New researches

Saturday, October 9, 2021

Machine Learning Glossary, Music Discovery, Facebook, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, October 9, 2021

Machine Learning Glossary, Music Discovery, Facebook, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, October 9, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: The ML Glossary: Five years of new language. “Over guacamole and corn chips at a party, a friend mentions that her favorite phone game uses augmented reality. Another friend points her phone at the host and shouts, ‘Watch out—a t-rex is sneaking up behind you.’ Eager to join the conversation, you blurt, ‘My blender has an augmented reality setting.’ If only you had looked up augmented reality in Google’s Machine Learning Glossary, which defines over 460 terms related to artificial intelligence, you’d know what the heck your friends are talking about. If you’ve ever wondered what a neural network is, or if you chronically confuse the negative class with the positive class at the doctor’s office (‘Wait, the negative class means I’m healthy?’), the Glossary has you covered.” I tried to keep context while not including the “Oh look, you humiliated yourself by not consulting Google” lede, but it didn’t work. Apologies.

Virgin: Virgin Media teams up with Spotify to unlock musical history. “Virgin Media has teamed up with Spotify to create a unique tool allowing listeners to delve deeper into the musical history of more than 70 million songs. Listeners can search by artist or song title to discover the history of more than 70 million tracks. Integrated with Spotify, the tool maps a timeline of tracks based on musical attributes, genealogy and artist similarities. The results are filtered by decade and the experience will also generate a bespoke playlist for each user, full of the tracks and artists that share lineage with their chosen song.” Fun, but failed to find music a disappointing amount of the time. I mean, no Professor Longhair? WTF?

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NiemanLab: When Facebook went down this week, traffic to news sites went up. “On August 3, 2018, Facebook went down for 45 minutes. That’s a little baby outage compared to the one this week, when, on October 4, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were down for more than five hours. Three years ago, the 45-minute Facebook break was enough to get people to go read news elsewhere, Chartbeat‘s Josh Schwartz wrote for us at the time. So what happened this time around? For a whopping five-hours-plus, people read news, according to data Chartbeat gave us this week. (And they went to Twitter; Chartbeat saw Twitter traffic up 72%.”

CNN: Facebook whistleblower to talk to January 6 committee. “The Facebook whistleblower who released thousands of documents that she says shows the company knows its platforms are used to spread hate, violence and misinformation is expected to meet with the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot at the US Capitol as soon as Thursday, three sources with knowledge tell CNN.” That’s this past Thursday; this article is from Wednesday.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

HuffPost: Facebook’s ‘Digital Colonialism’ Made Monday’s Outage A Crisis For The World. “The Facebook outage that struck Monday morning and lasted throughout the day was ultimately a minor inconvenience for most Americans. But in countries like Brazil, it caused a destabilizing and disorienting seven hours ― not because Facebook.com was gone, but because WhatsApp, the messaging service the company also owns, suddenly went offline along with it. Still largely an afterthought in the United States, WhatsApp has grown into one of the world’s most vital communications services. More than 2 billion people ― 1 in 4 people on the planet ― use it. Brazil and India alone are home to nearly one-quarter of them.”

Deutsche Welle: ‘The Billion Dollar Code’: The battle over Google Earth. “The Netflix miniseries tells in two timelines and four parts how two computer freaks developed their idea, convinced a large corporation and finally the whole world of its interest — only to be robbed of their fame and fortune by a tech giant’s legal ruse. With this German production, Netflix demonstrates once again that the setting of a story is not what matters most, but rather what it is about. The two developers could just as well have been from Japan or South Africa instead of Germany; the core of their tale is universal.”

263 Chat: Zimbabwe International Film Festival Returns. “‘Narratives from Zimbabwe’ is a project initiated by ZIFFT in 2019, that has so far travelled around many parts of the country, documenting Zimbabwe’s rich history and heritage. The interviews, footage and photographs captured during this first phase of the project will be used to create a multi-media digital archive and interactive website that filmmakers and other creative content producers will be able to draw from as a reservoir of indigenous knowledge and inspiration.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Zuckerberg’s early notes on privacy sought in Facebook suit, which company asserts is to ‘embarrass’ CEO. “It’s been a bad week for Facebook, which faced an unprecedented global outage of the company’s sites and a damaging interview by a former insider turned whistle-blower that sent the stock down nearly 5 per cent on Monday. The lawyers suing the company said in a court filing that their interest in Zuckerberg’s writings from 2006 – when he was 22 and Facebook was two years old – was piqued by a 17-page chunk of his notebooks that featured in journalist Steven Levy’s 2020 book, Facebook: The Inside Story.”

Washington Post: Facebook whistleblower’s revelations could usher in tech’s ‘Big Tobacco moment,’ lawmakers say. “Lawmakers say that testimony from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is galvanizing members of both parties to unify behind sweeping proposals targeting social media companies, after years of stalled attempts, with some calling it the tech industry’s ‘Big Tobacco moment.’ ‘This time feels distinctly different,’ Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Commerce consumer protection subcommittee, said in an interview. ‘The public has been engaged and outraged in a very different way.'”

Business Insider: The Justice Department accidentally unsealed a rare ‘keyword warrant’ ordering Google to hand over data on anyone who searched a victim’s name, report says. “The warrant ordered Google to identify the usernames and IP addresses of anyone searching three names, a phone number, or address related to the victim of a Wisconsin kidnapping case over a span of 16 days, the report said. Federal investigators filed the warrant in hopes of narrowing down human-trafficking and sexual-assault suspects, documents reviewed by Forbes showed.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WWLP: Artificial intelligence changing accuracy of hurricane forecasts. “Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have recently developed a new model that aids in predicting hurricane intensity. It’s one of several models that are used to track hurricane movement and intensity. Although this model will be using the same data that other models use, it differs in its use of ‘neural networks’.”

News@Northeastern: The Race To Save Indigenous Languages, Using Automatic Speech Recognition. “Growing up in the windy plains near the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, [Michael] Running Wolf says that although his family—which is part Cheyenne, part Lakota—didn’t have daily access to running water or electricity, sometimes, when the winds died down, the power would flicker on, and he’d plug in his Atari console and play games with his sisters. These early experiences would spur forward a lifelong interest in computers, artificial intelligence, and software engineering that Running Wolf is now harnessing to help reawaken endangered indigenous languages in North and South America, some of which are so critically at risk of extinction that their tallies of living native speakers have dwindled into the single digits.”

The MIT Press Reader: A History of the Data-Tracked User. “The following article, adapted from Tanya Kant’s case study ‘Identity, Advertising, and Algorithmic Targeting: Or How (Not) to Target Your “Ideal User”,’ maps a brief history of the commercially targeted user, beginning with ‘identity scoring’ in the 1940s and ending with the targeted advertising of today.” Good morning, Internet…

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October 9, 2021 at 05:30PM
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Friday, October 8, 2021

African-American Mental Health, Climate Change Denial, Twitter, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 8, 2021

African-American Mental Health, Climate Change Denial, Twitter, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 8, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me, from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Black Male Therapists connects Atlanta’s Black men with mental health specialists. “Last year, the pandemic leveled communities, especially those of color, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that Black people are two times more likely to die from COVID-19 than their white counterparts. The Economic Policy Institute reports similar findings in that Black workers face racism and economic equality, making those communities more susceptible to the effects of COVID-19.” This article actually points to mental health resources for both men AND women of color.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Axios: Google, YouTube to prohibit ads and monetization on climate denial content. “Google and YouTube on Thursday announced a new policy that prohibits climate deniers from being able to monetize their content on its platforms via ads or creator payments. Why it matters: It’s one of the most aggressive measures any major tech platform has taken to combat climate change misinformation.”

CNET: Twitter tests tool to give users a heads-up about heated conversations. “The social media giant tweeted Wednesday about the test, which is happening on both Android and iOS devices. The heads-up tool reminds users to communicate respectfully and to understand that there will be different perspectives. Fact-checking is also encouraged.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

MIT Sloan School of Management: Ex-Google researcher: AI workers need whistleblower protection . “Artificial intelligence expert Timnit Gebru on the challenges researchers can face at Big Tech companies, and how to protect workers and their research.”

University of Kansas: Grant Will Give Public Better Access To History Of Black Literature. “It’s the latest extension of [Professor Maryemma] Graham’s [History of Black Writing] project, which she brought with her from the University of Mississippi to Northeastern University and then to KU in 1999. The first stage was to identify and save physical copies of books by Black writers from destruction. The next was to digitize them. And now the organizers are creating tools that will allow both academic researchers and the general public to look at the entire corpus of Black fiction, which HBW has been collecting for nearly 40 years, by using keywords, themes, data visualizations and in other ways that [Drew] Davidson termed ‘metadata.’.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Task & Purpose: Someone hijacked a Navy warship’s Facebook account so they could livestream ‘Age of Empires’. “For the last several days, someone has been having a lot of fun playing the classic 1997 strategy game ‘Age of Empires.’ Normally, that wouldn’t be news (the game is freaking fantastic) but in this case someone has been livestreaming their game sessions on the official Facebook account for the USS Kidd, and the U.S. Navy still hasn’t regained control of their account.”

Reuters: ‘A coward’s palace’: Australian PM slams social media amid defamation law controversy. “Australia’s prime minister lambasted social media on Thursday as ‘a coward’s palace’, saying platforms should be treated as publishers when defamatory comments by unidentified people are posted, pouring fuel on a raging debate over the country’s libel laws.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Kansas: Study: Social Media Can Learn How To Regulate Speech From Online Gaming. “The authors point out that social media evolved from games as places where people could communicate, and though there is not explicit gameplay involved, such sites are in fact a game of their own, with people seeking likes, retweets or other engagement. The gaming world eventually developed a community-based approach in which users set the standards and controlled what is acceptable, but social media is still struggling with top-down approaches in which executives decide what is allowable.”

News@Northeastern: Can We Better Understand Online Behavior? These Researchers Will Dig Deep To Find Out. . “Researchers at Northeastern University were awarded a $15.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build a research infrastructure that will provide scientists around the world and across disciplines with open, ethical, analytic information about how people behave online.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

New York Times: How Word Lists Help — or Hurt — Crossword Puzzles. “If we were to go by the New York Times Crossword, Lake ERIE would be the most dazzling body of water on Earth. Mining ORE would be the most lucrative business venture. According to xwordinfo.com, ERIE is the third most popular word in the New York Times Crossword. It has appeared over 1,350 times. ORE is seventh, with over 1,200 appearances. ORE and ERIE are examples of crosswordese, words that appear often in crossword puzzles but rarely in day-to-day conversation.” Good afternoon, Internet…

October 9, 2021 at 12:22AM
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Friday CoronaBuzz, October 8, 2021: 30 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.

Friday CoronaBuzz, October 8, 2021: 30 pointers to updates, health information, research news, and more.
By ResearchBuzz

Please get vaccinated. Please wear a mask when you’re inside with a bunch of people. Much love.

UPDATES

NBC News: Covid-19 booster shots now surpassing initial vaccination doses by nearly half. “An NBC News analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that the number of people receiving booster shots is outpacing those getting their first or second doses of the initial vaccination, and is contributing to a modest increase in Covid vaccinations in October. Of the 6.7 million shots administered from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, nearly 2.7 million were booster shots. That’s compared to the nearly 2 million first doses and nearly 2 million second doses in the same period.”

CNN: Major disappointment: US economy adds only 194,000 jobs in September. “America’s economic recovery has hit a roadblock: US employers added only 194,000 jobs in September, another troubling sign that Covid is disrupting the economy. It marked the second-straight month in which the US economy added far fewer jobs than expected. Jobs growth slowed down dramatically in August.”

CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING

Business Insider: A Maryland man is accused of fatally shooting his pharmacist brother because he thought he was ‘killing people’ by giving them the COVID-19 vaccine. “A Maryland man is accused of fatally shooting his pharmacist brother who he believed was poisoning people by giving them the COVID-19 vaccine. Jeffrey Allen Burnham, 46, is accused of killing his older brother, Brian Robinette, 58, and his wife, Kelly Sue Robinette, 57, on September 30.”

National Geographic: Pandemic myths are all over social media—and they’re dangerous for kids. “After Stephanie Africk handed her daughter a mask while leaving their Boston home, she was stunned to hear what her 13-year-old had to say: ‘Masks don’t work, and kids don’t even get COVID.’ The position went against science—and everything her family had discussed. Where’d the teen get this information? Social media. ‘She got the information—or misinformation—from someone on TikTok who she respects and believes.'”

Associated Press: Anti-vaccine chiropractors rising force of misinformation. “Participants traveled from around the country to a Wisconsin Dells resort for a sold-out convention that was, in fact, a sea of misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines and the pandemic. The featured speaker was the anti-vaccine activist who appeared in the 2020 movie ‘Plandemic,’ which pushed false COVID-19 stories into the mainstream. One session after another discussed bogus claims about the health dangers of mask wearing and vaccines. The convention was organized by a profession that has become a major purveyor of vaccine misinformation during the pandemic: chiropractors.”

MISINFORMATION / FACT-CHECKING – IVERMECTIN

BBC: Ivermectin: How false science created a Covid ‘miracle’ drug. “Ivermectin has been called a Covid “miracle” drug, championed by vaccine opponents, and recommended by health authorities in some countries. But the BBC can reveal there are serious errors in a number of key studies that the drug’s promoters rely on.”

SOCIETAL IMPACT

The Spinoff: During lockdown, religion goes online. Can it stay there?. “Faith leaders in Aotearoa are experimenting with online services and prayer during the pandemic. In the latest instalment of IRL, Shanti Mathias explores the potential – and challenges – of the digital divine.”

Associated Press: More than 120,000 US kids had caregivers die during pandemic. “The number of U.S. children orphaned during the COVID-19 pandemic may be larger than previously estimated, and the toll has been far greater among Black and Hispanic Americans, a new study suggests. More than half the children who lost a primary caregiver during the pandemic belonged to those two racial groups, which make up about 40% of the U.S. population, according to the study published Thursday by the medical journal Pediatrics.”

WUSA: ‘I wish I could say this would be the end’ | Mourners pause as National Cathedral funeral bell tolls for 700K COVID deaths. “It didn’t have to be an inexorable march towards death and defeat. Yet Tuesday evening, mourners and members of the public gathered on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral, as its massive funeral bell tolled for America’s more than 700,000 COVID dead. It was an astounding number – 700 plangent peals of the funeral bell, which was used before the pandemic to mourn the loss of presidents, senators, and luminaries of American life.”

HEALTH CARE / HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS

Associated Press: Ghost towns: Nursing home staffing falls amid pandemic. “Even before COVID-19 bared the truth of a profit-driven industry with too few caring for society’s most vulnerable, thin staffing was a hallmark of nursing homes around the country. Now, staffing is even thinner, with about one-third of U.S. nursing homes reporting lower levels of nurses and aides than before the pandemic began ravaging their facilities, an Associated Press analysis of federal data finds.”

Free Malaysia Today: Thailand reviving medical tourism amid coronavirus pandemic. “With the Thai government planning to reopen the country to foreign tourists as part of its strategy of learning to live with Covid, Thai businesses aim to offer Covid-related services as well as revive medical tourism. The upscale Bumrungrad International Hospital has launched its first Covid-19 recovery clinic, offering all Covid solutions to affluent Thais and foreigners, as the government prepares to reopen the country roughly by November.”

WRAL: Widower pleads for COVID vaccinations among assisted facility workers after wife’s death. “Anne [Hughes] was living at an assisted care facility in Pinehurst. William [Hughes] was fully vaccinated and so was Anne, but he said some of the workers she interacted with were not vaccinated. ‘There were a fair amount of fliers at the facility, where I would visit her twice a day, talking about vaccine fairs, encouraging employees who were not fully vaccinated,’ William said.”

Associated Press: Kaiser Permanente suspends 2,200 unvaccinated employees. “Health care giant Kaiser Permanente has put more than 2,200 employees nationwide on unpaid leave who have chosen not to get vaccinated against the coronavirus — a little over 1% of its workforce. The employees have until Dec. 1 to get vaccinated to be able to return to work and those who choose not to will be terminated, the company said. Kaiser said its overall vaccination rate stands at 92%.”

INSTITUTIONS

American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees: Report: Cultural institutions took federal money but still let go of workers. “Some of the nation’s largest cultural institutions accepted more than $1.6 billion in federal help to weather the coronavirus pandemic, but continued to let go of workers – even though the assistance was meant to shore up payrolls and keep workers on the job, according to a report released by AFSCME Cultural Workers United.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

Mississippi Free Press: Pfizer Asks FDA To Authorize COVID Vaccine For Children 5 to 11 After Positive Trials. “Pfizer and BioNTech have asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve their COVID-19 vaccine for use in children ages 5 to 11, Pfizer announced this morning. If the FDA approves an emergency use authorization, it would be the first time a COVID-19 vaccine was available for children younger than 12.”

Asahi Shimbun: Tokyo’s vintage bookstores look for pandemic lifeline online. “Hunting for that perfect find amid a trove of old, leather-bound antique books is one of the earthly pleasures the novel coronavirus crisis robbed from bookworms and collectors. But while becoming immersed in the ambience of the historic bookstores in Tokyo’s famous Jimbocho Book Town in person is still impossible for many, store owners have teamed up to make that experience possible online. The effort is aimed at promoting Tokyo’s Kanda-Jimbocho district, an area well known for its many specialty secondhand bookstores, in the hopes that book lovers will still enjoy touring through used bookshops, even if only done virtually, during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

WRAL Tech Wire: Red Hat CEO: Employees must be vaccinated or lose their jobs. ” Employees as well as contractors at Red Hat were told Thursday morning that they must be vaccinated against COVID-19 or lose their jobs. Deadline to get a vaccine jab is Nov. 29.”

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

Roll Call: Pentagon civilian vaccine mandate is a massive logistical lift. “The Pentagon has begun the monumental task of fully vaccinating hundreds of thousands of civilian employees against the coronavirus with just weeks to meet its self-imposed deadline of Nov. 22. But as of yet, it has no system to verify who’s gotten the jab. There are nearly 770,000 civil servants at the Defense Department, and just 42 percent of them, or just under 319,000, are fully vaccinated, according to the Pentagon’s public data.”

STATE GOVERNMENT

Nikki Fried: Commissioner Nikki Fried Releases COVID-19 School Data Blocked by DeSantis Administration. “Today, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, an independently-elected member of the Florida Cabinet, held a virtual press conference to release and discuss school district COVID-19 data which Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration has worked to block. This data shows clear evidence that school districts requiring masks resulted in up to four times lower COVID-19 cases per capita than school districts that did not require masks.”

Florida Phoenix: State will dock salaries from 8 elected school boards due to their strict mask policies. “Eight school district superintendents pled their cases Thursday to the State Board of Education, to keep strict mask mandates in their districts for the safety of children and staff. Instead, they were punished and it was expected, following Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran’s earlier recommendations.”

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

NPR: Los Angeles will require proof of a COVID-19 vaccine for indoor establishments. “Under this mandate, eligible patrons will need to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination to enter restaurants, bars, coffee shops, stores, gyms, spas or salons. People attending large, outdoor events will also need to show evidence of either vaccination or proof of a negative COVID-19 test to attend the event.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

Washington Post: A Mississippi news anchor is off the air after refusing a coronavirus vaccine. “Meggan Gray signed off her Thursday morning news show with a cryptic announcement. From the desk of WLOX News in Biloxi, Miss., where she had co-anchored ‘Good Morning Mississippi’ for 14 years, she said she “wanted to just take a little moment and let you know that I honestly do not know what the future holds for me as far as my career here.” The next day, she was off the show, and she took to Facebook to explain why: She lost her job after refusing to be vaccinated for the coronavirus as required by her station’s parent company, Gray Television.”

INDIVIDUALS – DEATHS

The Virginian-Pilot: Suffolk schools to investigate whether teacher asked student who died to walk sick children to nurse. “School administrators are investigating whether a teacher had tasked a fifth-grader who died of coronavirus complications last week to walk sick students to the nurse. Anthonette Ward, a Suffolk Public Schools spokeswoman, said the student’s school has a rule for how to handle children with COVID-19 symptoms, and only adults are supposed to accompany them.”

K-12 EDUCATION

Associated Press: Flush with COVID-19 aid, schools steer funding to sports. “One Wisconsin school district built a new football field. In Iowa, a high school weight room is getting a renovation. Another in Kentucky is replacing two outdoor tracks — all of this funded by the billions of dollars in federal pandemic relief Congress sent to schools this year. The money is part of a $123 billion infusion intended to help schools reopen and recover from the pandemic. But with few limits on how the funding can be spent, The Associated Press found that some districts have used large portions to cover athletics projects they couldn’t previously afford.”

WRAL: NC researchers will study not quarantining COVID-19 exposed students in some counties. ” Researchers in North Carolina will study a replacement for quarantine in schools that would include coronavirus testing and allow students or school staff stay in school. The ABC Science Collaborative, with permission from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, will study this method in nine school districts that require people to wear masks indoors.”

CNET: School vaccine mandates aren’t new: A history of requirements. “Vaccine requirements in schools are far from being a new concept. As the question continues to be debated whether your local school will mandate a COVID-19 vaccine for students, it’s important to take a look back at the history of vaccine requirements — because vaccinations have been required in schools for a long, long time.”

K-12 EDUCATION – FLORIDA

Miami Herald: Carvalho asks Florida to apply for federal funds to meet ‘moral imperative’ in schools. “Miami-Dade County Public Schools has sent a letter to Florida’s education commissioner asking him to request the billions of dollars in federal funds that are available to help school districts address the needs of students during the pandemic. The school district of Miami-Dade County is still waiting for $800 million in funds for its traditional public schools, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said Wednesday during a news conference at the district’s headquarters in Miami.”

HEALTH

Washington Post: Flu practically vanished last year. Now doctors are bracing for potential ‘twindemic’ of flu and covid-19 spikes.. “Survey data released Thursday found slightly more than half of American adults plan to be vaccinated against influenza. That’s not much of a change from pre-pandemic surveys conducted by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, but health authorities are alarmed because some evidence points to a potentially more severe flu season. Experts say Americans have built up less natural immunity against influenza because so few were infected in 2020.”

Bloomberg: Heart damage plagues COVID-19 survivors a year after infection, study shows. “Heart damage from Covid-19 extends well beyond the disease’s initial stages, according to a study that found even people who were never sick enough to need hospitalization are in danger of developing heart failure and deadly blood clots a year later. Heart disease and stroke are already the leading causes of death worldwide. The increased likelihood of lethal heart complications in Covid survivors – who number in the hundreds of millions globally – will add to its devastation, according to the study, which is under consideration for publication by a Nature journal.”

TECHNOLOGY / INTERNET

Medical News Today: How has social media affected mental health during the pandemic?. “As government health organizations used it to relay recent findings on prevention and treatment, social media became more than a place to post the latest vacation photos — it became a hub of pandemic-related information. But has the use of social media during the pandemic negatively impacted mental health and well-being? Or has it had the opposite effect? In this Special Feature, Medical News Today looks at what research says about social media use and the COVID-19 pandemic to reveal how it has affected mental health. We also spoke with two experts about this complex topic.”

CoronaBuzz is brought to you by ResearchBuzz. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.

October 8, 2021 at 08:16PM
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Argentina Cuisine, Tech Industry Whistleblowers, Tulsa Landmarks, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, October 8, 2021

Argentina Cuisine, Tech Industry Whistleblowers, Tulsa Landmarks, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, October 8, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Google Blog: A journey across Argentina’s culinary culture. “In collaboration with five cultural institutions including Gustar — an initiative of the Ministry of Culture, ArgenINTA Foundation, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of Argentina — Google Arts & Culture’s latest project brings together all that Argentina’s gastronomic scene has to offer, from traditional fare to contemporary culinary trends.”

Fast Company: Pinterest whistleblower launches resources to help tech employees speak out. “One day after the testimony of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, a group of civic organizations led by another well-known whistleblower—Ifeoma Ozoma, who spoke out about her employer, Pinterest, in 2020—is launching a new website that might help other tech employees come forward to speak about wrongdoing within their companies.”

KTUL: New website to offer free, self-guided tours of Tulsa landmarks. “A new website is offering free self-guided tours of local points of interest around Tulsa. The program, called Root Tulsa Historic Tours, provides historical information for locals and visitors to learn more about landmarks around the city.”

EVENTS

NASA: NASA Sets Coverage, Invites Public to Virtually Join Lucy Launch. “Lucy is scheduled to launch no earlier than 5:34 a.m. EDT Saturday, Oct. 16, on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V 401 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Live launch coverage will begin at 5 a.m. EDT on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. NASA will hold a prelaunch briefing Wednesday, Oct. 13, and science and engineering briefings Oct. 14.”

USEFUL STUFF

CNET: How to permanently delete your Facebook account and keep your photos. “To fully separate from Facebook, deleting your account is the only answer. Deleting it also severs ties to Facebook Messenger, the platform’s chat app. (If you want to also get rid of Instagram and WhatsApp, which are Facebook properties, you’ll have to do that separately.) We’ll explain some things you’ll need to consider before going through the process, which requires time and patience.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wired: Facebook and Google’s new plan? Own the internet. “The name ‘cloud’ is a linguistic trick – a way of hiding who controls the underlying technology of the internet – and the huge power they wield. Stop to think about it for a moment and the whole notion is bizarre. The cloud is, in fact, a network of cables and servers that cover the world: once the preserve of obscure telecoms firms, it is now, increasingly, owned and controlled by Big Tech – with Google and Facebook claiming a lion’s share.”

InsideHook: Why Photo Dumps Are Taking Over Your Instagram Feed. “If you’ve noticed a significant deviation from the meticulously curated, overly filtered photos that typically swarm your Instagram feed, you’re not alone. Welcome to the age of the ‘photo dump’ — the current trendy way to share photos on the social media platform that’s also switching up the traditional Instagram mold. So, what is a photo dump?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Facebook Hearing Strengthens Calls for Regulation in Europe. “The congressional testimony from the Facebook whistle-blower, Frances Haugen, has intensified calls in Europe for new regulations aimed at the social media company and other Silicon Valley giants, proposals considered by many to be among the most stringent and far-reaching in the world.”

Cleveland Scene: Ohio Supreme Court and University of Cincinnati to Create First-of-its-Kind Criminal Sentencing Database. “The Ohio Supreme Court and the University of Cincinnati this week announced a joint project that will create a statewide database of criminal sentencings, a first-of-its-kind across the nation. With an $800,000 allocation by the court, students and faculty at the university will begin collecting sentencings from common pleas judges in the state who opt into the program. So far, 34 of the 244 judges have done so, and more are signing up every week.”

Motherboard: Google Blocked Russian Government Phishing Emails Targeting 14,000 Users. “On Wednesday, Google alerted approximately 14,000 users that they had been targets of Russian government sponsored hackers, according to a company employee.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Facebook hides data showing it harms users. Outside scholars need access.. “Some models exist for analogous research on sensitive government databases, such as those overseen by the Census Bureau, Internal Revenue Service or Defense Department; and protocols exist, too, for studying biomedical and other highly personal data. But getting access to Facebook and Google’s data represents a challenge that is different in kind and degree. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that almost all of human experience is now taking place on these platforms, which control intimate communications between individuals and possess voluminous information about what users read, forward, ‘like’ and purchase. Several ingredients seem important to insuring the success of a new data-access regime for independent researchers.”

Politico: Social media companies remove less hate speech in 2021. “The world’s largest social media companies removed less hate speech from their platforms in 2021 compared to last year, according to the European Commission’s annual review of the firms’ content moderation activities, seen by POLITICO. The yearly checkup on how Facebook, Google and others handle everything from misogynistic online posts to digital abuse targeting the LGBTQ+ community found that social media companies deleted 62.5 percent of such flagged material, over a 6-week period between March 1 and April 2021. That compares to a 71 percent removal rate when Brussels conducted its last review in late 2019.” Good morning, Internet…

October 8, 2021 at 05:37PM
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Thursday, October 7, 2021

New Jersey Mental Health, Africa Creativity, Kansas Manufacturing, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 7, 2021

New Jersey Mental Health, Africa Creativity, Kansas Manufacturing, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 7, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

I keep telling GMail that ResearchBuzz is not spam and it keeps putting my newsletters in the spam folder anyway. I don’t know what to tell you. I can’t afford to get one of those fancy newsletter services. I’m sorry.

NEW RESOURCES

WHYY: N.J. coronavirus update: Resources offered for young people dealing with mental health challenges. “New Jersey officials said they have seen an increase in children dealing with anxiety and depression, which they attribute to the isolation of remote learning and now, readjusting to in-person learning. To help young people to better cope with these stresses, the state has launched a new corner of its COVID-19 website dedicated to mental health resources for kids, teenagers, and young adults, as well as parents and educators.”

Google Blog: Explore the Cradle of Creativity on Google Arts & Culture. “The Cradle of Creativity, a new project on Google Arts & Culture, explores how creativity evolved in Africa from rock art to contemporary brush strokes. In collaboration with the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA) in Nigeria and the Origins Centre in South Africa, you can now explore 50 expertly-curated stories, featuring over 60 high-resolution Gigapixel images of artworks digitized using the Google Art Camera, 17 Street View virtual tours and, for teachers and students, a dedicated lesson plan.”

Business Facilities: New Program Aims To Strengthen Kansas’ Manufacturing Supply Chain. “An online manufacturer database and connectivity platform, CONNEX Kansas is provided as a free resource for Kansas manufacturers. The platform is designed to allow manufacturers in Kansas to connect with each other, find local and domestic suppliers, explore production capabilities and manage their supply chain.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Distraction-free reading service Scroll is shutting down and becoming a feature of Twitter Blue. “Distraction-free reading service Scroll will shut down in approximately 30 days and become a feature of Twitter Blue, Twitter confirmed in an email to TechCrunch. Twitter acquired Scroll in May and had said it planned to offer Scroll as a premium feature on its platform. Once Scroll shuts down as an independent service, it will become ‘Ad-Free Articles’ as part of Twitter Blue.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research: The End Of An Archive: NCAR Powers Off HPSS. “After more than 10 years in service as a long-term repository for curated data archives and modeling data, NCAR [National Center for Atmospheric Research]’s High-Performance Storage System (HPSS) was officially retired on October 1, 2021. The tape archive made its debut in March 2011 as a follow-on to the 25-year-old NCAR Mass Storage System (MSS). During the transition from MSS, some 70 million files – approximately 12 petabytes of data – were migrated into HPSS. At its peak in early 2020, the volume of data archived in HPSS had grown to more than 93 petabytes and 300 million files.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: How fraudsters can use the forgotten details of your online life to reel you in . “In the first half of this year, £355m was lost in the UK to authorised push payment fraud, where people transferred money to scammers’ accounts. Some of these crimes began with fraudsters socially engineering victims they had met on dating sites. Others with people being contacted by someone pretending to be from a bank’s fraud department, and manipulating them that way.”

NBC New York: YouTube Pulls Two R. Kelly Channels After Sex-Trafficking Conviction. “YouTube pulled two channels linked to R. Kelly after he was found guilty on all counts in a federal sex-trafficking trial last week, the company said. However, Kelly’s songs and albums will continue to be available on the YouTube Music service, and user-generated content incorporating Kelly’s music is still allowed on the main platform, NBC News reported.”

NBC News: Snapchat boosts efforts to root out drug dealers. “Snapchat has developed new tools and educational content to crack down on the sale of deadly counterfeit pills on the messaging app. These tools aim to warn users about the dangers of those pills in an effort to keep its community safe from the ‘devastating impacts of the fentanyl crisis,’ the company announced Thursday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Cape Town News: Year-old San and Khoi Centre adds invaluable indigenous knowledge to archive. “When the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) African Studies library was destroyed by fire in April this year, so too were many resources on the cultures and languages of Southern Africa’s indigenous people. But new knowledge produced by the university’s youngest research entity, the San and Khoi Centre, is set to revive this archive. The San and Khoi Centre in the Centre for African Studies (CAS) calls this ‘unburning the fire’.”

Geographic: Social media is providing crucial data to study and monitor marine species . “Visitors to the stretch of coastline from Donegal to Antrim, Northern Ireland, are often treated to the sight of bottlenose dolphins leaping from the sea surface. Pictures of their acrobatics accrue thousands of likes on social media, but amateur photographers are often unaware that their images are generating powerful data.” Good afternoon, Internet…

October 8, 2021 at 12:40AM
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Becoming Artsy, Raspberry Pi, Funding for Entrepreneurial Women, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 7, 2021

Becoming Artsy, Raspberry Pi, Funding for Entrepreneurial Women, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 7, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Getty: Introducing Becoming Artsy . “Take a dynamic ride through Getty’s collections, laboratories, gardens, and more with Becoming Artsy, a new YouTube series. Host Jessie Hendricks brings viewers along while she explores the world of art. ‘What is a museum?’ she asks, and, ‘how do I experience art?’ She brings her curiosity and enthusiasm as she meets the people who make Getty’s art accessible to everyone.”

Raspberry Pi Foundation: Introducing raspberrypi.com. “As well as being able to learn about and purchase the full range of hardware products, on the new website you can download our latest software, find detailed technical documentation, connect with the community on the forums, and read the latest news about Raspberry Pi technologies and how they’re being used to change the world.”

Bank of America: Announcing the Bank of America Access to Capital Directory for Women Entrepreneurs. “Today, during National Women’s Small Business Month, Bank of America, in partnership with Seneca Women, announced the launch of the Bank of America Access to Capital Directory. This first-of-its-kind platform is a resource to help educate women-owned businesses in the U.S. on navigating the capital landscape and identifying potential sources of funding, such as equity, debt and grant capital.”

EVENTS

WJTV: Mississippi Book Festival goes virtual for 2021. “The Mississippi Book Festival will go virtual after COVID-19 caused the cancellation of the August 2021 event. The virtual experience will go public on the festival’s website on October 12, 2021, with more than 110 official panelists appearing on 31 panels recorded in the last month.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Blog: Giving you more sustainable choices with Google. “Companies aren’t the only ones asking what more we can do to help the planet — increasingly people are asking themselves those questions, too. So today we’re sharing several new ways people can use Google’s products to make sustainable choices. Among them, we’re introducing new features to book flights or purchase appliances that have lower carbon footprints, a Nest program to support clean energy from home, and eco-friendly routing on Google Maps — which is rolling out today. And when people come to Google Search with questions about climate change, we’ll show authoritative information from sources like the United Nations, in addition to the existing news sources that we currently raise up in the carousel.” I was all excited until I read the last half of the last sentence.

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 10 Meme Generators to Create Your Own Memes for Free. “Want to turn a picture into a meme? You can do it with help of meme generator apps, which offer an advantage for a wide variety of templates, especially the trending ones, such as meme fonts and a dedicated interface. Let’s take a look at the best meme generator apps for Android, iPhone, online tools, and desktop.” EXTENSIVE annotation and instructions.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Parents sound off on testimony about the harms of Facebook and Instagram.. “The testimony on Tuesday from Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager-turned-whistle-blower, about how Facebook and Instagram can be addictive and harmful to children, set off anger among parents online.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Twitch source code and creator payouts part of massive leak. “Twitch appears to have been hacked, leaking source code for the company’s streaming service, an unreleased Steam competitor from Amazon Game Studios, and details of creator payouts. An anonymous poster on the 4chan messaging board has released a 125GB torrent, which they claim includes the entirety of Twitch and its commit history.”

Washington Post: A flood of unknown products is making online shopping impossible . “If you’ve tried to buy something through online ads on Facebook or Instagram, or through a site such as Amazon, Google and Walmart, chances are you’ve encountered a mix of brands you’ve heard of and even more you haven’t. Between the reputable products and the counterfeits is a sea of mysterious companies selling goods of unknown origin and quality.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CNET: YouTube study: ‘Creator economy’ supports equivalent of 394,000 full-time US jobs. “YouTube released a study Wednesday saying that the “creator economy” spurred by its massive video service supports the equivalent of 394,000 full-time jobs in the US and contributed $20.5 billion to the US gross domestic product last year. The study, conducted by independent advisory firm Oxford Economics, was commissioned and paid for by YouTube.”

Michigan Daily: Cancel your inner micro-celebrity. “I’m not trying to bash TikTok or any other form of social media. In fact, I think that TikTok is an amazing way to connect people across distance, socioeconomic status and more. It has also proved to be a vehicle for activism during the pandemic and has led to protests against racial and gender inequality, economic blackouts and creators of color being given a platform to speak about their experiences with racial injustice. However, TikTok offers a gamble that, if played correctly, can lead to an invitation to the Met Gala. It democratizes fame, keeping it just out of everyone’s grasp; the fruit that our inner Tantalus can never have.”

Engadget: Google turns its AI on traffic lights to reduce pollution. “Google has run pilots at four locations in Israel to date, in partnership with the municipalities of Haifa, Beer-Sheva and the Israel National Roads Company. The company says it’s observed a ’10 to 20 percent reduction in fuel and intersection delay time’ so far. Google didn’t share any details on the average daily traffic in those intersections, though a video clip from the event showed a fairly busy junction. The company also didn’t explain how the AI would work with current systems and the lights around specific intersections.” Good morning, Internet…

October 7, 2021 at 05:32PM
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Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Glaciology, Thomas Cook, Texas Book Festival, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 6, 2021

Glaciology, Thomas Cook, Texas Book Festival, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 6, 2021
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University at Buffalo: GHub: The new place to be for ice sheet scientists. “The new science gateway is called GHub, short for “Glaciology Hub,” and it houses datasets, computational tools and educational materials about the science of ice sheets and sea level rise. The site seeks to centralize these resources. It also provides a space for collaboration.”

BBC: Leicestershire’s Thomas Cook archive goes online . “An ‘internationally significant’ archive from one of the most famous names in travel has begun to go online. The Thomas Cook collection features travel brochures from as early as 1858, a selection of staff uniforms and some 60,000 photographs.”

EVENTS

Austin Chronicle: Texas Book Festival Lineup and Schedule Goes Online and IRL. “Between the pandemic reducing in-person events, and the ongoing Texas legislative session taking over the Capitol grounds, this year’s Texas Book Festival (Oct. 23-31) has had to make some changes. However, today’s reveal of the full schedule shows the celebration of literature isn’t letting readers down. This year’s stripped-down lineup begins online, with eight days of virtual programming starting on Oct. 23, including conversations with Maria Hinojosa (host of NPR’s Latino USA) about her autobiography, Once I Was You, and Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wright about his new history of the Covid-19 response, The Plague Year.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Google Maps adds a dedicated ‘lite’ navigation mode for cyclists. “Google Maps has included cycling directions for years now, but not a dedicated navigation mode for those who like to travel from place to place on two wheels. That’s changing in the coming months with the introduction of a feature called lite navigation.”

USA Today: Google’s latest sustainable travel push? Showing carbon emissions for flights in search results. “This Wednesday, Google launched a new feature that displays a carbon emissions estimate for nearly every flight in its search results next to the price and duration of the flight. It’ll allow eco-conscious travelers to factor carbon emissions into their choice when deciding which flight to book.”

USEFUL STUFF

Consumer Reports: How to Quit Facebook. “…for anyone who’s fed up after years of bad news about Facebook, there’s no need to wait for legislators or regulatory bodies to take action. If you want to give the platform one more chance, you could just adjust your Facebook privacy settings, or follow some steps to promote a healthier experience on social media. Otherwise, if you’re ready to say goodbye to Facebook, read the following directions first to avoid some pitfalls.”

PetaPixel: How to Use Twitter as a Photographer: Here’s Some Expert Advice. This is really good for anyone who has visual images to share. “For example, Twitter might be perceived as just a witty space to carefully craft a succinct 280 characters. But it has features that distinguish it from other platforms to help you build your brand and implement your business strategies. For photographers, the short and sweet style of Twitter can help you easily advertise your photos and your distinct style.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: Facebook is harming our society. Here’s a radical solution for reining it in.. “The system is broken. And we all suffer from it. But how to fix it? A problem that threatens the underpinnings of our civil society calls for a radical solution: A new federal agency focused on the digital economy. The idea comes from none other than a former Federal Communications Commission chairman, Tom Wheeler, who maintains that neither his agency nor the Federal Trade Commission are nimble or tech-savvy enough to protect consumers in this volatile and evolving industry.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Penn State News: At-risk teens may face increased online threats. “According to a new study where online activities were objectively observed, girls who had been sexually abused had greater odds of being cyberbullied. They were also more likely to fit a profile characterized by high pornography and social media use, which predicted being sexually solicited online and engaging in more sexual activity two years later.”

New York Times: I Designed Algorithms at Facebook. Here’s How to Regulate Them.. “Though understaffed teams of data scientists and product managers like Ms. Haugen attempt to keep the algorithms’ worst impacts in check, social media platforms have a fundamental economic incentive to keep users engaged. This ensures that these feeds will continue promoting the most titillating, inflammatory content, and it creates an impossible task for content moderators, who struggle to police problematic viral content in hundreds of languages, countries and political contexts. Even if social media companies are broken up or are forced to be more transparent and interoperable, the incentives for Facebook and its competitors to supercharge these algorithms won’t change.” Good afternoon, Internet…

October 7, 2021 at 01:28AM
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