Monday, March 15, 2021

Internet Archive Web Datasets, Pocket, Roblox, More: Monday Evening ResearchBuzz, March 15, 2021

Internet Archive Web Datasets, Pocket, Roblox, More: Monday Evening ResearchBuzz, March 15, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Internet Archive Blog: Early Web Datasets & Researcher Opportunities. “In July, we announced our partnership with the Archives Unleashed project as part of our ongoing effort to make new services available for scholars and students to study the archived web…. As part of our partnership, we are releasing a series of publicly available datasets created from archived web collections. Alongside these efforts, the project is also launching a Cohort Program providing funding and technical support for research teams interested in studying web archive collections.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Pocket’s sort by time to read feature seems designed for the return of commutes. “Pocket, an app for saving articles to read later, is rolling out a sorting option to Android users over the next few weeks that could solve my paralysis when choosing something to read. The new sort by time-to-read feature, spotted by The Verge’s Dan Seifert, means articles can be organized where they fit best, whether it’s the five minutes it takes to microwave lunch, or a 20-minute wait for the late bus.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: What Is Roblox? Meet the Game Over Half of U.S. Kids Play. “With more players than Fortnite, you have probably heard about Roblox—the game half the kids in the U.S. are playing. But what makes this online video game so popular? Here’s what you need to know about Roblox.”

Smashing Magazine: The Guide To Ethical Scraping Of Dynamic Websites With Node.js And Puppeteer. “For a lot of web scraping tasks, an HTTP client is enough to extract a page’s data. However, when it comes to dynamic websites, a headless browser sometimes becomes indispensable. In this tutorial, we will build a web scraper that can scrape dynamic websites based on Node.js and Puppeteer.”

Wired: How You Can Use Google Maps Like a Social Network . “From configuring your Google Maps profile to helping other travelers, these are all the social networking features now available in the app. It’s not quite Facebook or Snapchat, but Google Maps is more social than you might have realized.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Weirton Daily Times: Grant to bring WSX Bulletins on line. “The Weirton Steel Employees Bulletin Archives — more than 10,000 pages of historical images and information from the mid-1930s to the late 1980s — are set to go online this year, thanks in part to a grant awarded to the Weirton Area Museum and Cultural Center at 3149 Main St.”

The Press Democrat: Santa Rosa family finds ideal home for baseball fan’s autograph collection . “When retired Superior Court Judge Joseph P. Murphy Jr. died at age 89 in his Santa Rosa home nine years ago he was, his obituary tells us, watching a Sunday afternoon San Francisco Giants baseball game from spring training in Scottsdale, Arizona…. We are pleased to tell Joe’s ‘baseball story.’ The happy ending comes first. In late November the Murphy family donated the Joseph Murphy Autograph Collection to the Sullivan Family Research Center, located at the San Diego Public Library.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

National Security Archive: “Still Interested” Letters Add Insult to Injury of Long-Ignored FOIA Requests. “The National Security Archive’s 2021 Sunshine Week Audit has found that many agencies still abuse ‘still interested’ letters – out of the 84 ‘still interested’ letters we received between November 2019 and the present, 17 provided fewer than 30 days to respond. Put another way, more than one in five, or 20 percent, of all ‘still interested’ letters the Archive received in the last year and a half did not follow OIP guidance.” I didn’t know much about “still interested” letters, but MuckRock filled me in.

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Next Web: Adventures with AI: Here’s what happened when I ate a three course meal designed by artificial intelligence. “I first sought culinary inspiration from GPT-3, a text generator that’s destined to either Take Over The World or burn out in a blaze of bigotry and pseudophilosophy. The model’s been trained on a gobsmacking quantity of data, including the entire English-language Wikipedia, two vast corpora of books, and a filtered version of the Common Crawl. With so many recipes now online, GPT-3 must have learned its way around the kitchen. Right I put my stomach on the line to find out.”

Apollo Magazine: It’s deepfake karaoke, Old Master style. “A new tool goes a step further than those AI animations of portrait paintings that have been doing the rounds: the recently launched Wombo.Ai app, which transforms still images into singing videos. By the end of last week, some 15 million Wombo videos had been created – among them, of course, some delightfully expressive footage of historical artworks serenading the internet.” Good evening, Internet…

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March 16, 2021 at 06:07AM
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Corporate Governance, Facebook, Social Media, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 15, 2021

Corporate Governance, Facebook, Social Media, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 15, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Virginia: Why Everything We Thought We Knew About Corporate Governance Is Wrong. “Nearly two decades of influential scholarship on how corporations are governed and valued is based on bad data, according to new research co-authored by Cathy Hwang of the University of Virginia School of Law. The paper, ‘Cleaning Corporate Governance,’ reveals that an index cited thousands of times by scholars to measure corporate governance and shareholder rights is riddled with errors. Written by Hwang, Columbia Law School postdoctoral fellow Jens Frankenreiter, Wisconsin law professor Yaron Nili and Columbia law professor Eric L. Talley, the new research also offers a dataset with pilot data to rectify the problem, creating a clearer picture about the power dynamics that control corporations and what that might imply in terms of profit potential, valuation and long-term prospects, among other business factors.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 9 of the Best Chrome Extensions for Students. “Most students today rely on information available online to complete their projects and assignments. Those who are using the Chrome browser by Google have a variety of Chrome extensions available for them that will help with research and completing schoolwork. This article looks at the best Chrome extensions that every student should install and use.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BuzzFeed News: Facebook Created An Employee “Playbook” To Respond To Accusations Of Polarization. “In a Thursday presentation, Facebook executives told employees the company isn’t to blame for social division in the country. One researcher said some polarization can be a good thing, citing the civil rights movement.”

Washington Post: Why Russia is tightening its grip on social media. ” Russia is not likely to build its own version of China’s Great Firewall to control the Internet. The reasons are social (Russians like foreign social media and would hate to lose access) and technical (China’s Internet developed differently than Russia’s, making it easier to cordon off.) But the Kremlin, increasingly insecure about rising social discontent over everything from food prices to political repression, wants to crush online dissent. Can it do it?”

New York Times: Doctors Are Investigated After Posting Organ Photos Online as ‘Price Is Right’ Game. “A health care network in Michigan said it had opened an investigation after some operating room doctors posted photos on social media last week showing themselves holding a surgically removed organ and tissue material as part of a game that they likened to ‘The Price Is Right.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Citizens for Ethics: Judge stops ICE from destroying records of abuse. “ICE cannot destroy records of sexual abuse and assault, death reviews, detainee segregation files and other records it planned to dispose of, a federal judge ordered today in a case brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, American Historical Association and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.”

The Daily Swig: Shorteners – new tool allows researchers, orgs to search for exposed shortened URLs. “A new online service allows security researchers to search for exposed shortened URLs, known for their risks to security and privacy. Shortened URLs are comparatively easy to brute-force, thanks to the lower character count, which reduces the number of possibilities, and often involve sensitive documents.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Brookings Institution: Lessons for online platform regulation from Australia vs. Facebook. “To be clear, the Australian approach is a limited way to deal with tech monopoly power and the crisis in news production. It does not stop Facebook from dropping news sources again if it does not like the arbitrator’s commercial arrangements. Moreover, as media scholar and others have pointed out, public funds and infrastructure for local journalism will be needed in addition to subsidizing established national news outlets. But the Australian approach is a start.”

EurekAlert: Engineers combine AI and wearable cameras in self-walking robotic legs. “Robotics researchers are developing exoskeletons and prosthetic legs capable of thinking and moving on their own using sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) technology.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

Hackaday: Web Pages (And More) Via Shortwave. “If you are a ham radio operator, the idea of sending pictures and data over voice channels is nothing new. Hams have lots of techniques for doing that and — not so long ago — even most data transmissions were over phone lines. However, now everyone can get in on the game thanks to the cheap availability of software-defined radio. Several commercial shortwave broadcasters are sending encoded data including images and even entire web pages.” 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. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



March 16, 2021 at 12:05AM
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Monday CoronaBuzz, March 15, 2021: 44 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Monday CoronaBuzz, March 15, 2021: 44 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of CoronaBuzz. According to ResearchBuzz Firehose, where I post the individual articles, I have aggregated 8,557 items. I missed big gaps when people in my family got sick, and I will admit that doing this newsletter when my mother was in the hospital and then in ICU sometimes felt like repeatedly punching myself in the face. I did not want to read about failed research or people getting sick and dying. But I did anyway.

I have this dumb idea if I can understand things better I’ll be less anxious about them. This past year has been an attempt to understand things better. From that perspective it’s been an epic failure, but I have learned some things I was able to use and share. I hope that this newsletter has been at least a tiny bit helpful in informing you.

I know some community projects are winding down after a year. I intend to keep doing this newsletter, though issues may space out as there’s less focus on coronavirus.

Thanks for reading. You’re giving me a reason.

Please wear a mask (or even two). Wash your hands. Stay at home if you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – MEDICAL/HEALTH

USA Today: Trying to book a COVID-19 vaccine appointment? Facebook is launching a vaccine finder tool. “As many Americans struggle to make appointments for COVID-19 vaccines, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a plan to help more people get vaccinated. Zuckerberg announced in a Facebook post early Monday that the social media giant is launching a tool in its COVID Information Center that shows ‘when and where you can get vaccinated, and gives you a link to make an appointment.'”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: How to Date During the Pandemic Without Going on Another Damn Walk. “The pandemic has taken dating from a difficult and necessary evil to a basically impossible and dangerous temptation. But with COVID-19 cases waning internationally and vaccination rates increasing daily in the U.S., you’ll likely be able to stumble through an awkward date again, just like the olden days. And when you do, why the hell would you go on another lame, lackluster walk?”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

AP: AP-NORC poll: 1 in 5 in US lost someone close in pandemic. “A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research illustrates how the stage is set for a two-tiered recovery. The public’s worry about the virus has dropped to its lowest point since the fall, before the holidays brought skyrocketing cases into the new year. But people still in mourning express frustration at the continued struggle to stay safe.”

New York Times: A Year of Trauma and Resilience: How the Pandemic Changed Everything. “Across the United States and around the globe, nearly everyone experienced a moment when the coronavirus pandemic truly hit home for them. One year later, as the pandemic carries on, having claimed more than 2.6 million lives worldwide, we asked our readers: When did the pandemic become real for you? Nearly 2,000 people responded.”

MISINFORMATION / DISINFORMATION

BBC: YouTube deletes 30,000 vaccine misinfo videos. “YouTube has removed more than 30,000 misleading Covid-19 vaccination videos in the past five months, it said. A YouTube spokeswoman said the videos contradicted vaccine information from the World Health Organization (WHO) or health authorities such as the NHS.”

UK .gov: Government targets false vaccine information on social media. “The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has now developed a toolkit with content designed to be shared via Whatsapp and Facebook community groups, as well as Twitter, Youtube and Instagram, to tackle false information spread through private channels.”

Poynter: 6 things we’ve learned from a year of misinformation about the coronavirus. “Since the novel coronavirus first emerged in late 2019, PolitiFact has fact-checked nearly 800 claims — 60% of which we rated False or Pants on Fire! In the early days of the pandemic, much of the misinformation focused on ways to cure or prevent COVID-19. Now, disinformation is casting doubt on the efficacy and safety of coronavirus vaccines. Here are a few things we’ve observed and learned while fact-checking coronavirus claims over the past year — and some lessons for how to avoid misinformation in what we hope is the twilight of the pandemic.”

American Independent: No, COVID aid doesn’t give ‘free alcohol and marijuana’ to the homeless. “‘Did you know? — Nancy Pelosi’s Bay Area Bailout included $600 million for San Francisco, part of which goes to cover the tab for free alcohol and marijuana for the homeless,’ McCarthy tweeted on Sunday, linking to a Fox News clip in which he makes the same false claim. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this bailout is too costly, corrupt, and liberal.’ This claim is patently false.”

ACTIVISM / PROTESTS

BBC: Covid-19: Dutch police break up anti-lockdown protest. “Police in the Netherlands have used water cannon to clear anti-government demonstrators from a park in The Hague. Some 2,000 demonstrators rallied in the centre of the city to protest against Covid-19 restrictions and other government policies. Mounted officers as well as riot police with batons and dogs moved in after some of the protesters refused to leave at the end of the demonstration.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

NewsWise: COVID-19 has changed surgery forever. “The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed health care forever, including surgery, just as 9/11 changed airport security and AIDS/HIV altered blood draws and donation. Although this new reality continues to evolve, many changes are likely to remain – possibly permanently – from requirements for patients and visitors to wear face masks at the hospital or ambulatory (outpatient) surgery center to pre-surgery COVID-19 testing, says the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA).”

New York Times: ‘At Your Age, It’s the Vaccine or the Grave’. “…much of the racial disparity in vaccination rates, experts say, can be tied to a longstanding mistrust of medical institutions among African-Americans. Many Baton Rouge residents can readily cite the history of abuse: starting with the eugenics campaigns that forcibly sterilized Black women for nearly half of the 20th century, and the notorious government-run Tuskegee experiments in Alabama that withheld penicillin from hundreds of Black men with syphilis, some of whom later died of the disease.”

Healthcare Finance: Pediatric emergency visits, hospitalizations down sharply during pandemic. “Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, children’s hospitals across the U.S. have seen significant reductions in the number of children being treated for common pediatric illnesses like asthma and pneumonia, according to a new multicenter study led by Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.”

ABC News: Advocates seek to prioritize at-home vaccines for homebound seniors. “As mass inoculation against COVID-19 is underway across the country, advocates for the elderly are pushing to prioritize at-home vaccinations in order to protect the health of older, homebound adults.”

INSTITUTIONS

Smithsonian: Smithsonian Folklife Festival Goes Virtual for 2021. “In addition to monthly digital programs online, the festival will offer a weekend of artisan-based digital programming in late June. Activities will include master classes and family workshops, cook-alongs and panel discussions. The festival is scheduled to return to the National Mall in 2022 with the programs ‘UAE: Living Landscape | Living Memory,’ ‘Creative Encounters: Living Religions in America’ and ‘Earth Optimism.’ This is the second year the Folklife Festival has been virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

The Verge: Amazon ordered to temporarily close facility near Toronto due to increase in COVID-19 cases. “A public health authority has ordered Amazon to close one of its fulfillment centers in Canada for two weeks because of an uptick in the rate of COVID-19 infections at the facility. A public health investigation found that while the rate of COVID-19 infections has been decreasing in the area, the rate inside the Brampton facility, near Toronto, ‘has been increasing significantly.'”

WORLD / FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

IRS: IRS Statement – American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. “The IRS is reviewing implementation plans for the newly enacted American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Additional information about a new round of Economic Impact Payments, the expanded Child Tax Credit, including advance payments of the Child Tax Credit, and other tax provisions will be made available as soon as possible on IRS.gov. The IRS strongly urges taxpayers to not file amended returns related to the new legislative provisions or take other unnecessary steps at this time.”

BBC: Covid-19: Netherlands suspend use of AstraZeneca vaccine. “The Netherlands has become the latest country to suspend use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine over concerns about possible side effects. The Dutch government said the move, which will last until at least 29 March, was a precaution.”

New York Times: Hungary pays big for a Chinese vaccine. “Hungary has agreed to pay about $36 a dose for the Covid-19 vaccine made by Sinopharm, a Chinese state-owned company, according to contracts made public by a senior Hungarian official on Thursday. That appears to make the Sinopharm shot among the most expensive in the world.”

Bloomberg: Germany Joins Growing List of Countries to Suspend Astra Vaccine. “Germany suspended use of the AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 vaccine amid a growing health scare that’s creating yet another delay for the European Union’s inoculation campaign. The country cited the recommendation of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which oversees vaccine safety, according to a statement from the health ministry on Monday.”

NBC News: Whether struggling or thriving, odds are you’re getting some stimulus cash. “The average household can expect $3,000 in direct tax benefits, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, and about $6,000 if they have children. That doesn’t include the law’s boost to subsidies to buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act or its $300 weekly bump in unemployment pay.”

STATE / LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Washington Post: New York’s vaccine czar called county officials to gauge their loyalty to Cuomo amid sexual harassment investigation. “New York’s ‘vaccine czar’ — a longtime adviser to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo — phoned county officials in the past two weeks in attempts to gauge their loyalty to the embattled governor amid an ongoing sexual harassment investigation, according to multiple officials. One Democratic county executive was so unsettled by the outreach from Larry Schwartz, head of the state’s vaccine rollout, that the executive on Friday filed notice of an impending ethics complaint with the public integrity unit of the state attorney general’s office, the official told The Washington Post. The executive feared the county’s vaccine supply could suffer if Schwartz was not
pleased with the executive’s response to his questions about support of the governor.”

Los Angeles Times: L.A.’s homeless residents are 50% more likely to die if they get COVID. Now they’re a vaccine priority. “Faced with the knowledge that homeless people are dying at much higher rates if they catch COVID-19, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health will make the county’s entire homeless population eligible for vaccines starting Monday. This comes as welcome news for public health officials and advocates who for months have been saying there should be more of a focus on a community that’s rife with comorbidities, struggles to access healthcare and can’t easily shelter in place or maintain social distance.”

AP: Governments delay access to public records during pandemic. “As states prepared to reopen their economies following coronavirus shutdowns last spring, The Associated Press asked governors across the U.S. for records that could shed light on how businesses and health officials influenced their decisions. Nine months later, after several more COVID-19 surges and shutdowns, the AP still has not received records from about 20 states. Some outright denied the requests or sought payments the AP declined to make. Others have not responded, or said they still need more time.”

New York Times: Fewer than half of states are giving vaccine access to U.S. Postal Service workers.. “The Postal Service has endured tumultuous months amid a significant increase in online shopping, understaffing, government funding issues and an explosion of mail-in ballots during a contentious election. Thousands of postal workers have contracted the coronavirus, and more than 150 have died. Still, fewer than half of the states across the country — at least 22 — have begun administering shots to Postal Service workers, at least in some counties, even as they rapidly expand access to more groups of people, according to a New York Times survey.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

ABC News: Live entertainment venues hungry for financial relief after year of pandemic closures. “The click of a light switch echoes eerily these days inside the cavernous empty Stone Church music club in Brattleboro, Vermont. Owner Robin Johnson says the silence is a daily reminder of a devastating pandemic year without live performances in the hall.”

SPORTS

New York Times: Despite Covid Outbreaks, Youth Sports Played On. “A year after the coronavirus crisis first closed athletic fields and darkened school gyms, students, parents, coaches and officials have struggled to navigate the challenges of youth sports, weighing concerns about transmitting the virus against the social, emotional and sometimes financial benefits of competition.”

Reuters: Mexico’s lucha libre wrestlers take fight against COVID to vast market. “Mexico’s famous lucha libre wrestlers turned Latin America’s largest wholesale food market into a battleground against COVID-19 this week, barging down walkways to urge people to wear masks to contain the virus.”

K-12 EDUCATION

Gothamist: NYC Public Schools With The Worst Attendance Are In Areas With Higher COVID Rates. “New data shows that nearly half of New York City public schools have had attendance rates during the COVID-19 crisis that fall below what’s considered acceptable by education experts. In dozens of schools, serving thousands of students, the median attendance rate is alarmingly low, at less than 61%. And the majority of the schools with a high number of absences are located in Black and brown communities hit hardest by the pandemic, exacerbating an already stark disparity, in not only health but also education.”

New York Times: A new study suggests 3 feet, not 6 feet, is sufficient distance for school students, with mask-wearing and other safety measures kept in place.. “The new study, published last week in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, suggests public schools may be able to reopen safely for in-person instruction as long as children maintain three feet of distance between them, and with other mitigation measures maintained, such as wearing masks.”

HEALTH

Axios: More states are battling an increase in drug overdoses during the pandemic. “Roughly 81,000 people died from a drug overdose between June 2019 and May 2020, the highest number ever recorded in a 12-month period, according to provisional data in the CDC’s December report.”

Newswise: Sleep Maximizes Vaccine Effectiveness. “With the roll out of COVID-19 vaccines now underway, University of South Australia sleep experts are urging people to reprioritise their sleep, as getting regular and sufficient sleep is known to boost your immune system. In Australia, four in every ten people suffer from a lack of sleep. Globally, around 62 per cent of adults feel that they don’t sleep well when they go to bed.”

New York Times: Women Report Worse Side Effects After a Covid Vaccine. “In a study published last month, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed safety data from the first 13.7 million Covid-19 vaccine doses given to Americans. Among the side effects reported to the agency, 79.1 percent came from women, even though only 61.2 percent of the vaccines had been administered to women.”

Washington Post: ‘I almost made it’: Close to a vaccine, these Americans got covid-19 instead. “From its beginning, the coronavirus pandemic has been a terrifying game of chance, requiring moment-to-moment calculations about whether the most mundane decision — entering an elevator, perhaps, or using a public restroom — is worth risking one’s life. For those infected in recent weeks, as vaccinations became available and experts began talking of an impending return to normalcy, the bad timing is the pandemic’s latest cruel twist.”

TECHNOLOGY

BBC: We asked for your first Covid text messages. These are your stories. “The pandemic is the biggest global story in generations, but a year ago as borders were closing we did not know how it would unfold. We asked readers to share and talk about their first text messages about the virus.”

Reuters: Exclusive: Microsoft could reap more than $150 million in new U.S. cyber spending, upsetting some lawmakers. “Congress allocated the funds at issue in the COVID relief bill signed on Thursday after two enormous cyberattacks leveraged weaknesses in Microsoft products to reach into computer networks at federal and local agencies and tens of thousands of companies. One breach attributed to Russia in December grabbed emails from the Justice Department, Commerce Department and Treasury Department. The hacks pose a significant national security threat, frustrating lawmakers who say Microsoft’s faulty software is making it more profitable.”

CNET: Zoom anxiety is still a major problem, one year into the pandemic. “One year into the pandemic, video chat platforms have afforded many people the ability to work from home and stay connected to family and friends. We’ve heard a lot about ‘Zoom fatigue’ — the sense of utter exhaustion you feel after a day of staring at your screen for on-camera meetings, worsened when most of your after-work socializing is happening through video, too. But the related concept of ‘Zoom anxiety’ has gotten less attention, though it can be more debilitating for many — and have potential career implications.”

RESEARCH

The National Academies: Emerging Evidence Indicates COVID-19 Pandemic Has Negatively Impacted Women in Academic STEMM Fields, Endangering Progress Made in Recent Years. “Preliminary evidence indicates that the COVID 19 pandemic has negatively affected the well-being of women in academic STEMM fields in a range of areas, including productivity, work-life boundary control, networking and community building, and mental well-being, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.”

The Verge: Some research has gotten a huge boost during the pandemic. “Billions of dollars have been spent fighting the pandemic, with a huge proportion of that money going towards vaccine development. Other areas of research have also gotten a big boost during the pandemic — and the results could make a huge difference to public health in the future. Here are some of the big winners in the pandemic-inspired funding race.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

AP: US prison guards refusing vaccine despite COVID-19 outbreaks. “As states have begun COVID-19 inoculations at prisons across the country, corrections employees are refusing vaccines at alarming rates, causing some public health experts to worry about the prospect of controlling the pandemic both inside and outside. Infection rates in prisons are more than three times as high as in the general public. Prison staff helped accelerate outbreaks by refusing to wear masks, downplaying people’s symptoms, and haphazardly enforcing social distancing and hygiene protocols in confined, poorly ventilated spaces ripe for viral spread.”

The Grio: Maskless woman who attacked Uber driver arrested, 2nd woman to turn herself in. “Malaysia King, one of the women caught on camera during an attack on a San Francisco Uber driver has been arrested while her friend, Arna Kimiai, plans to surrender to police for her role in the disturbing assault. In the days since their March 7 encounter with Uber driver Subkahar Khadka, King and Kimiai had been wanted by San Francisco police for assault and robbery. In video of the incident, Kimiai is seen hitting the driver and is also believed to have sprayed him with pepper spray after he ended the trip when she refused to wear a mask.”

POLITICS

Axios: Vaccine brawl riles House. “Uncertainty about why only 75% of the House is confirmed as vaccinated against the coronavirus is fueling a debate about when the chamber can return to its normal rules of operation. Between the lines: The other 25% of members have either refused to get the vaccine, have not reported getting it at home or are avoiding it because of medical conditions.”

AP: Biden, Harris and others to promote relief plan’s benefits. “President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses are opening an ambitious, cross-country tour this week to highlight the benefits of his $1.9 trillion plan to defeat the coronavirus and boost the economy.”

Washington Post: ‘We want to be educated, not indoctrinated,’ say Trump voters wary of covid shots. “Be honest that scientists don’t have all the answers. Tout the number of people who got the vaccines in trials. And don’t show pro-vaccine ads with politicians — not even ones with Donald Trump. That’s what a focus group of vaccine-hesitant Trump voters insisted to politicians and pollsters this weekend, as public health leaders rush to win over the tens of millions of Republicans who say they don’t plan to get a coronavirus shot. If those voters follow through, it would imperil efforts to achieve the high levels of immunity needed to stop the virus’s spread in the United States, experts fear.”

SupChina: U.S., Japan, and Australia to help India compete with China’s vaccine diplomacy. “One billion doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be produced in India and distributed to Southeast Asian countries, with the help of the U.S., Japan, and Australia. The initiative, an output of the informal ‘Quad’ alliance, is an attempt to counter Chinese vaccine diplomacy in the region.”

CoronaBuzz is brought to you by ResearchBuzz. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment, send resource suggestions, or tag @buzz_corona on Twitter. Thanks!



March 15, 2021 at 09:29PM
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Venture Capital, Maine State Archives, TED Audio Collective, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, March 15, 2021

Venture Capital, Maine State Archives, TED Audio Collective, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, March 15, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Tech EU: OpenVC launches to help entrepreneurs cold email VCs – the right way. “There are more (aspiring) entrepreneurs looking to raise funding from investors than there are VCs, which makes for interesting dynamics. One thing that has worked well for founders in the past has always been so-called ‘warm introductions’, as busy investors getting referrals from trusted sources tends to cut through the noise. Things change, though, and a new open-source initiative called OpenVC wants to get out ahead of the curve by offering an online platform where VCs can display their investment criteria – things like preferred geography, technology stack, sector, stage, check size, etc.”

Maine: Maine State Archives announces launch of online catalog portal. “The Maine State Archives has launched its first-ever catalog of its holdings, via the online ArchivesSpace portal at https://archives.maine.gov/ , Secretary of State Shenna Bellows announced today. For the first time in the Maine State Archives’ 56-year history, researchers can now search through the bureaus listing of collections online to see if the Archives is the right resource for their purposes, before contacting an archivist to access the actual documents.”

EVENTS

University of Dayton: “Fake News” and the First Amendment. “Please join three of the America’s leading First Amendment scholars, Helen Norton, Jonathan Varat and Eugene Volokh on Wednesday, March 31, 2021 from 3:30 – 5 p.m. (EDT), for an online panel discussion of a potential state statute banning fake news.” The event is free but requires registration.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TED Blog: TED launches TED Audio Collective for podcasts. “While broadly known for its global conferences and signature TED Talk videos, TED is also one of the top podcast publishers in the world. TED podcasts are downloaded 1.65 million times per day in virtually every country on earth. Our shows have been consistently ranked by Apple Podcasts as ‘most downloaded’ of the year, and TED Talks Daily was the second most popular show globally on Spotify in 2020. Now the TED Audio Collective expands upon that foundation, creating a home for shows co-developed by TED and our speakers as well as shows developed and produced independently by inspiring thinkers and creators.”

USEFUL STUFF

Wired: Smartphone Camera Tricks That Will Make Your Life Easier. “YOUR PHONE’S CAMERA is more than just a lens for capturing memories. You probably know that already—it can deposit checks, import business cards, and look for constellations in the night sky. But with some clever thinking or the right tools, it can do so much more.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Ukrinform: Information policy ministry to create online museum of Russian propaganda in Ukraine. “The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy plans to create an online museum of Russian propaganda in Ukraine, Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko has said.
He stated this on the Ukraine 24 television channel, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.”

Christian Science Monitor: Smartphones have redefined protests. But will it last?. “The ubiquity of smartphones and social media has accelerated the the sharing of images by citizens – from Myanmar to Minneapolis, drawing the attention to conflicts and protests in an unprecedented way. But can they keep global attention for long?”

Autocar: Work begins to digitise 126 years of Autocar magazine. “It’s believed that the only interruptions were during the General Strike in 1926, the Fuel Crisis in 1973 and print-related issues in 1975. That means around 6500 issues and 700,000 pages will be digitised as part of the project – enough paper to cover the 130 miles from Autocar’s London offices to Archive Digital’s Coventry facility.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: India to propose cryptocurrency ban, penalising miners, traders: source. “India will propose a law banning cryptocurrencies, fining anyone trading in the country or even holding such digital assets, a senior government official told Reuters in a potential blow to millions of investors piling into the red-hot asset class.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Europeana Pro: Pioneering AI for digital cultural heritage – an interview with Dr Emmanuelle Bermes. “On Europeana Pro this month, we are exploring Artificial Intelligence (AI) related activities in the cultural heritage sector, and shining a light on women leading research, projects and work in this area. Today, Dr Emmanuelle Bermes of the National Library of France discusses the enormous potential of AI for large collections – and the challenge of realising it!”

The Next Web: Study: It might be unethical to force AI to tell us the truth. “….it’s easy to see how building robots that can’t lie could make them patsies for humans who figure out how to exploit their honesty. If your client is negotiating like a human and your machine is bottom-lining everything, you could lose a deal over robo-human cultural differences, for example. None of that answers the question as to whether we should let machines lie to humans or each other. But it could be pragmatic.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

Laughing Squid: A Visualization of the Space That Bytes on the Internet Would Occupy in Comparison to Real World Objects. “For example, using this ratio, a 100 MB would be smaller than a typical soda can, while 1 PB (Petabyte) would be taller than the Statue of Liberty. All information on the internet in 2001 would be represented by 1 EB Exabyte and one ZB (Zettabyte) in 2020. 1 YB (Yottabyte) of information would cover the better part of North America.” Good morning, Internet…

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March 15, 2021 at 05:29PM
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Sunday, March 14, 2021

Arizona Highways Magazine, Pi Day Easter Eggs, Clubhouse, More: Sunday Evening (and how) ResearchBuzz, March 14, 2021

Arizona Highways Magazine, Pi Day Easter Eggs, Clubhouse, More: Sunday Evening (and how) ResearchBuzz, March 14, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

KJZZ: Entire Arizona Highways Magazine Archive Available In Arizona Memory Project’s Digital Library. “For nearly 100 years, Arizona Highways magazine has captured the history and culture of the state. Their latest achievement: They’ve now digitized every issue of the storied magazine.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Gizmodo: Google Celebrates Pi Day With a Cute Calculator Easter Egg. “The yearly celebration of the mathematical constant π or pi, aka the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter (and here I thought I’d never get a chance to use 9th-grade geometry in real life!). It falls on March 14 because pi written out numerically is 3.14… and then goes on forever because irrational numbers just roll that way. In observance of this pseudo-holiday, Google hid a nerdy little Easter egg in Chrome’s calculator.”

Engadget: Clubhouse tackles privacy issues with its drop-in audio chats. “As The Verge reports, Clubhouse will no longer require access to your phone contacts to invite people to the platform — you only have to add their phone number directly. While that’s not as ideal as avoiding phone numbers altogether, it tackles gripes that Clubhouse was both asking for unnecessary info and creating profiles for people who never intended to join.”

USEFUL STUFF

Mashable: TikTok users are teaching iPhone owners how to screenshot an entire webpage. “Did you know you could screenshot an entire webpage on your phone, then save it as a PDF and revisit its contents whenever your little heart desires? Full-page screenshotting is a super simple and helpful trick, yet I, a person who’s owned an iPhone for over a decade, had no idea it was possible until I watched this TikTok video.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Reuters: Oman blocks audio app Clubhouse citing lack of permit, but some fear censorship. “Oman blocked U.S. audio app Clubhouse on Sunday because it did not have the right permit, authorities said, but some activists described the move as a further erosion of freedom of expression in the Gulf state.”

Scroll .in: How Bangladesh agencies are suspected of taking down websites, YouTube channels of dissidents abroad . “On December 8, Oliullah Noman, the executive editor of the newly established online Bengali news website, Amar Desh UK, received an email from its host DigitalOcean. It started friendly enough – ‘Hi there’ – but its contents were far from it. The email was a notice stating that an article on the website was “the subject of a notification of claimed copyright infringement” under the US law, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. DigitalOcean requested Amar Desh UK to take down the offending article from its website within three days or they “may disable access” to the website.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: White House Weighs New Cybersecurity Approach After Failure to Detect Hacks. “The sophisticated hacks pulled off by Russia and China against a broad array of government and industrial targets in the United States — and the failure of the intelligence agencies to detect them — are driving the Biden administration and Congress to rethink how the nation should protect itself from growing cyberthreats.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Massive Facebook study on users’ doubt in vaccines finds a small group appears to play a big role in pushing the skepticism. “The company’s data scientists divided the company’s U.S. users, groups and pages into 638 population segments to explore which types of groups hold vaccine hesitant beliefs. The document did not identify how Facebook defined a segment or grouped communities, but noted that the segments could be at least 3 million people. Some of the early findings are notable: Just 10 out of the 638 population segments contained 50 percent of all vaccine hesitancy content on the platform. And in the population segment with the most vaccine hesitancy, just 111 users contributed half of all vaccine hesitant content.”

Jeremiah Owyang: 20 Ways Businesses Will Engage Social Audio. “The tech crowd abuzz with the promise of a new, real-time engagement platform, influencers gathering en masse to share content, and the ever-so-slight opening of the proverbial ‘exclusive access door’ to the public for a peek inside the magic. Except this time around, consumers and the press are much more keen to the potential data risks and platform flaws.” Good evening, Internet…

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March 15, 2021 at 08:29AM
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Sunday CoronaBuzz, March 14, 2021: 27 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.

Sunday CoronaBuzz, March 14, 2021: 27 pointers to updates, useful stuff, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Please wear a mask (or even two). Wash your hands. Stay at home if you can. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – EDUCATION/ENTERTAINMENT

KCET: One Day at a Time … A Comprehensive COVID-19 Timeline. “This timeline puts into perspective the significance COVID-19 has had on us, the struggles we face to contend with a pandemic and perhaps illuminates what we want in a better future.”

UPDATES

New York Times: ‘I’d Much Rather Be in Florida’. “To call what is happening in Florida an actual boom is a stretch. Though the state was fully reopened by late September, its tourism-dependent economy remains hobbled. A $2.7 billion budget deficit will need an injection of federal stimulus money. Orange County, where Orlando is, saw the lowest tourist development tax collections for any January since 2002. Yet in a country just coming out of the morose grip of coronavirus lockdowns, Florida feels unmistakably hot. (And not just because of global warming.)”

The Guardian: ‘Covid is taking over’: Brazil plunges into deadliest chapter of its epidemic. “At the end of last year Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro – a Donald Trump-worshiping populist who has gleefully sabotaged Covid containment efforts – declared his country had reached ‘the tail end’ of what was already one of the world’s worst outbreaks. Bolsonaro was wrong. Three months later Latin America’s largest nation has lost almost 100,000 more lives – taking its total death toll to more than 275,000, second only to the US – and been plunged into the deadliest chapter of its 13-month epidemic.”

Reuters: India reports biggest daily jump in COVID-19 infections this year. “India reported the year’s biggest daily increase in COVID-19 cases on Sunday, with 25,320 new infections, a day ahead of a lockdown in the western state of Maharashtra, the epicentre of the renewed surge. The just was the biggest since Dec. 16, according to federal health data. India is the third-most affected country globally with 11.36 million cases, behind the United States and Brazil.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

US99: Pared-down funerals may become the norm after the pandemic, industry official concedes. “The pandemic has forced so many changes in the ways families grieve that some funeral homes are in financial straits, and the future of the industry could be changed forever, an official says. So many traditions associated with mourning the dead are gone, at least for now.”

BBC: Pregnancy in lockdown: The babies born into a pandemic. “Bristol-based portrait photographer Nina Raingold met five mothers who have experienced the challenges of giving birth during Covid restrictions in the UK.”

Vogue: How Do We Come to Terms with the Indelible Loss of the Last Year?. “Can this new obsession with one’s mortality be undone? Can one will oneself back to normal? How does my mother erase the last year of dead friends and the anxiety of imminent demise? Does she pretend she didn’t have to lock herself away for a year? Or will the scars of a year of death be unerasable?”

MISINFORMATION / DISINFORMATION

AP: Nurses fight conspiracy theories along with coronavirus. “Bogus claims about the virus, masks and vaccines have exploded since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic a year ago. Journalists, public health officials and tech companies have tried to push back against the falsehoods, but much of the job of correcting misinformation has fallen to the world’s front-line medical workers.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

ABC News: Hunt for vaccine slots often leads through scheduling maze. “The road to a COVID-19 shot often leads through a maze of scheduling systems: Some vaccine seekers spend days or weeks trying to book online appointments. Those who get a coveted slot can still be stymied by pages of forms or websites that slow to a crawl and crash.”

CBS: U.S. reaches COVID-19 vaccine milestone of 100 million shots. “The U.S. has now administered over 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine — 101.1 million, to be precise — according to figures posted Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That equates to more than 35 million Americans fully vaccinated — 10.5% of the total U.S. population. Nearly 66 million, or almost 20% of the total population, have gotten at least one dose. Nearly one-third of Americans age 65 and older are fully vaccinated.”

NBC Washington: Almost 40% of DC’s Shots Have Gone to Non-Residents. “The News4 I-Team has been tracking the data and found despite older and medically vulnerable residents being eligible for several weeks, 39.9% of the doses administered in the District have still gone to people who don’t live there. By comparison, only 2.5% of Virginia’s vaccine doses are listed as having gone to out-of-state residents. An additional 7% were missing residency information.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

UPROXX: Wells Fargo Said It Would Take Them A Couple Days Longer Than Most To Get The Stimulus Checks Out, And People Were Furious. “Last week, after two weeks of congressional back-and-forth, President Joe Biden was finally able to sign into law his first major piece of legislation since taking office: the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan. It was the most sweeping progressive piece of legislation since the FDR era, at a time of similar economic need. Not only did the bill get approved — with no thanks to Republicans — but the $1400 promised every eligible American would be released quickly, over the weekend…that is, unless your bank is Wells Fargo.”

WORLD / FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

BBC: Covid-19: Ireland suspends use of Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. “The use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been suspended in the Republic of Ireland. The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) recommended the move following reports of serious blood clotting events in adults in Norway.”

STATE / LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Bradenton Herald: Federal complaint accuses DeSantis, Lakewood Ranch vaccination site of discrimination. “Last month, a three-day event was held by the state at the Premier Sports Complex that only gave appointments to residents who live in two of Manatee County’s wealthiest ZIP codes, in Lakewood Ranch. The chosen ZIP codes had been impacted less than other parts of the county, according to the state’s own COVID-19 data. According to the complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the site inappropriately gave a wealthy developer who contributes to the governor’s campaign limited access to the vaccine. Matthew Issman, a retired law enforcement officer, filed the complaint on Feb. 18.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

New York Times: Aruká Juma, Last Man of His Tribe, Is Dead. “Aruká Juma saw his Amazon tribe dwindle to just a handful of individuals during his lifetime. Numbering an estimated 15,000 in the 18th century, disease and successive massacres by rubber tappers, loggers and miners ravaged his people. An estimated 100 remained in 1943; a massacre in 1964 left only six, including him.”

Washington Post: Here are the people who love wearing masks. And not just because they want to avoid covid-19.. “A year into the pandemic, a lot has changed. And we’re reminded of that every time we go outside (if we go outside). Masks have joined the traditional don’t-leave-home-without-them trifecta of keys, wallets and phones — and they are here to stay. There are folks who hate them, who can’t breathe through them, or who think they’re a sign of political oppression. But for others, the widespread use of masks has made the past year one of liberation.”

Berkshire Eagle: After receiving second dose, Yo-Yo Ma transforms waiting period into performance at Pittsfield vax clinic. “Yo-Yo Ma took a seat along the wall of the observation area, masked and socially distanced away from the others. He went on to pass 15 minutes in observation playing cello for an applauding audience, in what [Richard] Hall called a ‘very special’ concert that capped the day’s vaccination event.”

NBC San Diego: Serving Seniors Looks Back On Difficult Year, 1.7 Million Meals Delivered. “Since the coronavirus pandemic forced Serving Seniors to shut down one of its core services to impoverished San Diego County seniors, the nonprofit has pivoted to a different model and served more than 1.7 million meals to 5,467 clients.”

K-12 EDUCATION

NPR: As Many Parents Fret Over Remote Learning, Some Find Their Kids Are Thriving. “Bobby has ADHD and sometimes gets seizures. (NPR isn’t using last names to protect students’ privacy.) This means that the 11-year-old often needs to take breaks from class, whether it is because of a seizure or just because he wants to walk around the room to get some of his energy out. Even though he already had some accommodations when school was in-person, online learning makes it easier for him to accommodate his own needs.”

HIGHER EDUCATION

AP: The Latest: All Duke University undergrads must quarantine. “Duke University issued a quarantine order for all of its undergraduates effective Saturday night due to a coronavirus outbreak caused by students who attended recruitment parties, the school said.”

HEALTH

CNBC: 82% of fathers say they could have used more emotional support during pandemic — 68% of mothers say the same: study. “Parents could use some extra support during the pandemic, both emotional and logistical. But fathers are significantly more likely to say they need emotional support throughout the pandemic than mothers, according to a new survey from the American Psychological Association.”

CNN: A year into the pandemic, it’s time to take stock of our mental health. “We’ve lost so much in this year of devastation, so many of the normal markers of life we typically take for granted. We’ve missed graduations, holidays, sports seasons, plays, weddings, funerals, hugging, spontaneity and just connecting face to face with friends and family. Many of us have lost people we love. Meanwhile, negativity and judgment run high, with most every issue being politicized, down to the wearing of masks. As a result, people feel disconnected and isolated. More of my clients report experiencing a higher sense of self-doubt than ever before. Many of us feel a degree of hopelessness and despair we could not have imagined a year ago.”

CNBC: Covid variant first found in the U.K. appears to be 64% more deadly than earlier strains, study finds. “The highly contagious coronavirus variant first identified in the U.K. is associated with a 64% higher risk of dying from Covid-19 than earlier strains, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal. Researchers at the University of Exeter and the University of Bristol analyzed data from more than 100,000 patients in the U.K. between Oct. 1 and Jan. 28. They compared death rates among people infected with B.1.1.7, the variant first found in the U.K., and those infected with other previously circulating strains.”

TECHNOLOGY

PubMed: Don’t put all social network sites in one basket: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and their relations with well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The present research examined the relationships between well-being-satisfaction with life, negative affect, positive affect-and using actively or passively various SNSs-Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok-during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, two mediators were tested: social support and upward social comparison.”

Wired: Social Media Reminds Us of the Year That Wasn’t. “For the past seven days, my timelines—and presumably timelines everywhere—have been filled with people’s remembrances of where they were when, say, they heard the NBA was shutting down, or that travel was becoming increasingly dangerous. There’s even a new Twitter feed devoted to this: @YearCovid, which is dedicated to ‘livetweeting the covid pandemic as it happened on this date in 2020.’ Following the account means getting semi-frequent reminders of what the news stories and social media reactions were on any given day in 2020. If you were starting to feel like there weren’t enough reminders of how much you life has changed, this feed will solve that.”

CNN: How a year of living almost exclusively online made the internet weird again. “After several years of concerning headlines about misinformation, election meddling, filter bubbles, online harassment and more, there are flickers of a more carefree — and weird — internet. At times it felt like a throwback to a more innocent web, when Dancing Baby filled our inboxes, Second Life took on a life of its own and Rickrolling was an ever-lingering threat. And all it took was a devastating pandemic that forced many in the United States and around the world to live their lives almost exclusively online for much of the past year.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

Colorado Sun: Colorado man accused of refusing to wear mask, then urinating on Denver-bound flight. “A Colorado man accused of disrupting an Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to Denver by refusing to wear a mask and then standing up and urinating in the cabin faces a federal charge of interfering with a flight crew and attendants that carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison and a possible $250,000 fine.”

CoronaBuzz is brought to you by ResearchBuzz. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment, send resource suggestions, or tag @buzz_corona on Twitter. Thanks!



March 15, 2021 at 01:35AM
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Frances Seward, Read Around the States, Speed Typing, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, March 14, 2021

Frances Seward, Read Around the States, Speed Typing, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, March 14, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Rochester: History project tells a more complete story of Frances Seward. “A team of University of Rochester historians says the life of Frances Adeline Seward (1805–1865) deserves a more nuanced and careful reading than her traditional portrayal as the reclusive wife of a 19th-century politician. Doctoral students Shellie Clark, Carrie Knight, and Lauren Davis are using the University’s extensive, firsthand collections of documents of the family of Frances and William Henry Seward, secretary of state to Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, to conduct that re-evaluation.”

Library of Congress: New! Read Around the States. “Today we are launching a project called Read Around the States. It features videos with U.S. members of Congress who have chosen a special book for young people that is connected to their states – either through the book’s setting or author, or perhaps simply because it is a favorite of the member.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 5 of the Best Speed-Typing Games on the Internet. “Whatever your approach to typing, it’s always interesting to find out just how fast you can type. There are several websites that not only let you test your typing speed but compare your results against other people around the world and have extra features as well to spice up the experience.”

Mashable: How to create a family calendar on Google. “If you’ve only been using it for yourself up to now, you might not know about the world of shared calendars, which you can use to corral appointments for your whole family (however you choose to define ‘family’) and make sure everyone sees events all handily in one place.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

University of Maine: First-ever online, bilingual portal to Franco American archives launches this spring. “Franco American Digital Archives/Portail franco-américain, formerly known as the Franco American Portal project, will offer access to various primary sources about the French-Canadian, Acadian and Québécois(e) diaspora communities of the Northeast. Available records will include letters and other correspondence, scrapbooks, family and business records, newspapers, photographs and other media depicting Franco-American history, culture and people.”

NiemanLab: How Yahoo News reached 1 million followers on TikTok in 1 year. “Picture Yahoo users and you probably envision a group that’s older and a bit less digitally savvy than those relying on, say, Google’s suite. (The research says you’re not wrong.) On TikTok, in contrast, 63% of users are younger than 30 — including 33% still in their teens. So you might be thinking: Yahoo News? On TikTok?”

New York Times: For Creators, Everything Is for Sale. “A rash of new start-ups are making it easier for digital creators to monetize every aspect of their life — down to what they eat, who they hang out with and who they respond to on TikTok. Tens of millions of people around the globe consider themselves creators, and the creator economy represents the ‘fastest-growing type of small business,’ according to a 2020 report by the venture capital firm SignalFire.” The people described in this article seem more like influencers than creators.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Legislation seeks to curb public’s access to governmental records. “Like clockwork, with a new legislative session comes a new slate of bills that look to tip the scales of government accountability away from transparency and toward secrecy. The 2021 Nevada Legislature is no different, with state and local agencies pushing for bills that would curtail the public’s access to governmental records and workings across the state.”

BNN Bloomberg: Convicted Google IPO Scammer Faces Fresh Fraud Charges. “A man who was previously convicted of fraudulently selling pre-initial public offering shares in Google Inc. is facing new charges that he conducted a similar scam while posing as representatives of a billionaire family office.”

Global Voices: Indigenous-led telecommunications organization wins historic legal battle in Mexico. “This decision allows TIC to offer affordable cell phone services to indigenous communities in the country. The court case also set a legal precedent for local communities to operate their own telecommunications services for free under social use concession licenses — drawing a line between commercial and community providers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNET: Tim Berners-Lee: One-third of youth still don’t have internet access as web turns 32. “As the web turns 32 on Friday, its creator is using his annual letter to draw attention to the way the digital divide affects young people worldwide. While you may assume that children now grow up as digital natives, web creator Tim Berners-Lee points to a 2020 report from the International Telecommunication Union, which notes that one-third of young people around the world don’t have access to the internet.”

The Next Web: Facebook AI boss Yann LeCun goes off in Twitter rant, blames talk radio for hate content. “Yann LeCun, Facebook’s world-renowned AI guru, had some problems with an article written about his company yesterday. So he did what any of us would do, he went on social media to air his grievances. Only, he didn’t take the fight to Facebook as you’d expect. Instead, over a period of hours, he engaged in a back-and-forth with numerous people on Twitter.” 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. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



March 14, 2021 at 08:12PM
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