Saturday, November 12, 2022

Jewish Service in the Civil War, Jazz Musicians in Norway, Australia WWI Diaries, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 12, 2022

Jewish Service in the Civil War, Jazz Musicians in Norway, Australia WWI Diaries, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 12, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Jewish Telegraphic Agency: What I learned about antisemitism from a remarkable new archive about Jewish Civil War soldiers . “[Max] Glass was not the only Jewish soldier to be cruelly mistreated when serving in the Union Army. But as the new Shapell Roster of Jewish Service in the Civil War demonstrates, his experience was far from typical. I explored the Shapell Roster while working on my new book, on the experience of Jewish soldiers in the Union army. What I learned from the vast collection of documents and data was that indifference, benign curiosity and comradeship appear to have been much more common than conflict for the majority of Jewish soldiers in the Union army.”

Jazzed: National Library of Norway Releases Thousands of Intimate Photographs of Jazz Greats. “The Norwegian music journalist Randi Hultin (1926–2000) opened her home to many of the great jazz legends. She documented her life in the company of artists such as John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Count Basie in the form of tens of thousands of photographs – pictures which are now held in the National Library of Norway…. A large number of pictures have also been digitised and uploaded to the online archives.”

Australian War Memorial: First World War diaries and letters get new life online. “Eyewitness accounts of the end of the First World War, as recorded in diaries and letters, are now available online as part of a major digitisation project led by the Australian War Memorial. These diaries and letters give an intimate insight to this globally significant day, as Australians gather to mark Remembrance Day and commemorate the Armistice of the First World War, which was signed at 11 am on 11 November 1918.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: Twitter drama too much? Mastodon, others emerge as options. “While it’s not clear if the drama is causing many users to leave — in fact, having a front-row seat to the chaos may prove entertaining to some — lesser-known sites Mastodon and even Tumblr are emerging as new (or renewed) alternatives. Here’s a look at some of them.”

Bloomberg: Renault, Google Expand Pact to Make Cars ‘Like Mobile Phones’. “Renault SA is deepening its collaboration with Alphabet Inc.’s Google in a bid to extend capabilities on remote software updates to new models such as the electric Megane E-Tech and Austral.”

USEFUL STUFF

Fast Company: How to create a mini-website in 10 minutes. “You need a presence online. If you don’t yet have one, consider starting with a ‘link-in-bio’ page—a mini-website that lists your most important links. You can include a brief bio and social links. Later you can build a fuller site with multiple sub-pages, if necessary. Read on for why a mini-site is useful, what to use it for, and recommendations for good free services.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Apple Insider: Key staff driving Apple search engine leave to rejoin Google. “Four years after Laserlike was acquired by Apple to boost its web search technology, the founders have quit to rejoin Google. Prior to forming Laserlike in 2015, Anand Shukla, Srinivasan Venkatachary and Steven Baker were all Google employees. Their work at Apple is one reason the company has been predicted to launch its own search engine equivalent to Google’s.”

CNBC: Sharing your layoff on LinkedIn isn’t an ‘act of shame’ anymore—and it could be a smart career move. “Spend any amount of time on LinkedIn these days and you’ll see workers are increasingly leveraging the platform to announce their layoffs — just as quickly as they’d announce a new job or promotion. The vulnerability is ‘tremendous’ to see, says Albert Ko, the director of sales at AngelList Talent who’s been through five rounds of layoffs in his 15-year career (including two where he lost his job).”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: At least $1 billion of client funds missing at Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. “At least $1 billion of customer funds have vanished from collapsed crypto exchange FTX, according to two people familiar with the matter. The exchange’s founder Sam Bankman-Fried secretly transferred $10 billion of customer funds from FTX to Bankman-Fried’s trading company Alameda Research, the people told Reuters. A large portion of that total has since disappeared, they said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Swansea University: Samaritans And University Report Reveals Dangers Of Social Media’s Self-Harm Content. “Social media sites are still not doing enough to tackle self-harm content being pushed to users on their sites, says Samaritans. The warning comes as new research from the charity and Swansea University found 83 per cent of social media users surveyed were recommended self-harm content on their personalised feeds, such as Instagram’s ‘explore’ and TikTok’s ‘for you’ pages, without searching for it.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 13, 2022 at 01:25AM
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Samizdat App, Help Me Grow Maine, Fake Eli Lilly, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 12, 2022

Samizdat App, Help Me Grow Maine, Fake Eli Lilly, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 12, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Meduza: Five investigative journalism projects, including Team Navalny, release mobile app to bypass Russia’s censors. “The independent media outlets Proekt, iStories, The Insider, and Bellingcat, as well as jailed opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s investigative team, have launched a new mobile app to publish their investigations in a format accessible to Russian readers.”

State of Maine: Maine DHHS Launches Help Me Grow Maine to Connect Families to Resources That Help Young Children Thrive. “Initiated by the Department and supported with the passage of PL 2021, Ch. 457 (PDF) sponsored by Senate President Troy Jackson, the free service for children up to eight years of age and their families aims to improve access to early developmental screening, diagnostic, and treatment services and referrals to early intervention services.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Investor’s Business Daily: Eli Lilly Dives After Fake Twitter Account Promises Free Insulin; Takes Novo Nordisk, Sanofi With It. “The tweet went live around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday from an account claiming to be Eli Lilly. It remained online for several hours, gaining steam from hundreds of retweets and thousands of likes. As of Friday morning, the fake account is no longer verified and its tweets are now private. But that didn’t stop LLY stock from falling 2.2% near 360.70 in morning trades on today’s stock market.” (Right now, as I index this article, Eli Lilly is trading down 5.38%.)

BBC: Twitter drama continues with blue-tick confusion. “People on and off the platform have been raising concerns about the direction Twitter is going in under its new billionaire leader. The grey ‘Official’ badges returned less than two days after being removed. And it’s now being reported that Twitter has paused letting people sign up to it’s Twitter Blue subscription.”

USEFUL STUFF

KQED: 7 Edtech tools to connect students to a global community. “There are many edtech tools that help foster community building while providing global perspectives and engagement for students, both inside and outside of the classroom. Incorporating global community connections into community building helps students form bridges between all the communities they participate in. It may also open new avenues for students to see themselves as part of a larger global community and give them new awareness and understanding of their place in the world.”

Nature: Should I join Mastodon? A scientists’ guide to Twitter’s rival. “Bolstered by positive news coverage, it’s becoming the most popular alternative to Twitter. Since 27 October, almost half a million new users have flocked to the service, roughly doubling its user base. As Twitter users wonder whether, and when, they should make the leap, Nature looks at the benefits and drawbacks for researchers.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Mainichi: Google to digitally archive Mainichi Shimbun’s prewar, WWII-era papers . “In total, about 230,000 pages of the Mainichi Shimbun’s morning and evening editions from 1872 to 1945 will be digitally archived. The content of these pages will be analyzed and their text will become searchable. The partnership comes 150 years after the Mainichi Shimbun was first published. Google aims to complete the project by the fall of 2023.”

MIT Technology Review: Twitter’s potential collapse could wipe out vast records of recent human history. “Almost from the time the first tweet was posted in 2006, Twitter has played an important role in world events. The platform has been used to record everything from the Arab Spring to the ongoing war in Ukraine. It’s also captured our public conversations for years. But experts are worried that if Elon Musk tanks the company, these rich seams of media and conversation could be lost forever. Given his admission to employees in a November 10 call that Twitter could face bankruptcy, it’s a real and present risk.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

TechCrunch: Twitter’s lead EU watchdog for data protection has fresh questions for Musk. “In parallel with the FTC’s ominous warning to Elon Musk’s Twitter yesterday — that ‘no CEO or company is above the law‘ — the microblogging platform’s lead regulator in the European Union is on its case in the wake of senior staffers in charge of security and privacy compliance walking out the door.”

The New Stack: The Dropbox GitHub Data Breach. “In a recent breach, 130 private Dropbox GitHub repos were opened up and copied. Here’s what happened.”

Fortune: Twitter lawyer to employees fearing a FTC crackdown over privacy violations: No, you won’t go to jail. “Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro, who is guiding the legal team following the billionaire’s acquisition, sought to reassure employees that they would not go to jail if the company is found in violation of a Federal Trade Commission consent decree, according to a message viewed by Bloomberg.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

ABC News (Australia): Federal government to partner with CSIRO and Google on carbon sink research project. “The federal government will partner with the CSIRO and Google to study how marine ecosystems in the Indo-Pacific are absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 12, 2022 at 06:24PM
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Friday, November 11, 2022

Detroit Incarcerated People, Twitter, FIFA World Cup, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 11, 2022

Detroit Incarcerated People, Twitter, FIFA World Cup, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 11, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Detroit Free Press: New Wayne County Jail dashboard offers statistics, charts in push for transparency . Wayne County is the most populous county in Michigan, with just under 1.8 million people. Its county seat is Detroit. “The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office and the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network on Thursday morning announced the launch of a free, online database providing demographic figures, mental health data and other information on the county jail population.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Al Jazeera: Fake Trump, Bush, Tesla storm Twitter after verification dropped. “Fake Twitter accounts have exploded across the platform after new owner Elon Musk scrapped the site’s verification policies as trolls impersonate famous figures and companies including the billionaire’s carmaker Tesla. The flood of impersonator accounts, including fake profiles for former United States President George W Bush and NBA star LeBron James, follows Musk’s decision to offer the platform’s blue check mark to any user for a $7.99 monthly subscription, instead of only verified accounts that are of public interest.”

TechCrunch: Google is launching cross-platform features to make it easier to follow the FIFA World Cup . “Google is rolling out a bunch of updates across platforms making it easier for fans to follow the FIFA World Cup starting November 20. These include a daily highlights video from TV networks, customized notifications, a dedicated section on Google TV and a multiplayer game.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Two Weeks of Chaos: Inside Elon Musk’s Takeover of Twitter. “The order for immediate layoffs, the ensuing panic and the about-face reflect the chaos that has engulfed Twitter since Mr. Musk took over the company two weeks ago. The 51-year-old barreled in with ideas about how the social media service should operate, but with no comprehensive plan to execute them. Then he quickly ran into the business, legal and financial complexities of running a platform that has been called a global town square. The fallout has often been excruciating, according to 36 current and former Twitter employees and people close to the company, as well as internal documents and workplace chat logs.”

The Verge: Elon Musk learns the hard way that being a Twitter troll is way more fun than being a mod. “Shenanigans are fun, but here’s the thing to keep in mind: Twitter is loaded with debt from the acquisition and needs to pay roughly $1 billion a year on it. In 2021, Twitter made $5 billion in revenue and did not turn a profit…. So Musk has to figure out how to make money while people scream at him and impersonate him. Fun job!” If you’re interested in the Twitter situation but you don’t have much inside baseball, this is a good overview. Lots of swearing.

Robb Report: Over 90 Museum Leaders Are Asking Climate Protestors to Stop Throwing Soup on Their Artworks. “The International Council of Museums (ICOM), a prominent industry group, has released a statement signed by more than 90 museum leaders decrying actions by climate activists that involve targeting artworks.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Bankman-Fried’s Assets Plummet From $16 Billion to Zero in Days. “The downfall of his crypto exchange and its trading house, Alameda Research, means assets owned by the mogul once likened to John Pierpont Morgan have become worthless. At the peak, the 30-year-old was worth $26 billion, and he was still worth almost $16 billion at the start of the week.” I think cryptocurrency as it exists now is a negative-sum thing and I do not intensely follow news about it. However, I get enough by newsreading osmosis to believe that this is one domino. And this single domino alone has wiped out billions and billions in wealth. What next?

ABC News: Animals trafficked in Mexico on social media sites: report. “A new report suggests that trafficking of wild and endangered species is common in Mexico and occurs largely online, where traffickers contact potential customers on social media like Facebook.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of New Mexico: First-of-its-kind Indigenous Child Language Research Center launched. “Thanks to a $250,000 grant, this virtual center will be the first of its kind in the country. It will document Indigenous language development with a strong focus on producing Navajo speakers at the most critical period of time for acquisition–childhood.”

The New Republic: Well, Twitter Looks Doomed!. “In sum, Musk is facing a real and precipitous loss in the already insufficient advertising dollars which accounted for most of Twitter’s revenue throughout its history. He is throwing his weight behind a hastily designed subscription service that currently provides few tangible benefits for users, appears unlikely to become a stable revenue stream in the near or long term, and undermines Twitter’s basic utility for everyone. And most of his other potential ideas so far—like turning the platform into a payments processor, to name one example—are outlandish and unlikely at best.” Good afternoon, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 12, 2022 at 01:22AM
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Fish/Amphibian 3D Models, Pacific Northwest Gardening, Washington DC Recycling, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 11, 2022

Fish/Amphibian 3D Models, Pacific Northwest Gardening, Washington DC Recycling, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 11, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Kyushu University: 3D flora and fauna at your fingertips. “Reporting in Research Ideas and Outcomes, a Kyushu University researcher has developed a new technique for scanning various plants and animals and reconstructing them into highly detailed 3D models. To date, over 1,400 models have been made available online for public use…. While [Yuichi] Kano has been working on various organisms including insects, plants, and even fungi, he is currently focusing on aquatic animals such as fish and amphibians.”

Oregon State University: New Extension website helps solve pest and disease problems. “A new Oregon State University Extension Service website provides a trove of science-based solutions for garden pests, weeds and disease problems in one easy-to-navigate place…. Solve Pest and Weed Problems focuses specifically on the Pacific Northwest and prioritizes low-risk approaches. Based on feedback, Miller incorporated household pests, invasive plants, pesticide safety and pollinators, as well as pests and diseases.”

DCist: New Website Helps D.C. Residents Reuse, Rather Than Toss Out. “Remember the three Rs? Not reading, writing and arithmetic — but reduce, reuse and recycle. D.C. has a goal to start doing a lot more of these three things: the city aims to go ‘zero waste’ by 2032, keeping 80% of waste out of landfills and incinerators. The District has just launched a new website to aid residents with R #2. It’s called Reuse DC, and includes an interactive map of places in the region where you can repair, donate, or shop for second-hand items.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Motherboard: Elon Musk’s $8 Twitter Verification Has Begun, Is a Complete Disaster. “Almost nothing has gone according to plan since Elon Musk took control over Twitter last month—and whether there even is a plan seems doubtful. Case in point: Musk’s flagship idea, an $8 paid-verification scheme, kicked off Wednesday night and immediately spiraled into complete disaster.”

KXAN: Texas Vet Board still struggling to fix database problems, legislative review finds. “Months after a KXAN investigation into problems at the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, a new legislative report reveals the agency is still struggling to manage its data on animal doctors in the state. The report found TBVME failed to implement previous recommendations by the Sunset Advisory Commission — a group of lawmakers and members of the public that evaluates the function and performance of state agencies. Sunset has reviewed this agency three times over the last six years.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNBC: Read Elon Musk’s first email to all Twitter employees: Remote work over, company needs subscriptions to survive downturn. “In his first companywide email to Twitter employees, new owner and CEO Elon Musk said he was ending the social network’s ‘work from home forever’ policy. Now, according to the email obtained by CNBC, Musk wants employees to be in a Twitter office at least 40 hours a week, and plans to personally approve any alternative arrangements.”

Search Engine Journal: Google’s John Mueller: “Search Is Never Guaranteed”. “Google Search Advocate John Mueller said, ‘search is never guaranteed,’ in response to a site owner asking why their content isn’t indexed. In the r/TechSEO forum on Reddit, a user is dissatisfied that a website re-publishing identical content is getting indexed faster.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Elon Musk is putting Twitter at risk of billions in fines, warns company lawyer. “The company’s chief privacy officer Damien Kieran, chief information security officer Lea Kissner, and chief compliance officer Marianne Fogarty have all resigned, according to two employees and an internal message seen by The Verge. Kissner confirmed their departure in a tweet on Thursday.”

Utility Dive: Porn and Putin-focused hacks of charging stations drive new cybersecurity steps for an EV boom. “The ongoing expansion of the U.S. electric vehicle ecosystem is creating new cybersecurity risks for the nation’s power system by offering hackers access through widely distributed and less well-protected charging stations, but solutions are emerging, charger software providers and researchers said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: COP27 | United Nations to launch public database of global methane leaks detected by space satellites. “The United Nation’s (U.N.) environment watchdog said, on November 11, it will launch a public database of global methane leaks detected by space satellites, as part of a new programme to encourage companies and governments to curb emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas.”

IEEE Spectrum: After 50 Years, Digital Voices Speak Again A chance conversation revives speech digitization samples from 1973 . “This flexi disc is, in effect, an audio time capsule preserving the state of speech digitization research in the early 1970s. (It is telling, for example, that women’s voices are not represented in any of the sound samples.) Yet despite its historical significance, its contents remained buried within the pages of a half-century-old Spectrum back issue until this spring, when special projects editor Stephen Cass brought it to my attention following a meeting of the magazine’s editorial advisory board.”

Managed Healthcare Executive: Smartphone Tapping Speed New Tool in Assessing MS, Study Finds. “How quickly individuals can tap on a smartphone keyboard may be a useful tool for monitoring multiple sclerosis (MS) severity and determining progression of the disease. Juan Luis Chico-Garcia, M.D., with the Hospital Ramon y Cajal, Neurology in Madrid, Spain, presented the research at the 38th Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS), October 26–28 in Amsterdam and virtually.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 11, 2022 at 06:28PM
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Thursday, November 10, 2022

America Music, Africa Development Corridors, Prince Edward Islands, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2022

America Music, Africa Development Corridors, Prince Edward Islands, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

I thought I must have indexed this but I can’t find it anywhere so, new-to-me: New voices added to Yale Library’s collection of music oral histories. “The recordings will add the voices of two more gospel artists to [Oral History of American Music]’s growing collection, Major Figures in American Music. The collection now contains more than 1,400 recorded interviews, dating from 1970 to the present day, with noted composers and musicians.”

Scientific Data: The African Development Corridors Database: a new tool to assess the impacts of infrastructure investments . “We developed a database of 79 development corridors across Africa, synthesizing data from multiple sources covering 184 projects on railways, wet and dry ports, pipelines, airports, techno-cities, and industrial parks. The georeferenced interlinked tabular and spatial database includes 22 attributes.”

EOS: Geospatial Database for the Prince Edward Islands Think South Africa, not Anne of Green Gables. “As rare landmasses dotting the vast Southern Ocean, South Africa’s Prince Edward Islands provide valuable insights for climatologists, geographers, biologists, botanists, and even astronomers…. But despite their value to science, spatial data and associated metadata for the two islands (Marion and Prince Edward) were difficult to assess and validate.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: “Too easy“—Midjourney tests dramatic new version of its AI image generator. “On Saturday, AI image service Midjourney began alpha testing version 4 (‘v4’) of its text-to-image synthesis model, which is available for subscribers on its Discord server. The new model provides more detail than previously available on the service, inspiring some AI artists to remark that v4 almost makes it ‘too easy’ to get high-quality results from simple prompts.”

USEFUL STUFF

CoinDesk: Why Is Crypto Tanking: The FTX-Binance Drama Explained. “The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance reversed course on a plan to bail out competitor FTX in an event that has shocked the crypto industry and is catching the attention of regulators.” This article assumes some knowledge of the cryptocurrency world, but it’s a good general explainer if you’re wondering why two entities called “FTX” and “Binance” are all over the news.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Roundtable: Mastodon Is Using Rel Noreferrer On Outbound Links Causing Visits To Appear As Direct Traffic In Google Analytics. “As I’ve been sharing on Mastodon more, and as activity on the social network surges overall, I’ve been trying to track visits to content from Mastodon…. I ended up testing the tracking situation by sharing some links on Mastodon and seeing how that was tracked in Google Analytics. If you’re a user of Mastodon, and want to analyze traffic from the growing social network, I don’t think you’re going to like what I found.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Olive Press: Police officer becomes first person in Spain with criminal conviction for spreading ‘fake news’ on social media. “A Guardia Civil officer has become the first person criminally convicted in Spain of spreading ‘fake news’. He used a social media account to falsely allege that a group of Moroccan child migrants attacked a Barcelona area woman.”

AFP: Biden says Musk’s foreign ties ‘worthy’ of scrutiny. “US President Joe Biden Wednesday said that Elon Musk’s ties with foreign countries were ‘worthy’ of scrutiny, amid questions over the Saudi acquisition of a stake in Twitter as part of the tycoon’s blockbuster takeover.”

Gizmodo: DOJ and SEC Investigating FTX Collapse as Entire Crypto Market Plunges. “The Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating FTX, a crypto platform that halted withdrawals on Tuesday, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. And while the SEC’s investigation has reportedly been going ‘for months,’ the agency’s scrutiny has only expanded this week following the liquidity crisis at FTX, which has caused the entire cryptocurrency market to tank.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Brandeis NOW: The age of invention: patents show differences between younger and older inventors. “The study… examined more than 3 million U.S. patents filed from 1976 to 2000 to identify certain attributes, and then analyzed them based on the age of the filers. The research found older inventors are more likely to rely on their knowledge and experience, and build on novel applications of past inventions – what psychologists call crystallized intelligence – to develop a patent. Younger inventors are more likely to submit patents that are forward-looking and rely on abstract reasoning and novel problem-solving – all traits of fluid intelligence.”

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 11, 2022 at 01:47AM
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Medieval Manuscripts, Ireland WWI Casualties, Urban Infrastructure Datasets, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2022

Medieval Manuscripts, Ireland WWI Casualties, Urban Infrastructure Datasets, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

Two apologies:

1) I don’t think I’ve missed two days in a row since my mother was in ICU with covid. Straight up ran out of steam. I’m sorry.

2) Going to be lots of Twitter news for a while. Sometimes there are things that make a stir in the tech world that I ignore or minimize in ResearchBuzz (product line rollouts, drama over text message platforms, etc) but I feel what’s happening at Twitter is very important. I’ll try to keep it as useful and non-frivolous as possible.

NEW RESOURCES

University of Leiden: Medieval manuscripts made available in Europeana. “Over 600 manuscripts and early prints have been made digitally available by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) via the Europeana platform. In the project ‘The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages’ (ARMA), seven European heritage institutions added 30,000 digitised medieval items to Europeana’s database and improved the quality of another 30,000, thus bringing medieval reading culture within the grasp of users.”

RTE: Donegal museum launches WW1 database. “A searchable database of over 1,000 people from Co Donegal who died as a result of World War 1 has been launched by Donegal County Museum.”

Iowa State University: Novel atlas shows vast urban infrastructure divide between Global South and Global North. “The pioneering new data set shows the vast differences in the height of built-up infrastructure in urban areas across the globe, information that could improve projections of energy use and emissions and inform city planning and economic development efforts, including progression toward the United Nations sustainable development goals, said Yuyu Zhou…”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Wired: Twitter Users Have Caused a Mastodon Meltdown . “Since Musk bought the bird app last month, users are looking for ways to access Mastodon, the open source microblogging platform that isn’t quite Twitter but seems to be the closest thing to it, and they’re signing up for its many servers in droves. And Fosstodon, whose usership has grown from a list of about 3,000 active members to an unwieldy 40,000 total members, is far from the only server on the network to run into trouble.”

Ars Technica: Musk-led Twitter rolls out new ‘Official’ tags, removes them hours later. “Twitter is rolling out the $7.99-per-month version of its Twitter Blue subscription, which adds a blue checkmark to your profile. But with Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s move to paid checkmarks raising concerns about impersonation, Twitter also deployed a new ‘Official’ label for notable accounts. However, in news that probably won’t surprise you, the Official label rollout is already chaotic.”

Engadget: Google starts issuing Stadia refunds. “As of today, Google is starting to process refunds for Stadia purchases. The first wave of refunds will include those for purchases of games, add-on content and subscriptions made through the Stadia store. However, the company is not refunding Stadia Pro subscription fees.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Ernie Lazar, who quietly amassed huge FBI archive, dies at 77. “Lazar, who died Nov. 1 at his home in Palm Springs, Calif., at 77, was not booked on shows as a historical pundit. He did not write his own manuscripts or articles. His name, if noticed at all, was tucked into acknowledgments in books such as Christopher Elias’s ‘Gossip Men’ (2021) on the ‘Red Scare’ era and Thomas Konda’s ‘Conspiracies of Conspiracies: How Delusions Have Overrun America’ (2019). But to a generation of authors, researchers, academics and others, Lazar was a figure of heroic proportions.”

TechCrunch: Google and Twitter veteran maps out a Twitter alternative. “Years-old federated social networks, legacy social platforms that have their own issues and a cacophony of pre-existing fringe efforts are all emerging as possible alternatives to Twitter. And in that vein, so are completely new ideas. One of these is being hatched by Gabor Cselle, a repeat founder who wants to build what he described to me as ‘a new Twitter.'”

NPR: Some Twitter users flying the coop hope Mastodon will be a safe landing. “Few people outside computer programmers or engineers had heard of the social network Mastodon before Elon Musk bought Twitter. Now, Twitter users queasy about changes the eccentric billionaire is making are signing up for Mastodon accounts in droves. Mastodon reached a million users earlier this week, up from under 400,000 before Musk closed the Twitter deal on Oct. 27.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: 15,000 sites hacked for massive Google SEO poisoning campaign. “Hackers are conducting a massive black hat search engine optimization (SEO) campaign by compromising almost 15,000 websites to redirect visitors to fake Q&A discussion forums. The attacks were first spotted by Sucuri, who says that each compromised site contains approximately 20,000 files used as part of the search engine spam campaign, with most of the sites being WordPress.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

News@Northeastern: Northeastern Researcher Wins Meta Award To Quarantine And Vaccinate Silent Data Corruptions. “Most of us have experienced that terrifying moment when a computer program unexpectedly quits or our computer screen suddenly goes black, sending us into panic mode over possibly losing hours of work. ‘You would say, “Oh, my computer crashed,”‘ says Devesh Tiwari, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering in Northeastern’s College of Engineering. ‘But it is actually a good thing that it crashed when an error happened.'”

MIT News: In machine learning, synthetic data can offer real performance improvements. “Models trained on synthetic data can be more accurate than other models in some cases, which could eliminate some privacy, copyright, and ethical concerns from using real data.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!



November 10, 2022 at 06:30PM
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Monday, November 7, 2022

Federal Judge Transparency, Benin Bronzes, Consumer Protection, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 7, 2022

Federal Judge Transparency, Benin Bronzes, Consumer Protection, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 7, 2022
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

United States Courts: New Database Eases Release of Judges’ Finance Reports. “A new free public database of federal judges’ financial disclosure reports (FDRs), including periodic transaction reports (PTRs), was launched today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Once users register in the new database, they can access an electronic version of federal judges’ reports. The new database design allows members of the public to filter and select the reports they are seeking.”

Art Newspaper: Benin bronzes online database goes live with details of thousands of looted artefacts. “A highly anticipated new online database listing works of art looted from the Kingdom of Benin has launched, shining a light on more than 5,000 looted objects housed at more than 100 museums worldwide.”

Better Business Bureau: BBB Institute partners with Amazon and Capital One to fight scams. “The BBB Scam Tracker makes it easier for consumers to report scams via mobile or desktop. It includes a new guided questionnaire that makes it quick and easy to report a scam. Consumers can now review and edit their reports before submission, and then share the report with friends and family via social media or email. They also have the option to receive updates about the constantly evolving tactics that scammers use. In addition, an upgraded search function enables consumers to search scams in the tool by URL, email address, phone number and more.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Washington Post: Trump once reconsidered sticking with Truth Social. Now he’s stuck.. “Trump has told his allies that he can’t leave Truth Social, because he’s propping it up, and he doesn’t want a site so closely associated with his brand to collapse, according to people familiar with his thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a detailed request for comment for this story.”

Daily Beast: Musk Bans ‘Impersonation’ After Parody Elons Flood Twitter. “After vowing to make Twitter a bastion of ‘free speech,’ Elon Musk announced a new policy on Sunday that will remove accounts engaging in the type of ‘impersonation’ that comedians and others have used to humorously protest his takeover of the social network in recent days.”

TechCrunch: Boosted by Twitter drama, Mastodon reaches 1 million active monthly users. “Mastodon, the decentralized social network that’s increasingly being positioned as an alternative to Twitter, has eclipsed 1 million active monthly users. That’s according to CEO and lead developer Eugen Rochko, who revealed the milestone in a post on Monday morning.”

USEFUL STUFF

CNET: Tuesday Will Bring a ‘Blood Moon’ Total Lunar Eclipse: How to See It. “A ‘blood moon’ total lunar eclipse will be visible in the US on Election Day this Tuesday. It’s difficult to tell at this point whether that’s a foreboding omen or a sign of providence.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Vogue: Are Social Media Break-Up Announcements the New Normal?. “Of all the quirks that define modern relationships, perhaps the oddest is the fact that we feel compelled to tell strangers on the internet about them. And yet, it’s something we’ve been doing for years. Millennials will recall Facebook’s ‘relationship status’ feature, which was introduced in the early ’00s shortly after the site launched. Users could inform friends of any changes to their love lives within a matter of clicks, with options ranging from ‘single’ and ‘in a relationship’ to the fateful ‘it’s complicated.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Russia Reactivates Its Trolls and Bots Ahead of Tuesday’s Midterms. “The campaign — using accounts that pose as enraged Americans like Nora Berka — have added fuel to the most divisive political and cultural issues in the country today. It has specifically targeted Democratic candidates in the most contested races, including the Senate seats up for grabs in Ohio, Arizona and Pennsylvania, calculating that a Republican majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives could help the Russian war effort.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 8, 2022 at 01:53AM
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