New researches

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

National Fisherman Photography, VenomMaps, United Facts of America, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 23, 2022

National Fisherman Photography, VenomMaps, United Facts of America, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 23, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Fisherman: The National Fisherman Collection: Penobscot Marine Museum. “National Fisherman is the nation’s preeminent publication in the commercial fishing industry, originally a consolidation of earlier, regional fisheries trade papers. In 2012, Diversified Communications of Portland, ME, donated the magazine’s entire pre-digital photographic archive to the Penobscot Marine Museum. After three years of digitally capturing and describing the comprehensive photo archives of National Fisherman magazine, we’ve come to the effective end of the project.”

Clemson News: Where are the venomous snakes? An app created by a Clemson scientist can tell you. “[Rhett] Rautsaw created VenomMaps, a database and web application containing updated distribution maps and niche models for all 158 pit viper species living in North, Central and South America. Pit vipers are a group of venomous snakes, including rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouths. While Rautsaw needed the information for his evolutionary biology research, the maps provide vital information for conservation efforts, citizen scientists and medical professionals.”

EVENTS

Poynter: Poynter and PolitiFact announce speakers for United Facts of America. “The virtual celebration of facts will stream Sept. 27-29 and offer sessions with keynote speakers that bring voters context and clarity on the country’s most pressing issues leading up to the midterm elections like inflation, privacy, climate change, misinformation and more.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Twitter tests a special tag to highlight phone number-verified accounts. “Elon Musk’s bot-baiting aside, Twitter has had many people call for changes to how it identifies accounts and what can be done to call out which ones are more legit than others. Now engineer Jane Manchun Wong has dug up a Twitter label that would put a mark on accounts with a verified phone number.”

9to5 Google: Google releases ‘Online Insights Study’ app on the Play Store. “Google’s newest Android app on the Play Store is called ‘Online Insights Study’ to allow ‘registered users to participate in market research.’ A site attached to the Play Store listing explains that the “Online Insights Study is a research project conducted by Google.'”

USEFUL STUFF

Gizmodo AU: Every Time Your Data Is Sent to Google, This Linux Add-on Beeps to Warn You . “This add-on for Linux operating systems lets you know whenever Google receives your data with a sound effect. Listed on Github as ‘Googerteller’, the Linux add-on gives you ‘audible feedback on just how much your browsing feeds into Google.’ When it is in action, it sounds a bit like a geiger counter.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Texas State Library and Archives Commission: Texas State Library and Archives Commission Awards Nearly $1.2 Million in Grants to Texas Libraries. “Selected Texas libraries will soon undertake new projects with funding from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC). Workforce development resources, tools for promoting tech literacy and a wide range of impactful community programs topped the list of grant proposals recently approved by TSLAC. Agency commissioners awarded 42 library grants totaling $1,168,717 for numerous Texas libraries and institutions of higher education at their July 29 meeting in Austin.”

New York Times: How Dan Price’s Social Media Fame Fueled Abuse Allegations. “Mr. Price’s internet fame has enabled a pattern of abuse in his personal life and hostile behavior at his company, interviews with more than 50 people, documents and police reports show. He has used his celebrity to pursue women online who say he hurt them, both physically and emotionally. Ms. [Kacie] Margis is one of more than a dozen women who spoke to The New York Times about predatory encounters with Mr. Price.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Yahoo Finance: Elon Musk demands Jack Dorsey turn over Twitter info on fake accounts. “On Monday, attorneys for Musk filed court documents showing they had issued a subpoena requiring Dorsey to share documents on Twitter’s fake accounts, an issue at the heart of Musk’s rationale for backing out of the $44 billion agreement to acquire the company.” Jack Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO last November and completely left the company in May, so I’m not sure what this is trying to accomplish.

Internet Archive Blog: Launching Legal Literacies for Text Data Mining – Cross Border (LLTDM-X) . “NEH funding for the project, entitled Legal Literacies for Text Data Mining – Cross Border (LLTDM-X), will support research and analysis that addresses law and policy issues faced by U.S. digital humanities practitioners whose text data mining research and practice intersects with foreign-held or licensed content, or involves international research collaborations.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Big Data in the ER . “Scientists from the Department of Traumatology and Acute Critical Medicine at the Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine developed an AI algorithm to predict the risk of mortality for patients suffering a major injury.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Associated Press: New space telescope shows Jupiter’s auroras and tiny moons. “Scientists released the shots of the solar system’s biggest planet on Monday. The James Webb Space Telescope took the photos in July, capturing unprecedented views of Jupiter’s northern and southern lights, and swirling polar haze.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 23, 2022 at 05:28PM
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Monday, August 22, 2022

GriddingMachine, Google, Metaverse Jobs, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2022

GriddingMachine, Google, Metaverse Jobs, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Climate Modeling Alliance: GriddingMachine: A new database and software for sharing global datasets. “The ever increasing amount of data, various data formats, and different data layouts are increasing the time spent on handling data—before getting ready for scientific analysis. While the intention of sharing data is to facilitate their broad use and promote research, the increasing fragmentation makes it harder to find and access the data.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

City A.M.: Google ploughs $1.5 billion into crypto and blockchain companies. “Google has been quietly shovelling a massive $1.5 billion into cryptocurrency and blockchain companies for almost a year, data from an intelligence firm has revealed. A research report by Blockdata shows the search engine’s parent company – Alphabet – has been showering blockchain and crypto projects with cash since September 2021.”

Sydney Morning Herald: Metaverse jobs are disappearing as hiring slows at Google, Facebook. “Jobs in the metaverse are declining, with new monthly job postings across all industries with ‘metaverse’ in the title down 81 per cent between April and June, according to workplace researcher Revelio Labs.”

USEFUL STUFF

Ghacks: How to restore Google Image Search in Chrome. “If you prefer Google Images search in Google Chrome, you may restore the classic functionality for now. Please note that this is done by changing the value of an experimental flag; this flag will be removed by Google at one point, forcing all users to use Google Lens in the browser.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times Magazine: Why Do We Love TikTok Audio Memes? Call It ‘Brainfeel.’. “Welcome to the era of the audio meme, a time when replicable units of sound are a cultural currency as strong as — if not stronger than — images and text. Though TikTok didn’t invent the audio meme, its effortless interface may have perfected it, and the platform, which recently ended Google’s 15-year-long run as the most visited website in the world, would be nothing without sound.”

Independent: Google Maps seemingly captures downed plane in Australia – but experts say it’s not what it looks like. “The fully intact passenger plane was seen seemingly lying in the Cardwell Range in Australia, located about 250km (155 miles) south of Port Douglas on the Queensland coast. It is likely that the passenger jet, which appears to be an Airbus A320 or Boeing 737, was flying at a very low altitude, giving off an impression that it is on the ground.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Sky News: Criminals posting counterfeit Microsoft products to get access to victims’ computers. “One such package seen by Sky News is manufactured to a convincing standard and contains an engraved USB drive, alongside a product key. But the USB does not install Microsoft Office when plugged in to a computer. Instead, it contains malicious software which encourages the victim to call a fake support line and hand over access to their PC to a remote attacker.”

CNET: Identity Crime Reports Jumped to Record Level in 2021, Group Says. “Reports of identity related thefts and scams jumped to record levels last year, as the COVID pandemic continued to boost criminal attempts to steal the unemployment and other government benefits of deserving consumers, the Identity Theft Resource Center said Wednesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Michigan: Researcher discovers “Galileo manuscript” forgery. “After an internal investigation of the findings of a Georgia State University professor of history, the University of Michigan Library has concluded that its ‘Galileo manuscript’ — for almost a century considered one of the jewels of the library’s collection — is not a document written by Galileo himself in 1609 and 1610 but a 20th-century fake, most likely executed by the well-known forger Tobia Nicotra.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 23, 2022 at 01:27AM
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Invasive JavaScript, Covid-19 Government Records, Silicon Valley Elections Policies, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2022

Invasive JavaScript, Covid-19 Government Records, Silicon Valley Elections Policies, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Verge: This site exposes the creepy things in-app browsers from TikTok and Instagram might track. “Did you know you’re potentially being tracked when you load an in-app browser on iOS? A new tool reveals exactly how, showing how applications like TikTok and Instagram can potentially use JavaScript to view sensitive data, including your address, passwords and credit card information, without your consent.”

The Intercept: Laying Bare The Secrets Of The Pandemic. “Led by historians and transparency advocates, the Covid-19 Archive, as the project is called, will be a broad, interactive repository of records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and other open records laws. The project launched last week with Fauci’s early 2020 emails, including the one in which he addressed the rumors of his muzzling, and will be expanded by adding local, state, and federal public health records over the coming months.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Washington Post: In new election, Big Tech uses old strategies to fight ‘big lie’. “For months, activists have urged tech companies to fight the spread of falsehoods purporting that the 2020 presidential election was stolen — warning that such disinformation could delegitimize the 2022 midterms, in which all seats in the House of Representatives and more than a third of the Senate is up for grabs. Yet social media giants are pushing forward with a familiar playbook to police misinformation this electoral cycle, even as false claims that the last presidential election was fraudulent continue to plague their platforms.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 15 Online Presentation Tools to Win Over Your Audience. “Using these online tools, you can create and design interactive yet beautiful presentations directly in a web browser that makes your audience go wow. Let’s check out the following list.”

MakeUseOf: 5 Exceptional Free Tutorials to Learn No-Code Development. “In case you didn’t know, no-code tools are a new type of software and online apps that make it easy for non-techies to build tech products without any programming or coding knowledge. This ranges from simple websites and landing pages to complex databases and SaaS. And it’s surprisingly easy too. All you need is a little guidance to get started, which these online experts offer for free.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Wall Street Journal: How Data Is Changing the College Experience. “In the real world, Pounce is a fuzzy game-day presence, rooting on the university’s athletes. In the virtual world, the mascot is a chatbot enhanced with artificial intelligence. The virtual version was introduced in the summer of 2016 to incoming freshmen, who could text questions to Pounce 24/7 and in just seconds get answers about financial aid, registration, housing, admissions and academic advising. Three years later, Pounce was rolled out to the entire student body, with broader capabilities—able not only to answer questions but also to initiate interactions on its own. For example, the chatbot can intervene when a student is determined to be at risk of failing a class or dropping out of school.”

Tubefilter: ‘Cult of the Lamb’ gets viewers into the game with Twitch integration. “The roguelike game, developed by Massive Monster and published by Devolver Digital, arrived on seven different consoles on August 11. From a content creation standpoint, the most interesting thing about Cult of the Lamb is its unique set of Twitch integrations. By installing a PC extension (not today, Mac users), Cult of the Lamb players can give some in-game power to their streaming audiences.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Marshall Project: See If Police in Your State Reported Crime Data to the FBI. “Nearly 40% of the 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the U.S. failed to report crime data to the FBI’s national database in 2021 after the transition to a new collection system. The transition creates huge gaps in national crime stats sure to be exploited by politicians in this election year.”

New York Times: A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal.. “Because technology companies routinely capture so much data, they have been pressured to act as sentinels, examining what passes through their servers to detect and prevent criminal behavior. Child advocates say the companies’ cooperation is essential to combat the rampant online spread of sexual abuse imagery. But it can entail peering into private archives, such as digital photo albums — an intrusion users may not expect — that has cast innocent behavior in a sinister light in at least two cases The Times has unearthed.”

Associated Press: Immigration advocates sue LexisNexis over personal data. “Data broker LexisNexis Risk Solutions allegedly violated Illinois law by collecting and combining extensive personal information and selling it to third parties including federal immigration authorities, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by immigration advocates.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Natural History Museum (UK): Natural History Museum celebrates pioneering digital and scientific collaboration with the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum of the National University of Singapore. “The Natural History Museum today celebrated its partnership with the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum (LKCNHM) of the National University of Singapore. Representatives from both parties met in the Museum’s world-renowned galleries to launch an international digitisation collaboration which will mobilise a wealth of data on the scientific, geological and environmental history of Singapore.”

USGS: Bipartisan Infrastructure Law helps map underground geology across Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. “This study will cover a vast, 27,500 square-mile area, covering parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia where geophysical data has not been collected for more than 45 years. The study will be funded by and conducted through the USGS Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI), a partnership between the USGS and state geological surveys to modernize understanding of the nation’s fundamental geologic framework through new mapping and data collection.” Good morning, Internet…

August 22, 2022 at 05:29PM
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Sunday, August 21, 2022

Colorado Wildlife Conservation, YouTube Shorts, Google Sheets, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 21, 2022

Colorado Wildlife Conservation, YouTube Shorts, Google Sheets, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 21, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

KRDO: CPW launches conservation dashboard to show progress on protecting sensitive species. “Prior to the launch of the Species Conservation Dashboard, the only way for the public to view information about CPW’s State Wildlife Action Plan was through a PDF. The new dashboard now allows people to explore the progress being made on the more than 350 species and 2,500 conservation actions the agency is taking.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

KnowTechie: YouTube Shorts will soon watermark videos just like TikTok. “This is similar to what you find on TikTok videos. You can tell that a video is from TikTok due to its recognizable watermark that hovers and moves on each video posted to the platform. Previously, YouTube creators could download and share their Shorts without any watermark. That’s now changing thanks to this new update.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: How to Transpose Data in Google Sheets . “Have you got a table in Google Sheets that’s in the wrong direction? Whether you want to turn a vertical table horizontal, or the other way around, transposing is your best friend.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NBC News: Monkeypox misinformation spreading faster than the virus, experts say. “In May, a group of South American researchers analyzed the top English-language Twitter traffic regarding monkeypox. They found that half of it was misinformation or unverifiable information; just 28% included serious, factual information. Misleading tweets edged out the others in replies and retweets, according to a letter published in The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries on July 28.”

New York Times: Twitter Tells Employees They Might Get Only Half Their Annual Bonus. “Twitter warned its employees on Friday that they might receive only half of their typical annual bonuses as the social media company grapples with economic uncertainty.”

College of the Holy Cross: College of the Holy Cross Receives $250,000 Grant to Digitize Portions of Deaf Catholic Archives. “The College of the Holy Cross Archives and Distinctive Collections has received a $250,000 grant to fund Digitizing the Deaf Catholic Archives, which is housed at the College The project, supported by a Digitizing Hidden Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), will open access to a collection of print and audio visual materials.The CLIR grant is funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: New Pentagon Budget Could Force the Military to Disclose When it Buys Americans’ Location Data. “The House of Representatives approved changes to next year’s military budget requiring the Department of Defense to start disclosing any purchases of smartphone or web browsing data for which a warrant would ordinarily be required last month.”

The Verge: Period and pregnancy tracking apps have bad privacy protections, report finds. “Most popular period and pregnancy tracking apps don’t have strong privacy protections, according to a new analysis from researchers at Mozilla. Leaky privacy policies in health apps are always a problem, but issues that fall into this particular category are especially concerning now that abortion is illegal in many places in the United States.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

YakTriNews: New 3D model and map of Mount Rainier to be released to public. ” Mountain lovers rejoice! Mt. Rainier National Park’s Geology Division along with the Alaska Regional Office have finished a 3D model and map that shows the full extent of Mount Rainier within the park’s boundary. Experts with the office said the model can be used to map glaciers, help characterize landforms and ground cover, as well as find social trails. Soon, the data will be publicly available.”

News@Northeastern: Low-income Tenants Face Significant Discrimination On Craigslist . “Published in Urban Affairs Review by Forrest Hangen, a public policy PhD student, and Dan O’Brien, associate professor of public policy, urban affairs and criminology and criminal justice, the study found blatant discrimination on Craigslist against housing choice voucher holders. The housing choice voucher program, often called Section 8 because of the section of the U.S. Housing Act that authorized it, is the primary way the federal government helps low-income families afford housing on the private market.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 22, 2022 at 12:53AM
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NYC Landmarks and Historic Districts, Google’s Timer & Stopwatch, Snapchat, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, August 21, 2022

NYC Landmarks and Historic Districts, Google’s Timer & Stopwatch, Snapchat, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, August 21, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

6 Sq Ft: Landmarks launches digital photo archive of NYC landmarks and historic districts. “The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission on Thursday launched the LPC Designation Photo Collection, a digital photo archive with high-resolution images of designated landmarks and historic districts.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google brought back the timer, and it’s about time. “Google’s handy timer and stopwatch that you can use right from Search have returned. The tools have been unavailable for weeks, but Google public search liaison Danny Sullivan announced that the timer was back in a tweet on Wednesday.”

CNET: Snapchat Brings ‘House of the Dragon’ to Cities Across the World via AR. “Snap and HBO Max have partnered on a new Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon feature for Snapchat users. From Sunday, if you’re in the right place you’ll see Snapchat’s new ‘Landmarker Lenses’ starring dragons.”

NPR: Google workers sign petition asking company to protect people’s abortion search data. “About 650 Google workers have signed a petition asking the company to protect users’ abortion-related location data and search history. The move comes over concerns that law enforcement agencies will seek such data from Google to prosecute abortion seekers.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

MIT Technology Review: The fight for “Instagram face”. “‘Instagram face’ is a recognized aesthetic template: ethnically ambiguous and featuring the flawless skin, big eyes, full lips, small nose, and perfectly contoured curves made accessible in large part by filters. But behind every filter is a person dragging lines and shifting shapes on a computer screen to achieve the desired look. Beauty may be subjective, and yet society continues to promote stringent, unattainable ideals that—for women and girls—are disproportionately white, slender, and feminine.”

New York Times: Survivors of Partition Seek Closure Through an Unlikely Source: YouTube. “Mr. [Nasir] Dhillon is the driving force behind Punjabi Lehar, a six-year-old YouTube channel that posts regular interviews with survivors of that traumatic episode. He says it has enabled a number of Muslims and Sikhs — including some who live in North America — to visit their ancestral villages, and has led to about 100 in-person reunions. Partition led to communal violence, mass displacement and the deaths of as many as two million people. Some of the young people who survived were separated from their parents or siblings.”

Mashable SE Asia: Sabah landmarks on Google Maps get placed under the Philippines, Malaysians get pissed. “On August 18, 2022, a slew of news reports surfaced shedding light on a weird issue regarding Sabahan landmarks on Google Maps – somehow, someone had been altering the names of several iconic buildings and destinations within the East Malaysian state to place them under the ‘ownership’ of the Philippines.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: China ‘wild trip’ deaths put social media influencers under spotlight. “Chinese social media influencers and their platforms have come under fire for posts about ‘wild trips’ – or visits to off-grid locations – after a huge flood killed seven tourists in Sichuan province. The tragedy, on 13 August, left seven tourists dead and eight injured after a flash flood at a valley in Mengzhou, in the country’s south-west.”

Reuters: Trump’s Truth Social company ordered to turn over Devin Nunes information. “Former President Donald Trump’s media and technology company must turn over information about ex-Congressman Devin Nunes’ employment as its chief executive officer… The ruling stems from a $75 million defamation lawsuit brought by Nunes, a former Republican U.S. Congressman from California, against Hearst Magazine Media Inc and journalist Ryan Lizza.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Evening Standard: Roy Scheider to return to big screen in posthumous release completed using AI. “The American actor died in February 2008 during the filming of Beautiful Blue Eyes, which follows a New York police officer seeking revenge on a Nazi who he believes murdered his family during the Second World War. Despite the filming of Beautiful Blue Eyes commencing more than 14 years ago, filmmakers had to wait for artificial intelligence (AI) technology advances in order to release the movie as it was originally envisioned after Scheider’s death.”

Science Daily: Algorithm learns to correct 3D printing errors for different parts, materials and systems. “Engineers have created intelligent 3D printers that can quickly detect and correct errors, even in previously unseen designs, or unfamiliar materials like ketchup and mayonnaise, by learning from the experiences of other machines.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Codecat: Building an open source IRL livestreaming backpack. “This month I decided to build an IRL livestreaming backpack. Not with the desire to become an IRL streamer, but because I think it’s a very fun technical challenge. I gathered and set up all the hardware, reverse engineered some firmware images, and coded my own software to control it.” Good morning, Internet…

August 21, 2022 at 05:30PM
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Saturday, August 20, 2022

TheTruthSpy Spyware Checker, Snapchat Hardware, Chrome, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 20, 2022

TheTruthSpy Spyware Checker, Snapchat Hardware, Chrome, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 20, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

TechCrunch: TechCrunch launches TheTruthSpy spyware lookup tool. “TechCrunch today launched a spyware lookup tool that allows anyone to check if their Android device was compromised by a fleet of consumer-grade spyware apps, including TheTruthSpy. The aim is to help victims check if their device was compromised and reclaim control of their device.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Snap reportedly gives up on its selfie drone just four months after its debut. “It’s been less than four months since Snap unveiled a selfie drone called Pixy, but it seems the company is already giving up on the device. CEO Evan Spiegel told employees that Snap is halting further work on Pixy amid a reprioritization of resources, according to The Wall Street Journal.”

How-To Geek: Chrome Will Revamp Its Forgotten App Menu, to Match Edge. “Google is now working to overhaul the Apps menu in Chrome, according to information on the Chromium Gerrit spotted by Chrome Story. The browser’s development team plans to add more options, including the ability to change which permissions a web app can access, and quickly opening the settings for a given app (if available).”

USEFUL STUFF

WIRED: A Crowdsourced Wildfire App Tracks All of California’s Blazes. “Fires, by their very nature, are very difficult to track in real time. They can burn quickly, in every direction, and often rage in deeply wooded rural areas that are largely inaccessible. Official emergency responders, overworked and strapped by a lack of resources, struggle to fight fires and keep the public informed about a blaze’s every move…. That’s where volunteers on social media have come in. People in Facebook groups and on Fire Twitter have built whole communities of vigilant fire watchers who try to share accurate and timely fire info with the public.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Ars Technica: Google Maps accused of leading users to fake abortion clinics. “In 2018, Google was first confronted by media reports investigating why crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs)—often religious, non-medical organizations that do not provide abortion services or referrals for abortion services—frequently dominate Google Maps search results for ‘abortion clinics.’ Now, four years later, the tech company seems to be making some moves to potentially change the quality of these sorts of search results.”

The Post-Journal: 10,000 Maniacs Launch Expansive Digital Archive Project. “Jamestown’s 10,000 Maniacs is launching a new effort to create digital archives that will preserve the band’s legacy for years to come. Dennis Drew, the band’s keyboard player, said he was watching a documentary about a comedian with his daughter and pointed out that the National Comedy Center had archives of the comedian’s notes. Drew said his daughter asked him, ‘Where are your archives?'”

BBC: Glasgow Museums to return seven stolen artefacts to India . “Six of the items, including 14th Century carvings and 11th Century stone door jams, were stolen from shrines and temples in the 19th Century. The seventh object, a ceremonial sword or called a tulwar, with its scabbard, was stolen in 1905 from the collection of the Nizam of Hyderabad by his prime minister. He then sold it to the British general Sir Archibald Hunter. All of the artefacts were gifted to Glasgow Museums.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: Pro Tip: If You’re Suing YouTube And Asking For More Time Because The CEO Is Sick, Don’t Post A Highly Produced YouTube Video Attacking The Ruling & Lawyers. “There are a bunch of moving parts involved in this case that I really wasn’t planning on covering — but something quite amusing happened and I can’t resist.”

The Register: Google blocks third record-breaking DDoS attack in as many months. “Google says it has blocked the largest ever HTTPS-based distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack in June, which peaked at 46 million requests per second. To put things in perspective, this is about 76 percent larger than the previous record DDoS attack that Cloudflare thwarted earlier that same month.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Newswise: Assessing the toxicity of Reddit comments. “User behavior toxicity analysis showed that 16.11% of users publish toxic posts, and 13.28% of users publish toxic comments. 30.68% of users publishing posts, and 81.67% of users publishing comments, exhibit changes in their toxicity across different communities – or subreddits – indicating that users adapt their behavior to the communities’ norms.” Good afternoon, Internet…

August 21, 2022 at 12:51AM
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Maine Outdoor Activities, Nevada Food Insecurity, Twitter, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, August 20, 2022

Maine Outdoor Activities, Nevada Food Insecurity, Twitter, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, August 20, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry: Bureau of Parks and Lands Announces New Outdoor Recreation Investments Map. “The map highlights investments in outdoor recreation such as trails, parks, and other projects. 870 [Land and Water Conservation Fund]-assisted outdoor recreation projects included on the map are safeguarded for everyone to enjoy perpetually.”

University of Nevada Reno: New SNAP dashboard strengthens food-security education across Nevada. “More than 11% of sixth graders in Nevada’s Clark County went hungry some time in the previous month because there wasn’t enough food at home. The number of people in the Las Vegas area who skipped meals or cut back their eating because they didn’t have enough food, meanwhile, grew by an estimated 47% during the pandemic. Even for food-security professionals such as Macy Helm who closely track numbers such as these, a powerful new online dashboard developed at the University of Nevada, Reno, provides a fresh – and sometime startling – way to visualize the challenges of food security, nutrition and physical activity across Nevada.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BBC: Doubts cast over Elon Musk’s Twitter bot claims. “Botometer – an online tool that tracks spam and fake accounts – was used by Mr Musk in a countersuit against Twitter. Using the tool, Mr Musk’s team estimated that 33% of ‘visible accounts’ on the social media platform were ‘false or spam accounts’. However, Botometer creator and maintainer, Kaicheng Yang, said the figure ‘doesn’t mean anything’.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NBC News: Viral video of a racist rant led people to threaten the wrong business. The owner blames Google.. “Online vigilantism is a well-recognized phenomenon, one that is the subject of academic study. Examples of people looking to take justice into their own hands to right perceived wrongs go back to the early days of the consumer internet, not long after the advent of the World Wide Web. The phenomenon has only gained momentum alongside the rise of search engines, social media, smartphones and digital video, which have provided the content, tools and motivation for just about anyone to play crusader. But in some instances of online mob justice, people hit the wrong target.”

University of Maine: Knowles developing website to tell the story of Holocaust victims through places . “Anne Knowles believes that places provide important information about historical events. The University of Maine professor and graduate coordinator in the History Department has made an academic career studying the relationship between geographical circumstances and major societal shifts, exploring topics from Welsh emigration to the United States to why American entrepreneurs struggled to match the productivity of the British iron industry. Now, Knowles is working with a team of historians and geographers to create a digital platform for students and educators to trace the geographies of the Holocaust and connect victimsʼ stories to the places where they happened.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Travel Weekly: The DOT is doing an airline customer service dashboard. “The Department of Transportation will launch a new web feature on Sept. 2 designed to provide air travelers with easy-to-access comparative information on the services that airlines offer when they are responsible for flight delays and cancellations.”

Politico: What Is the Supreme Court Hiding?. “The executive branch is subject to detailed rules laying out what work product must be preserved, when and how it must be released to the general public, and — as Donald Trump has unhappily learned — what happens to officials who don’t play ball. Not so for justices. [former Supreme Court Justice Stephen] Breyer, if he so chose, could toss his papers in a bonfire, auction them to the highest bidder, or ship them all to Mar-a-Lago for safekeeping.”

CNET: Twitter Profited From Users’ Data Without Their Consent, Lawsuit Alleges. “Twitter is facing more legal woes for allegedly providing advertisers user phone numbers and email addresses without their consent. In 2019, the company disclosed that personal information users handed over for a security feature may have been used for targeted advertising. On Thursday, two Twitter users sued the social media company in a proposed class action lawsuit filed in a federal court in Northern California.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Georgia: Robocrops: Data science, technology and A.I. coalesce in the field of plant robotics. “A four-wheeled, phenotyping robot that operates autonomously or under human control, Watson is taking shape in Changying ‘Charlie’ Li’s lab at the Phenomics and Plant Robotics Center (PPRC) on the University of Georgia’s Athens campus in collaboration with researchers in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.”

The Conversation: From watering via ice cubes to spritzing with hydrogen peroxide – 4 misguided plant health trends on social media. “The internet is full of advice on just about everything, including plant care. As the director of a plant diagnostic laboratory and expert on plant medicine, I help people manage their plants’ health. Here are four trends I’ve seen online recently that have stood out as being especially misleading or potentially damaging to plants.”

Engadget: ‘PowerWash Simulator’ players can now aid mental health research. “PowerWash Simulator players can now take part in a research project that looks at the links between gaming and mental health. Developer FuturLab has teamed up with independent researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute for what it calls a ‘a one-of-a-kind anonymous research study centered around the wellbeing of PowerWash Simulator’s players.'”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of Texas at Austin: Random Acts of Kindness Make a Bigger Splash Than Expected. “Even though they often enhance happiness, acts of kindness such as giving a friend a ride or bringing food for a sick family member can be somewhat rare because people underestimate how good these actions make recipients feel, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin.” Good morning, Internet…

August 20, 2022 at 05:34PM
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