the world, has taken down a widely circulated upload of the first episode of the BBC’s The Modi Question, the documentary that was ordered off of YouTube and Twitter by the Union government, The Hindu has found.”

TV Tech: Fabric Acquires Internet Video Archive. “The media and entertainment catalog management solution provider Fabric has acquired Internet Video Archive (IVA), which has a large inventory of entertainment trailers, as well as a substantial baseline catalog of film and television metadata. Financial terms of the deal for IVA were not disclosed. For the past 18 years, IVA has been providing movie, TV, and game promotional content to some of the largest names in the media industry.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 5 Best Free Screen Recording Apps Without Time Limits or Watermarks. “Screen recordings are an excellent way to explain things easier, whether it’s a how-to tutorial, an app demonstration, an online presentation, or an online meeting discussion. But most of the ‘free’ screen recording tools have some restrictions or the other. They’ll set a time limit for the recording, render lower resolution videos, add watermarks, or show ads. And you usually have to pay to remove those annoyances. If you’re tired of this and want the best free screen recording apps, you’re in luck.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Stack: After 20 years at Google, there were no flowers, no card, and no goodbye. “On Friday staff at the company’s New York offices had queued to try and get in to work after mass Google layoffs. If their passes flashed green, they still had a job. If they flashed red, they had been let go. For many, a terminating email had come in overnight and then their access to corporate email shut down in the morning before they left for the office. It was, said one observer, all a bit ‘Squid Game’.”

Android Police: Spam invites for Google Classrooms are out of control and unstoppable. “Spam has a way of getting around to all the platforms we use online. Whether it’s good ol’ fashioned phone calls or email, the comments section of anything, or automated content generation polluting the tubes of YouTube, it’s all unpleasant and messy and the only real saving grace we have is the ability to ignore it. But for Google Classroom users who are dealing with a wave of fresh textual horrors, they might not even have a valid way of doing so.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

MarketWatch: Feds poised to file another antitrust suit against Google this week: report. “The U.S. Justice Department is preparing to sue Alphabet Inc. in the coming days over its dominance in the online ad market, according to a report late Monday. Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reported the antitrust suit is expected to be filed in federal court before the end of this week, and as soon as Tuesday.”

Washington Post: ChatGPT is now writing legislation. Is this the future?. “…in what may be a first, a Massachusetts state senator has used a surging new tool to help write a bill aimed at restricting it: ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot. On Friday, state Sen. Barry Finegold (D) introduced legislation to set data privacy and security safeguards for the service and others like it that was ‘drafted with the help of ChatGPT.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: TikTok use is associated with increased body dissatisfaction, study finds. “TikTok, a social media application consisting of short videos, has grown rapidly in popularity over the last half a decade. It is most popular with Gen Z, and around 40% of the users range in age from 16 to 24. While other social media has been linked with body image issues, TikTok, which has not been extensively researched, has some unique features that may exacerbate this issue.”

Tubefilter: In 2022, 65% of all internet traffic came from video sites . “Each year, intelligence firm Sandvine identifies the websites and applications that gobble up the most bandwidth. In 2022, Sandvine’s Global Internet Phenomena Report reinforced an ongoing trend: Data usage from video sites increased by 24% year-over-year, and video now accounts for 65% of all internet traffic.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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January 26, 2023 at 01:06AM
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Historical Congressional Directories, CNET, Windows 10, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, January 25, 2023

Historical Congressional Directories, CNET, Windows 10, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, January 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

US Government Publishing Office: GPO Digitizes Historic Congressional Directories From the 1800s. The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) is digitizing historic volumes of the Congressional Directory from the 19th and 20th centuries. The first release includes Directories from 1869–1888, as well as 1993. Additional digitized historic Congressional Directories will be released on GovInfo as they are completed. Historically, the Congressional Directory has been one of the most comprehensive and detailed resources for identifying the components of the three branches of the Federal Government.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Futurism: CNET’s AI Journalist Appears to Have Committed Extensive Plagiarism. “The prominent tech news site CNET’s attempt to pass off AI-written work keeps getting worse. First, the site was caught quietly publishing the machine learning-generated stories in the first place. Then the AI-generated content was found to be riddled with factual errors. Now, CNET’s AI also appears to have been a serial plagiarist — of actual humans’ work.” Needless to say my CNET links will be very basic things, like announcement of Google easter eggs, and probably not even much of that.

The Verge: Microsoft to stop selling Windows 10 downloads on January 31st. “Microsoft says it will stop selling downloads for Windows 10 Home and Pro licenses later this month. Windows 10 will continue to be supported until October 2025.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: How to Delete Your House’s Pictures From Sites Like Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor. “Our personal data shows up in so many public online spaces. But while there are ways to review and delete your data from social media profiles or even Google search, one place you may not think to check is your property’s listing on sites like Redfin, Zillow, or Realtor.com.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Daily Dot: ‘You might wanna look up if you might be getting laid off’: Woman shares database you can check to see if your company is about to do layoffs. “Recession anxiety and layoff anxiety are real in 2023, and a TikToker has taken to the platform to show that companies might indicate online when they’re about to do layoffs. The video comes from Seattle-based creator Emma, who generated more than 589,000 views as of Saturday for her information about the Department of Labor’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act — and how you can use it to tell if your company’s about to lay people off.”

Yorkshire Post: World’s Largest Brass Band archive to open in Yorkshire with unseen historical items from exclusive brass bands collection – on public display for the first time. “Launching early March at the Heritage Quay in Huddersfield to coincide with The Yorkshire Brass Band Championships, the archive will be publicly accessible to researchers, brass bands enthusiasts and anyone else hoping to learn from over a century of banding heritage.”

TechCrunch: India blocks YouTube videos and Twitter posts on BBC Modi documentary. “The Indian government has ordered YouTube and Twitter to take down videos and tweets about a BBC documentary that is critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Supreme Court Puts Off Considering State Laws Curbing Internet Platforms. “The Supreme Court asked the Biden administration on Monday for its views on whether the Constitution allows Florida and Texas to prevent large social media companies from removing posts based on the views they express.”

Ahram Online: Egypt drafting legislation to regulate social media platforms. “Egypt’s Supreme Council for Media Regulation is preparing legislation that would require social media platforms to obtain a license to access mobile users in the country, the head of the Supreme Council for Media Regulation Karam Gabr told the Senate on Sunday.”

CNN: UK’s Crown Estate sues Twitter over alleged non-payment of rent in London offices. “The Crown Estate, a British commercial property portfolio historically belonging to the monarch, began court proceedings against Twitter over the tech giant’s alleged non-payment of rent in its London offices, a spokesperson of the property business told CNN on Monday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok . “HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”

Northeastern Global News: Here’s what nobody is talking about when it comes to ChatGPT. “Regardless of where people come down on ChatGPT, most people have been obsessing over what it can produce. But Laura Huang, a distinguished professor of management and organizational development at Northeastern, says the future of tools like ChatGPT rests on the other side of the process. ‘Most people are focused on the output of this,’ Huang says. ‘Very few people are focused on the input. You don’t magically just get something.'” Good morning, Internet…

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January 25, 2023 at 06:29PM
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