New researches

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

RB Search Gizmos: Make Location-Based Twitter Search Easy With Pam’s Pin

RB Search Gizmos: Make Location-Based Twitter Search Easy With Pam’s Pin
By ResearchBuzz

I have finally gotten far enough along with my JavaScript lessons that I could make a tool to address a frequent search annoyance: Twitter’s location-based search.

Did you know you could do a Twitter search by location? You might not know about it because as a search feature it’s unwieldy; you have to enter a lat/long pair to specify a specific address you want to search. Few people wander around with lots of lat/long pairs in their head. Sure, you can go look up a lat/long for an address but that’s time-consuming and, as I said, annoying. So Pam’s Pin (named for its inspiration, Pam Baker) does it for you. Pam’s Pin is available at https://pams-pin.glitch.me/ .

Enter an address, and the radius (in km) around the address that you’d like to search for tweets. It is possible to spoof location information, so you can also specify that your tweet results come only from verified Twitter accounts.

Once you click the button, Pam’s Pin will use an API call to translate the address you entered to a lat/long pair, will populate a Twitter search URL with the location data and your other options, and finally will open the Twitter search URL in a new window:

Pam’s Pin is the project I applied to the Bellingcat Tech Fellowship with. As far as features are concerned this is version .0000001. In Google Sheets, where I can just install APIs without worrying about code, I have a much more sophisticated version of Pam’s Pin that includes local features as noted by Wikipedia, street maps and links to various location-based data collections. I was also figuring out how to use map APIs to build lists of local street names for a hyperlocal news search. Still working on that.

I would like to bring all that to a Web-based tool, but I have to get some more learning under my belt if I’m going to do it on my own. I suspect this is going to be something I tinker with occasionally and update you on as I get more features to work. In the meantime I find just being able to directly search Twitter by address instead of having to go look up a lat/long to be pretty useful in itself!

I need to think about organizing, too. The tools I’ve been creating are things that I make because I want to use them. I do many searches a day — dozens? hundreds? I’m sure it’s hundreds sometimes — and I’m always thinking about little shortcuts and geegaws to make my life easier. Everything I’ve made has gone straight to my bookmarks bar, but since I’ve got about three dozen more ideas waiting in the wings, I need to either put them somewhere or get a bigger bookmarks bar. WordPress is not very embedded-JavaScript friendly and I don’t need to host everything on Glitch. I also need to make them look nicer.

Have you hipped to the fact that I have no damn idea what I’m doing? Still, maybe this little bit of appified knowledge will make your search life easier.

June 1, 2022 at 07:25PM
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Language Clubs, Stolen Camera Photography, Propaganda Bloopers, More: Ukraine Update, June 1, 2022

Language Clubs, Stolen Camera Photography, Propaganda Bloopers, More: Ukraine Update, June 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Trucking simulator shelves Russia-themed expansion after Ukraine invasion. “Euro Truck Simulator 2 has shelved an upcoming Russia-themed expansion pack after the country’s invasion of Ukraine, its developer SCS Software has announced. In a blog post, the Czech Republic-based developer said that it has cancelled the imminent release of the Heart of Russia DLC pack ‘so that it is not perceived in any way as being in support of or tolerance of the aggression.'”

Google Blog: Spotlight: The first Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund recipients. “To help Ukrainian entrepreneurs maintain and grow their businesses, strengthen their community and build a foundation for post-war economic recovery, in March we announced a $5 million Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund to allocate equity-free cash awards throughout 2022. Selected Ukraine-based startups will receive up to $100,000 in non-dilutive funding as well as ongoing Google mentorship, product support, and Cloud credits. Today, we are proud to announce the first cohort of recipients of the Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund.”

BBC: Ukraine war: Eurovision trophy sold to buy drones for Ukraine. “Kalush Orchestra, the Ukrainian band which won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, have sold their trophy for $900,000 (£712,000; €838,000) to raise money for the war in Ukraine. The crystal microphone was auctioned on Facebook, with the aim of buying drones for Ukraine’s military.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

PetaPixel: Ukrainian Family’s Stolen Camera Found with Photos of Russian Soldiers. “Ukrainian soldiers recently found a digital camera in a destroyed Russian armored vehicle. Apparently looted from a Ukrainian family, the camera’s memory card contained both photos by the family as well as casual snapshots revealing the lives of Russian soldiers as they invade Ukraine.”

Daily Beast: Ukrainian Intel Blasts Cringey Bloopers From Russian Military Propaganda. “Fighters from the Russian republic of Chechnya who have been recruited to fight in the war in Ukraine have been making videos of their attempts to look courageous and mighty in the war. But the videos appear to be staged, according to outtakes Ukrainian intelligence officials have obtained from one of the fighters.”

Notes from Poland: Russia using disinformation to stir hostility between Ukrainians and Poles, warn security services. “Russia is using disinformation to stir animosity between Poles and Ukrainians, warns the spokesman for Poland’s security services. As an example, he pointed to the response to a recent killing in Warsaw, which the Polish far right falsely sought to blame on Ukrainians.”

BBC: Students accuse lecturer of sharing Russia war lies. “In a lecture obtained by the BBC, Prof [Tim] Hayward outlined an argument that the renowned aid organisation, the White Helmets, may have helped fake a chemical attack in Syria. Russia has said the attack was ‘staged’. It comes after he and a number of other academics were accused of spreading misinformation about the war in Ukraine by MPs in the House of Commons in March – something Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said the government would ‘crack down on… hard’.”

New York Times: For Russian-Speaking Ukrainians, Language Clubs Offer Way to Defy Invaders. “Since Russia’s invasion, a number of language clubs have opened in cities in western Ukraine. Teachers and volunteers are reaching out to millions of displaced people who have fled to the relative safety of western cities like Lviv from the Russian-speaking east — encouraging them to practice and embrace Ukrainian as the language of their daily lives. An estimated one in every three Ukrainians speaks Russian at home, according to researchers, and many of them — outraged by the violence of Russia’s invasion — are enthusiastically making the switch as a show of defiance.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

RTL Today: High-tech race to map Ukraine’s damaged historic buildings. “Many of Ukraine’s historic monuments have been destroyed in the three months since Russia invaded, but cultural experts are working to conserve their memory using cutting-edge technology and 3D scans. One of them is volunteer French engineer Emmanuel Durand, a specialist in 3D data acquisition, who is assisting a bevy of architects, engineers, historic building experts and a museum director to record buildings in Kyiv, Lviv, Chernigiv and Kharkiv.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Top10VPN: Russian VPN Spending Since the Invasion of Ukraine . “The Russian Federal Treasury has published over 200 official procurement documents for VPN technology with a combined value of almost $10 million since the invasion of Ukraine. The documents reveal state officials’ need to circumvent their own government’s censorship of the internet in Russia.”

Brown Political Review: Russia and the New Disinformation Regime. “The current Russian disinformation strategy is much different than propaganda of the past; it works in incredibly high volume, it’s so drastically detached from the truth, and it aims to confuse its citizens and enemies. Primed for the modern day, this strategy offers Russia an easy tool to achieve its goals while leaving few solutions to address it.”

New York Times: Russian Academics Aim to Punish Colleagues Who Backed Ukraine Invasion. “Some academic researchers in Russia are quietly working to prevent colleagues who have supported their country’s invasion of Ukraine from being elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences this month. If they succeed, they will deny those who back the war a prized credential that confers prestige in Russian institutions of higher learning. Their campaign could also show that some acts of protest remain possible despite a government crackdown on dissent.”

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June 1, 2022 at 06:48PM
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Voices of Women Museum, Cuala Press Prints, Microsoft Teams, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 1, 2022

Voices of Women Museum, Cuala Press Prints, Microsoft Teams, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, June 1, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

IOL (South Africa): ‘Voices of Women Museum’ opens online. ” The ‘Voices of Women Museum’ is now virtual and will be launched on Friday…. Developed as a concept in 2012, the museum has a substantial collection of about 3 000 women’s narratives and story cloths.” You’ll have to give the site a minute to load, but it’s worth the wait. One of the more polished virtual spaces I’ve visited, well done.

Trinity College Dublin: Cuala Press Prints Digitised And Available Online As Part Of Virtual Trinity Library. . “The Library of Trinity College, Dublin is delighted to announce that as part of an ongoing Virtual Trinity Library project, over one hundred images of Cuala Press prints are now available to view online on Trinity College Dublin’s Digital Collections platform.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Microsoft Teams goes beyond screen sharing for real-time collaboration. “What’s cooler than just sharing your screen with colleagues? Sharing live projects that everyone can edit at the same time. That’s at the heart of Microsoft’s new Live Share feature, which make it easier for Teams apps to enable real-time collaboration.”

MyHeritage Blog: MyHeritage Census Helper Gets a Major Upgrade. ” In the initial release, the Census Helper calculated a list of family members to find in the newly released 1950 U.S. census records as well as all available U.S. census collections. Now, we have expanded the Census Helper to include census records from other countries, so people with roots in places outside the U.S. can take advantage of it as well — and we’ve added some handy interface improvements that we’ll expand on below.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 5 Travel Planning Apps With Live Maps to Plot a Trip Itinerary. “All the apps in this list come with maps that show all the locations you’re traveling to. It’s much better than using a Google Doc to write out your plan. Each app does something a little different or better than the others, so you’ll likely find exactly what you’re looking for in a travel planning app.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Pitchfork: On Discord, Music Fans Become Artists’ Besties, Collaborators, and Even Unpaid Interns. “Unlike on other apps where creators compete for attention, everyone in a fan Discord is there for the artist. ‘You’re one button away—if you drop a song, post the link, and @ everyone, it sends everyone a ping to their phones,’ says 24-year-old music streamer Niz, who runs his own community and has set up servers for major-label hyperpop acts like glaive. ‘A lot of people might not see your story on Instagram.’ Artists have used the platform to preview new songs, solicit merch feedback, host beat competitions, and simply shoot the shit.”

Library of Congress: New Article Explores Preservation and Access to Two Historical Literary Audio Archives. “Following the presentation and great enthusiasm about working with one another, the same colleagues–along with Marcus Nappier from the Digital Content Management Section–were invited to publish a longer article, ‘Eighty years of literary audio archives at the Library of Congress: Preserving collections from the physical to digital,’ that outlined the rich history of the audio archives, and provided more details on the the digital preservation workflows to make these resources available on loc.gov and the digital preservation practices ensuring the longevity of these assets.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Zero-day vuln in Microsoft Office: ‘Follina’ will work even when macros are disabled. “Dubbed ‘Follina’, the vulnerability has been floating around for a while (cybersecurity researcher Kevin Beaumont traced it back to a report made to Microsoft on April 12) and uses Office functionality to retrieve a HTML file which in turn makes use of the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) to run some code. Worse, it will work in Microsoft Word even when macros are disabled.”

NBC News: Trans woman’s photo used to spread baseless online theory about Texas shooter. “Social media users and trolls on 4chan, Twitter and Facebook are using Sam’s photos and images of at least two other transgender women to spread the baseless theory that the shooter was transgender. In some cases, they have created collages that place the women’s photos alongside images from an Instagram page believed to have belonged to the shooter.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Michigan Tech: Modeling the Mather B Helps Map Out Future for Old Mines and Clean Energy Storage . “A Michigan Tech student’s 3D model of an iconic Upper Peninsula iron mine helps researchers visualize and measure the energy storage potential that awaits in abandoned hard-metal mines.”

South China Morning Post: China forms grand plan to digitalise and connect the country’s cultural resources into a central database by 2025. “China has a grand plan to digitalise and connect the country’s cultural resources, from libraries to television channels, into a massive ‘digital culture infrastructure and platform’ by 2025. According to the newly published national strategy on ‘cultural digitalisation’ by the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council, the country will build a “national culture big data system” by 2035 to allow digitalised cultural products to be ‘shared by all people’.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Classic FM: India’s ancient temples that ‘sing’ thanks to intricate musical architecture. “Within the Vijaya Vittala Temple in Hampi, South India are 56 pillars, each 3.6 metres high, which when gently tapped produce delicate musical notes. Tourists have been travelling to the UNESCO World Heritage Site for years to hear the over 500-year-old temple’s mesmerising music. The pillars, named SaReGaMa, are so-called after the first four notes (svaras) of the standard scale in Indian classical music – similar to the Western Do Re Mi Fa (solfège).” Good morning, Internet…

June 1, 2022 at 05:33PM
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Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Missing Persons Support, Declassified Documents, Web Archiving Expertise, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 31, 2022

Missing Persons Support, Declassified Documents, Web Archiving Expertise, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 31, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Liverpool: New website to help families and professionals navigate the complexities of missing persons. “The website signposts users to organisations that work with missing persons, how to get help, an explanation of terms and a library. For families and friends struggling to know how to deal with the loss of someone they care about, they can find out where to get help and what some of the terminology used means. Professionals can find other organisations, plus good practice documents and research. Academics can search for research that has already been published and, hopefully, help them to identify where there are gaps for new research.”

The Register: Declassified and released: More secret files on US govt’s emergency doomsday powers. “These government files are part of a larger collection of records that discuss the nature, reach, and use of secret Presidential Emergency Action Documents: these are executive orders, announcements, and statements to Congress that are all ready to sign and send out as soon as a doomsday scenario occurs. PEADs are supposed to give America’s commander-in-chief immediate extraordinary powers to overcome extraordinary events. PEADs have never been declassified or revealed before. They remain hush-hush, and their exact details are not publicly known.”

UK Web Archive Blog: What UKWA did at the IIPC Web Archive Conference 2022. “Between the 18 and 25 May 2022, we had the biggest annual event in the world of web archiving – The IIPC General Assembly and Web Archive Conference. Some of the sessions were for members only but many were free and open for anyone to attend. Here are the UKWA staff and research partners who gave presentations at the conference with links to their pre-recorded talks that have been uploaded to our YouTube channel.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Poynter: In Brazil, Telegram adds measures to block misleading information ahead of elections. “Telegram was evading emails from Brazilian authorities for months, until mid-March this year, when the Brazilian Supreme Court ruled to ban the application over misinformation concerns ahead of the country’s elections. Two days later, Telegram complied with the court’s requests, which included deleting a few of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s posts and suspending the account of one of his prominent acolytes. The court rescinded its embargo and not long after, Telegram and the Brazilian Electoral Court signed a cooperation agreement.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: Getting Started With Hugo: How to Create a Simple Website. “Hugo is a Static Site Generator that allows you to create a website with little to no coding experience. You can use pre-built themes as a base for your website design. This allows you to focus more on populating the site with your content. Because Hugo is mostly used for static websites, it’s perfect for creating blogs, portfolios, or documentation sites.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNET: ‘The Internet’s Best Friend’: How One TikTok Comedian Gets Laughs While Raising Mental Health Awareness. “Social media can be a powerful tool for expressing yourself, bringing awareness to social issues and sharing compelling stories that resonate with your audience. Enter Elyse Myers, a comedian who uses platforms like TikTok and Instagram to share stories (like her infamous date where she bought 100 tacos), to make people laugh and to talk about her mental health. In a world of filters that give you bunny ears, there is Myers. She has become a staple of authenticity and honesty that people look to; she’s even lending her expertise to events like a mental health panel at VidCon next month.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

MIT Technology Review: How censoring China’s open-source coders might backfire. “Many suspect the Chinese state has forced Gitee, the Chinese competitor to GitHub, to censor open-source code in a move developers worry could obstruct innovation.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University College London: Top-rated educational maths apps may not be best for children’s learning. “The top 25 maths apps for children under five-years-old do not reflect best practices on how children learn and develop their early mathematical skills, according to a new report from IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society.”

Virginia Department of Health: The Virginia Department of Health in Collaboration with ESO Launches First-Ever Virginia Stroke Registry – Statewide View of Stroke Data will Improve Care for all People in Virginia . “The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) in partnership with ESO, today announced the launch of the first-ever Virginia Stroke Registry. ESO is the leading data and software company serving emergency medical services, fire departments, hospitals, state and federal agencies.”

University of Wisconsin-Madison: 3D scan will reveal the stories hidden within 1,200-year-old Wisconsin canoe. “[Lennon] Rodgers — who directs the Grainger Engineering Design and Innovation Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin–Madison — was there to help archaeologists better understand a 1,200-year-old, 15-foot dugout canoe recovered in 2021 from the waters of Lake Mendota, the largest of Madison’s four lakes and part of the ancestral home of the Ho-Chunk Nation. At the invitation of Wisconsin State Archaeologist James Skibo and Scott Roller, senior collections manager for the Wisconsin Historical Society, Rodgers scanned the canoe and created detailed 3D renderings that will preserve the boat’s legacy and allow researchers to study the craft while it undergoes a multiyear preservation process.” Good afternoon, Internet…

June 1, 2022 at 12:24AM
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Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Navigator, Trinidad & Tobago Girmityas, Georgia Land Conservation, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, May 31, 2022

Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Navigator, Trinidad & Tobago Girmityas, Georgia Land Conservation, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, May 31, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

GovTech: McKinsey Offers Tool to Help Explore Infrastructure Spending. “The free online tool, called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Navigator, is an interactive wheel filled with dots, where the outside of the wheel represents the current year and the innermost region represents 2027. The color-coded dots represent deadlines for programs and spending on the various projects included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). The tool also contains filters to help those in the public sector — or those in the private sector interested in performing the work funded by the IIJA — narrow down projects. One could, for example, use the tool to display only competitive grants related to public transit.”

Trinidad & Tobago Guardian: Foundation launched to preserve legacies of Indian indentureship. “The Girmitya Foundation, which is a non-governmental organisation registered in T&T, was officially launched last week Sunday at The Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Cultural Cooperation. Founder Nutan Ragoobir stated that Indian immigrants were made to sign a Girmit (agreement) as part of their bonding to hard labour and as such were called Girmityas. Ragoobir stated that the foundation was able to successfully achieve its first goal of creating and implementing a digital library dedicated to Indian history—Girmitya Archives.” If “Girmitya” sounds a little familiar, it’s because on May 15th I indexed an article about Girmityas arriving in Fiji.

PRWeb: Georgia LandCAN, a New Resource to Conserve Farms, Forests, Ranches (PRESS RELEASE). “Whether the need is for information, technical assistance, training, grants, or other support, the Georgia Land Conservation Assistance Network… helps individuals navigate the overwhelming patchwork of resources provided by federal and state agencies, county and regional governments, professional organizations, and nonprofits—all in one easily searchable location.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechRadar: Microsoft takes on Wix, Squarespace with new website builder filled with goodies. “Previously, Power Pages existed as a feature within the Power Apps platform, which enables users to create mobile apps that run on Android, iOS, and Windows. However, Microsoft has now relaunched Power Pages as a standalone offering to help make it easier for developers to design, manage and publish sites for desktop and mobile.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 15 Relaxing Websites to Help When You Feel Overwhelmed. “Life gets overwhelming for us all. Even browsing the internet can be taxing, with the vitriol of social media or the depressing news. Occasionally, we just need to step back, take a deep breath, and relax. What’s the best way to do that? One way to help yourself is to use relaxing websites. We’ve rounded up some of the most relaxing corners of the web; sites designed for nothing more than clearing your mind and being present.”

PC World: This obscure Firefox tool is a must-use for privacy buffs. “I’ve seen other people online who say they sandbox their social media accounts in Edge, work email and services in Firefox, and personal stuff in Chrome (for example)…. Maybe you’ve been wanting this kind of tidy, privacy-friendly setup too, but just don’t want to learn a new browser. Or your taskbar has precious little real estate. I’ve got great news for you: With the Firefox Multi-Account Containers add-on, you can achieve the same effect in just one browser.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hyperallergic: You’ve Heard of Wordle, But Have You Tried “Artle”?. “You want to get in on the Wordle craze but you just hate letters. Visual learners and those hoping to put their art history degree to some kind of use, rejoice! A new game, Artle, launched by the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, invites art lovers to guess the artist in four attempts using visual prompts from their oeuvre.”

The Scotsman: Photographer gifts one million images that help tell the story of Scotland . “Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert has gifted his work to St Andrews University, with the acquisition doubling its photographic archive which dates back to the first half of the 19th Century. Everyday moments of ordinary people and their environments regularly feature in his collection as do the realities of industry – from North Sea fishing to coal mining – as he searches for the stories of our times.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Good Luck Not Accidentally Hiring a North Korean Scammer . “Last week, the US Treasury, State Department, and Federal Bureau of Investigation jointly issued a 16-page alert warning businesses to guard against a particular scam in which North Korean IT workers apply for freelance contracts—often with wealthy North American, European, and East Asian firms—to generate revenue for their country. The workers pose as IT workers of other nationalities, pretending to be remote workers from South Korea, China, Japan, Eastern Europe, or the US. The alert notes that there are thousands of North Korean IT workers taking on such contracts.”

NBC News: Parents accuse online sellers of price gouging on baby formula. “Parents struggling to find baby formula amid a nationwide shortage are reporting that price gougers are selling bottles and cans marked up by as much as 300 percent or more on websites like eBay, OfferUp, Amazon and Craigslist, and inside Facebook communities. But in many cases, they’re finding that the platforms are doing little to punish the predatory sellers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

TechCrunch: OpenAI: Look at our awesome image generator! Google: Hold my Shiba Inu. “The AI world is still figuring out how to deal with the amazing show of prowess that is DALL-E 2’s ability to draw/paint/imagine just about anything… but OpenAI isn’t the only one working on something like that. Google Research has rushed to publicize a similar model it’s been working on — which it claims is even better. Imagen (get it?) is a text-to-image diffusion-based generator built on large transformer language models that… okay, let’s slow down and unpack that real quick.”

New York Times: Accused of Cheating by an Algorithm, and a Professor She Had Never Met. “A Florida teenager taking a biology class at a community college got an upsetting note this year. A start-up called Honorlock had flagged her as acting suspiciously during an exam in February. She was, she said in an email to The New York Times, a Black woman who had been ‘wrongfully accused of academic dishonesty by an algorithm.’ What happened, however, was more complicated than a simple algorithmic mistake. It involved several humans, academic bureaucracy and an automated facial detection tool from Amazon called Rekognition.” Good morning, Internet…

May 31, 2022 at 05:32PM
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Monday, May 30, 2022

Library of Congress, Snapchat, Stablecoins, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 30, 2022

Library of Congress, Snapchat, Stablecoins, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, May 30, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: What’s new online at the Library of Congress – Memorial Day Weekend 2022. “Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’ digital collections? The Signal now shares out semi-regularly about new additions to publicly-available digital collections and we can’t wait to show off all the hard work from our colleagues from across the Library. Read on for a sample of what’s been added recently and some of our favorite highlights.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Snapchat’s Shared Stories will let you collaborate with friends of friends. “Snapchat has updated its Custom Stories feature to allow more people to participate. While the original version of the feature only gives you a way to add friends to view and contribute to your Stories, the new version called Shared Stories allows the friends you add to add their own contacts.”

Rest of World: From Argentina to Nigeria, people saw Terra as more stable than local currency. They lost everything. “The apparent security of stablecoins has made them attractive to people in countries that experience high inflation or currency devaluations, such as Argentina, Iran, and Nigeria. The UST crash, which has hit other crypto assets, shattered that illusion. Valeria is one of more than a dozen people Rest of World spoke with, from countries including Argentina, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, and Nigeria, who invested in UST — the third-largest stablecoin — and its accompanying Luna token, and who said they have now lost tens of thousands of dollars in savings.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: 8 Tools for Designing Amazing Social Media Graphics. “Social media has become a key part of the marketing strategy for most companies and influencers. However, not everyone has the graphic design chops to make amazing social media graphics on their own. Luckily, there are several great online tools that can help you design graphics for your social media accounts, and many of these tools offer free versions.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

PC Gamer: The Embracer Group is now collecting historical games in addition to developers. “The Embracer Group, a massive conglomerate formerly known as THQ Nordic AB, has recently announced a game preservation initiative called the Embracer Games Archive(opens in new tab) with the stated goal to ‘archive and save as much of the videogames industry as possible.'”

The Next Web: Halsey’s record label won’t release a new song until it goes viral on TikTok. Is this the future of the music industry?. “Like MTV or top 40 hits radio stations before it, TikTok is where popular music lives right now. Labels understand that. To them, the allure of TikTok is that musical content can go viral quickly, offering the potential to save millions on other types of marketing campaigns.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Hacker News: Microsoft Warns of Web Skimmers Mimicking Google Analytics and Meta Pixel Code. “Threat actors behind web skimming campaigns are leveraging malicious JavaScript code that mimics Google Analytics and Meta Pixel scripts in an attempt to sidestep detection.”

Nature: Artificial intelligence is breaking patent law. “Rather than forcing old patent laws to accommodate new technology, we propose that national governments design bespoke IP law — AI-IP — that protects AI-generated inventions. Nations should also create an international treaty to ensure that these laws follow standardized principles, and that any disputes can be resolved efficiently. Researchers need to inform both steps.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Psychology Today: AI Device Helps Diagnose Autism in Children. “A new peer-reviewed study published in npj Digital Medicine, a Nature Portfolio journal, shows the results of a clinical trial in which an artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) helped primary care providers assess whether young children have autism spectrum disorder (ASD).”

WIRED: Let’s Get Our Shit Together—Literally. “IT’S TIME TO give a crap about crap. To save animals, we need to save their poop. If a bear shits in the woods and a scientist is there to collect it, where will it be stored? The Poop Ark!” Good afternoon, Internet…

May 31, 2022 at 12:54AM
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RB Search Gizmos: The Anti-Bullseye Name Search

RB Search Gizmos: The Anti-Bullseye Name Search
By ResearchBuzz

I’m one of those people who can’t learn well by reading or lecture. You can give me some information that way, but then you have to leave me alone for a while so I can take it and mess around with it and play and get it wrong and understand it better. If I don’t get that time and you just keep going and try to pile more information on top then I won’t retain anything.

This learning strategy does not work well for high school, but in the real world I can actually get that space to muse and goof around. As I’ve been learning JavaScript, I’ve been spending time with a pad and pen and thinking about search patterns and what I can do with the JavaScript I know now while I patiently work on getting my API-handling chops.

This doodlebugging has lead to a new search tool I knocked together Friday: The Anti-Bullseye Name Search. It’s a Google Search front end available at
https://the-anti-bullseye-name-search.glitch.me/ .

TABNS asks you to enter a name and then searches Google for the reverse formatting of that name, while excluding the traditional formatting. For example, if you enter “John Smith,” TABNS will set up a Google Search for you that partially looks like this:

-“John Smith” “Smith John”

This seems like a small search hack but it completely transforms your search results. It wipes out a lot of news articles, social media, and general fluff in favor of more information-dense search results. In addition to the search change, TABNS removes a lot of sites that tend to clutter up search results with information, including Facebook, Amazon, Pinterest, and eBay. You can add additional keywords to steer your search if the person you’re searching has a more common name. You even eliminate a more famous name from your search if they’re overwhelming your results.

TABNS works best for people who have had some kind of public life, though they don’t have to be famous. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find a bipartisan political example but Marilyn Monroe works pretty well. Here’s what a basic Google Search for her looks like:

Don’t get me wrong – this is basic biographical information and it’s important to have. Just by running this search and looking at the front page you can get all the basics about Marilyn Monroe (assuming nobody’s hacked Wikipedia or goofed with her knowledge card.) But want if you want to go past that? What if you want to dig a little?

Here’s a TABNS search for Marilyn Monroe:

Yes, there’s still some reference stuff there, but you’re also being dropped into things like auction catalogs and book indexes. Finding aids also end up toward the top in these searches.

For politicians you’ll get an immediate list of disclosure and transparency sites:

Obviously TABNS is not meant as a substitute for a regular Google search, but if you’ve been trying to winkle information out of Google and you’ve gotten everything you can out a standard search, this is a useful tool for attacking people search from a different angle.

Up next: an interface for searching government sites, with an emphasis on state sites. I need to practice making lookup tables…

May 30, 2022 at 08:25PM
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