New researches

Friday, January 13, 2023

CZ Software Mentions Data Set, Tennessee Legislation, Montana Legislation, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, January 13, 2023

CZ Software Mentions Data Set, Tennessee Legislation, Montana Legislation, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, January 13, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me, from Nature: Hunting for the best bioscience software tool? Check this database. “Developed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a scientific funder based in Redwood City, California, the CZ Software Mentions data set does not catalogue formal citations, but rather mentions of software in the text of scientific articles. With 67 million mentions from nearly 20 million full-text research articles, the data set — announced on 28 September last year — is the largest-ever database of scientific-software mentions, says Dario Taraborelli, a science program officer at CZI.”

Local Memphis: How you can read proposed amendments for Tennessee bills. “Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton announced Wednesday that the TGA House Dashboard application offers the public the same real-time view of proposed and approved amendments that lawmakers have. The system also includes calendars, legislation and video of proceedings.”

KGVO: Montana Chambers Launch Tool to Help You Keep Tabs on Legislature’s Work . “The Missoula Chamber of Commerce announced this week that it’s part of a group of half-a-dozen Chambers of Commerce from around the state who are deploying a new tool to help the ‘right to know’. Using an open software tool known as the Council Data Project, journalists, activists, researchers, and community members can keep appraised on legislation and help hold lawmakers accountable to their constituents.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Artnet: Dispelling Rumors, Greece Has Rejected the British Museum’s Offer to Return the Parthenon Marbles as a Long-Term Loan. “Greece has rejected the prospect of a ‘long-term loan’ of the Parthenon marbles from the British Museum in London, despite reports just last week that the two sides were nearing an agreement.”

Bloomberg: Google Denied Interim Relief in App Store Case by Indian Court. “An Indian appeals court declined to grant any immediate relief to Alphabet Inc.’s Google in a case over a fine of 9.36 billion rupees ($115 million) for abusing its dominant position in the market.”

USEFUL STUFF

Popular Science: The best social media alternative is old-school blogging . “Private group chats in messaging apps have become a popular way to share photos and videos away from the glare of social media feeds. But if you still want some level of exposure, blogging is a way to get your thoughts, pictures, links, and other content out into the world. It goes back to an earlier, simpler time on the internet, and if that sounds appealing to you, this is how you post like in the good old days.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Search Engine Journal: Google Reiterates Guidelines On AI Written Content After Bankrate AI Content Writer Gains Attention. “Over the last few days or so, Bankrate has been gaining a lot of attention in the SEO space. They are using AI to write a lot of content and not hide it. With that, Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, responded to the SEO community about Google’s stance on such AI-generated content.”

ArtRabbit: The Personally Queer Archive is seeking submissions for a community archive of LGBTQIA+ stories. “The Personally Queer Archive (PQA) is a new crowdsourced digital archive aiming to uplift the personal experiences of all queer people in the UK. This is an open call to all LGBTQIA+ identifying people in the UK to contribute to our growing archive of stories. By contributing, you will become a part of our archive, which will preserve the experiences, thoughts, and words of the UK’s queer population and share these stories on social media.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Politico: Russia’s cyberattacks aim to ‘terrorize’ Ukrainians. “After widespread failures on Ukraine’s battlefield, Russians are increasing cyberattacks on civilian services such as electricity and internet — a new offensive designed to break the will of everyday citizens and turn the tide of the war.”

TechCrunch: Google users not given sufficient choice over its data processing, says German antitrust watchdog. “Bad news for Google in Germany — where the antitrust watchdog has issued a preliminary statement of objections over its data processing terms and said it’s currently planning to require the tech giant to provide users with more choice over what it does with their information.”

The Verge: Google strikes back in search antitrust lawsuit. “Courts have unsealed Google’s motion to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit over its search engine — one that could fracture a core Google service in order to increase online competition. In a motion for summary judgment filed on December 12th, the company argues that the complaint misrepresents its agreements with browser developers and Android phone makers, unfairly punishing its success.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Radio Prague International: Czech scientists tracing origins of medieval Gregorian chants . “Czech scientists, in cooperation with their colleagues from Great Britain, are carrying out research aimed at tracing the origins of medieval Gregorian chants. They are doing so with the help of computational algorithms, that are commonly used in biology.” Good morning, Internet…

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January 13, 2023 at 06:29PM
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Thursday, January 12, 2023

Archival Video Game Content, Public Domain Day, Twitter, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 12, 2023

Archival Video Game Content, Public Domain Day, Twitter, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 12, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

GameRant: Archivist Dumps Over 11 GB of Concept Art, Canceled Games, and More. “A video game archivist has just uploaded an 11 GB collection of concept art, footage, photos, and similar content. The data archive contains rare content which has been sitting in the archivist’s hard drive for over a dozen years. It includes titles such as Half-Life 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and unreleased games such as Leisure Suit Larry Pocket Party among others.”

EVENTS

Creative Commons: Celebrate Public Domain Day 2023 with Us: The Best Things in Life Are Free. “Join Creative Commons, Internet Archive, and many other leaders from the open world to celebrate Public Domain Day 2023. As of January 2023, a treasure trove of new cultural works has become as free as the moon and the stars — at least in the USA and many other countries. And what better way to get us feeling inspired than recalling those timeless lyrics of the 1927 hit musical composition: ‘The Best Things In Life Are Free’. We agree! That’s why we made it our theme.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NBC 4 Washington: The Metrobus Twitter Account Is Back. It’s Still Not Clear Why It Was Banned. “A few hours after the official Metrobus Twitter account was suspended without explanation on Tuesday afternoon, the account was reinstated. But a full day later, it’s not any clearer why the social media platform banned an account dedicated to public transit updates.”

Engadget: Google Meet adds emoji as a ‘non-disruptive’ way to react in calls. “Google is making Meet more social with a new feature called in-meeting reactions. The idea is that users can send one of nine emoji reactions, including and , which will appear on the recipient’s window and be visible to all in the meeting.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

American Archive of Public Broadcasting: Mellon Foundation Awards GBH $16 Million Grant to Support the American Archive of Public Broadcasting . “The Mellon Foundation has awarded GBH $16 million to support the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a GBH collaboration with the Library of Congress, to digitize, preserve and make accessible historically significant public radio and television programs from producers and stations across the United States. This grant will be the largest private philanthropic grant GBH has ever received.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: FCC Warns Voice Providers of Severe Punishment in Robocaller Crackdown. “The US Federal Communications Commission is continuing to fight back against illegal robocalls. In its latest move, the agency on Wednesday issued cease-and-desist warnings to two more companies.”

India TV: Centre cracks down on fake news peddling YouTube Channels. “The PIB Fact Check Unit (FCU) of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting busted six YouTube channels which were working in a coordinated manner and spreading false information in India. The Fact Check Unit released six separate Twitter threads having over 100 fact-checks to counter the fake news spread by these channels.”

Motherboard: Blockbuster NYTimes Story Accidentally Leaked Phone Numbers of Russian Soldiers Criticizing War. “In its investigation, the Times decided to publish only the first names of the quoted soldiers to protect their identities. The inclusion of apparent phone numbers undermines that effort. Armed with a phone number, Russian authorities may be able to track down who was critical of the government’s wartime efforts. Motherboard found the Times website included not only the numbers of apparent soldiers on these calls, but also the alleged family members back home.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Insauga: Project tackles online racism and misinformation in Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon. “A new research project aims to tackle anti-Black racism misinformation on social media in Brampton, Mississauga and Caledon. An increase in harmful content online, including misinformation and disinformation, is a threat to freedom of expression and democratic values, according to a press release from Canadian Heritage.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ars Technica: Chuck E. Cheese still uses floppy disks in 2023, but not for long. “On Sunday, a Chuck E. Cheese employee named Stewart Coonrod posted a TikTok video that documents the process of installing a new song-and-dance show on an old Chuck E. Cheese animatronics system—a process that involves a 3.5-inch floppy disk and two DVDs. Coonrod says it is the last update before his store undergoes a remodel that will remove the animatronics altogether.” Good afternoon, Internet…

January 13, 2023 at 01:37AM
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NAGPRA 33 Years Later, HMS Challenger, 1978 USU Volleyball, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, January 12, 2023

NAGPRA 33 Years Later, HMS Challenger, 1978 USU Volleyball, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, January 12, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

ProPublica: Does Your Local Museum or University Still Have Native American Remains?. “The law, known as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act or NAGPRA, sought to address this human rights issue by giving Indigenous peoples a way to reclaim their dead. But 33 years after the law’s passage, at least half of the remains of more than 210,000 Native Americans have yet to be returned.”

Illinois News Bureau: New website compiles ocean data from landmark 19th-century scientific voyage. “The HMS Challenger began a four-year voyage 150 years ago to explore the deep sea and the creatures that lived in it. The scientists aboard the ship discovered thousands of new species and recorded massive amounts of data about the oceans. The treasure trove of information they gathered is now available online in the first comprehensive database of the Challenger findings.”

Utah State University: USU Libraries Launches Digital Exhibit Exploring Title IX and the 1978 USU Volleyball Team . “A co-curated exhibit between students from the Department of History and USU Libraries exploring women’s sports and the passage of Title IX was published last week. The exhibit, titled ‘National Champions! Title IX and the 1978 USU Volleyball Team,’ explores Utah State University’s first national championship through oral histories of the players.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

UVA Today: Details, But No Big Revelations in Latest Kennedy Assassination Documents. “In December, the National Archives released 13,173 documents containing details on the shooting under terms of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. UVA Today spoke with Steve Gillon, a non-resident senior faculty fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, which studies the U.S. presidency, to see if this document dump shed any new light on the assassination.”

The Verge: Parler’s parent company has laid off a majority of its staff. “Parlement Technologies, the parent company of ‘censorship-free’ social media platform Parler, has laid off a majority of its staff and most of its chief executives over the last few weeks. The sudden purge of staff has thrown the future of Parler, one of the first conservative alternatives to mainstream platforms, into question.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Journalist’s Resource: Visual health misinformation: A primer and research roundup. “It’s important to pay attention to visual health misinformation, because failing to do so may undermine efforts to fully understand health misinformation in general and hamper efforts to develop effective solutions to fight it… Below is a primer on visual health misinformation and a roundup of relevant and noteworthy research.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Royal Mail halts international services after cyberattack. “The Royal Mail, UK’s leading mail delivery service, has stopped its international shipping services due to ‘severe service disruption’ caused by what it described as a ‘cyber incident.’ While delivery and collection services across the UK have been unaffected by the incident, the company advised customers to hold export times while the issues are resolved, as they cannot be dispatched to overseas destinations.”

Financial Times: Twitter hit with legal challenge from former UK staff. “Twitter already faces at least 200 legal complaints in the US — in the form of arbitration demands — and four class action lawsuits from those affected by the lay-offs there, said labour rights attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, whose firm Lichten has filed the disputes. Separately on Monday evening, Mike Clancy, general secretary for the UK trade union Prospect, wrote to Twitter raising the same concerns as Winckworth and urged the platform to “pause the redundancy process” and meet with the union, according to a copy of the letter seen by the FT.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Washington Post: Social media can be polarizing. A new type of algorithm aims to change that.. “In a new working paper, shared with The Technology 202 ahead of its publication today, [Aviv] Ovadya and co-author Luke Thorburn of King’s College London make the case for what they call ‘bridging systems’ — algorithms designed to elevate posts that resonate with diverse audiences. They see the approach as an antidote to today’s toxic Twitter and Facebook feeds, which tend to highlight the most attention-grabbing content, even if it’s polarizing.”

PC World: Hackers stole my personal info from Twitter. Twitter didn’t tell me. “Well, 2023 is off to a rousing start. This morning I learned that my personal information was pilfered as part of the recent Twitter data breach that leaked the email addresses, phone numbers, and other identifying data of over 200 million users. That sucks, but here’s what really sucks: Twitter didn’t tell me about it. So far, the Elon Musk-led social media company hasn’t actively notified users (or at least me) of the worrying situation.”

Carnegie Mellon University: LTI Project Aims To Expand Language Technologies. “Only a fraction of the 7,000 to 8,000 languages spoken around the world benefit from modern language technologies like voice-to-text transcription, automatic captioning, instantaneous translation and voice recognition. Carnegie Mellon University researchers want to expand the number of languages with automatic speech recognition tools available to them from around 200 to potentially 2,000.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

NextShark: History professor makes surprisingly cute discovery on lost roll of film labeled ‘The Philippines 1942’. “‘While working in our archives, I found an old metal box. Inside was a long-forgotten roll of silent 8mm film marked “The Philippines 1942,”‘ [Gregory] Schnakenberg tweeted. ‘Excited at possibly discovering lost WWII footage, I sent it to specialists for care and digitization.’ Schnakenberg received the digitized footage on Jan. 6. In the black-and-white film, puppies are seen playing with one another, tugging on a Filipino broom called a walis tambo and digging in the ground.” Good morning, Internet…

January 12, 2023 at 06:28PM
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Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Raw Rock Star Interviews, Open Source Polymer Engineering, USU COVID-19 Oral History Archive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 11, 2023

Raw Rock Star Interviews, Open Source Polymer Engineering, USU COVID-19 Oral History Archive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Northeastern Global News: Rare rock star interviews ‘raw, complete and unedited’ in new Northeastern digital archive . “Now, for the first time, [Larry] Katz’s interviews with some of the most famous musicians and other cultural figures in history—many of them now deceased—are available for the public to peruse. Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Miles Davis, Lou Reed, Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono all spoke to Katz during his career, and all of their interviews are now a part of Northeastern University Library’s digital archive of what’s known as the Katz Tapes.”

Tokyo Institute of Technology: Towards Polymer Informatics: Open-source Library for Creating Polymer Property Databases. “This software automates the simulation and calculation of several relevant properties for a given list of polymers. In turn, this greatly accelerates the generation of large amounts of data to be used in the search for new compounds via materials informatics.”

Utah State University: USU COVID-19 Oral History Digital Collection Now Live. “The last time USU faced a pandemic was more than a hundred years ago, in fall 1918. Evidence, especially firsthand accounts, of that period in USU’s history is limited in the archives. The University’s Libraries’ Special Collections & Archives sought to ensure that generations of future historians would be able to understand the institutional effects of COVID-19 on USU by collecting oral histories of USU administrators, faculty, staff and students as they experienced the effects of a global pandemic.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NBC News: Twitter blocks hashtags used to promote child sex abuse material after NBC News review. “NBC News found that a series of hashtags on the platform related to the file-sharing service Mega served as rallying points for users seeking to trade or sell CSAM. NBC News observed the hashtags over a period of several weeks, and counted dozens of users who collectively published hundreds of tweets daily.”

TechCrunch: Twitter makes algorithmic timeline default on iOS. “Twitter is making the algorithmic timeline named “For You” the default feed on iOS. If you are getting a sense of déjà vu, you are not dreaming. The company has tried to pull this stunt previously only to give the option to switch back to a chronological timeline after a lot of backlashes. So what’s different this time?”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Washington Post: Twitter bans account for D.C.-area bus system without explanation. “Metro officials said they weren’t told why the social media company suspended the account, @metrobusinfo. Before the suspension, Metro officials said, the account had not posted anything other than standard content, which includes route scheduling information, delay and detour updates, customer-service-related tips, and replies to customer complaints or concerns.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Politico: The legal threat coming for venture capital. “After being battered by rising interest rates and choppy markets, the venture capital industry is sweating new regulations that could expose fund managers to legal risks. The SEC is putting the final touches on a rule that would make it easier for investors to sue VCs for bad behavior, negligence or recklessness.”

Chicago Tribune: As Chicago police prepare to relaunch ‘gang database,’ concerns remain the tool could unfairly sweep up many. “Critics remain concerned by the Chicago Police Department’s impending relaunch of its much-criticized ‘gang database,’ a tool intended to identify people with connections to street gangs, even after the process to revamp it was paused last fall at the behest of the city’s new police oversight committee.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

United Nations: ‘Urgent need’ for more accountability from social media giants to curb hate speech: UN experts. “In a detailed statement, more than two dozen UN-appointed independent human rights experts – including representatives from three different working groups and multiple Special Rapporteurs – called out chief executives by name, saying that the companies they lead ‘must urgently address posts and activities that advocate hatred, and constitute incitement to discrimination, in line with international standards for freedom of expression.'”

Wall Street Journal: Keep ISIS Off Twitter. “For all its faults, Twitter has managed in recent years to keep ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups off its platform. But jihadists still want to tweet and won’t stop trying to sneak back onto Twitter. As Elon Musk restores many accounts that had been shut down, he should make sure he doesn’t give back access to jihadists who would kill and maim innocent people the in name of militant fundamentalist Islam.” Good afternoon, Internet…

January 12, 2023 at 01:54AM
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Disease Blood Atlas, Energy-Related Wastewater, Twitter, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, January 11, 2023

Disease Blood Atlas, Energy-Related Wastewater, Twitter, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, January 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

KTH Royal Institute of Technology: New database maps proteins that could predict cancer. “Announced by KTH Royal Institute of Technology Professor Mathias Uhlén, the new open-access Disease Blood Atlas provides a first-ever map of the proteome signature in blood from cancer patients. The Disease Blood Atlas highlights 1,463 proteins associated with 12 different types of cancer, and presents proteins that can be used to identify individual cancer types based on a drop of blood.”

National Energy Technology Laboratory: NETL-Developed Online Database Brings Energy-related Wastewater Stream Data To Public’s Fingertips. “Community leaders and water researchers can now access publicly available online datasets curated and processed by NETL to better understand the composition of energy-related wastewater streams.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Wrap: Twitter Offers Former Staffers One-Third Promised Severance, Demands Silence Agreement. “Hundreds of former Twitter employees waiting for the severance pay Elon Musk promised when he canned them in November will be required to sign away all rights to bring claims against the company or even speak out about the platform for the rest of their lives before they get any cash, a lawyer representing the workers says.”

PC Gamer: Coinbase lays off nearly 1,000 more employees, blaming FTX ‘contagion’ and economic downturn. “One of the biggest crypto exchange platforms in the world, Coinbase, is undergoing a massive round of layoffs. Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong said that the company will reduce its operating expense by 25% and let go of 950 employees.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 3 Best Alternatives to ChatGPT . “Since its public launch in November 2022, ChatGPT, the mesmerizing AI chatbot by OpenAI, has grown in popularity like wildfire. Social media feeds are filled with incredible things people are doing with the chatbot. Jobseekers, programmers, high school teachers, content creators—professionals in almost every field are finding good uses for the tool. However, when one tool takes center stage, it’s easy to lose track of the alternatives that could offer equal or even better value. We’ve put together three of the best ChatGPT alternatives you can use right now.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

VOCM: Holy Spirit High Waiting for Name Change on Google Maps . “For some time now, Holy Spirit [High School] shows up as ‘Mouldy bread loaf’ on Google map searches. Principal David Locke says the school contacted Google as soon as they discovered it, but they’re still waiting to have it fixed.”

South China Morning Post: Recording old Hong Kong on video: why this group believes digitising VHS tapes is key in preserving city’s history. “To restore Hong Kong’s videocassette memories, a group of enthusiasts started HKVCRBase 16 years ago to collect videotapes and upload their content online. The group has gathered more than 6,000 videotapes and digitised countless clips, from advertisements to concerts, news and dramas. Their Facebook page has garnered 77,000 followers, and their YouTube channels combined have nearly 60,000 subscribers.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NBC News: Biden signs law to help preserve Japanese American WWII incarceration camps. “The legislation, spearheaded by Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, would reauthorize funds that help preserve the sites in which tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were detained, including Manzanar in California and Rohwer in Arkansas.”

TechCrunch: Europe quizzes TikTok on data safety, disinformation and DSA compliance . “A meeting between TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, and senior European Union lawmakers which took place today saw the video sharing platform’s chief executive quizzed on a range of topics — including its preparations to comply with incoming pan-EU rules focused on content governance and safety (aka the Digital Services Act; or DSA), and its approach to existing rules on privacy and data protection (including the General Data Protection Regulation).”

AFP: Disinformation fueled rage in Brazil over vote outcome. “Rioters who ransacked Congress and other buildings in Brasilia were partly mobilized by disinformation alleging a ‘fraudulent’ electronic ballot system cost Jair Bolsonaro his victory in the presidential election.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of California Davis: University of California to Research Expanded Access to Digitized Books. “The University of California libraries — which comprise the largest university research library in the world — are launching a landmark research project to investigate the potential for expanded lawful use of digitized books held by academic and research libraries. The Mellon Foundation is providing $1.1 million support for Project LEND (Library Expansion of Networked Delivery), a two-year project that the UC Davis Library will lead on behalf of the 10-campus UC system.”

Stephen Wolfram: Wolfram|Alpha as the Way to Bring Computational Knowledge Superpowers to ChatGPT. “For decades there’s been a dichotomy in thinking about AI between ‘statistical approaches’ of the kind ChatGPT uses, and ‘symbolic approaches’ that are in effect the starting point for Wolfram|Alpha. But now—thanks to the success of ChatGPT—as well as all the work we’ve done in making Wolfram|Alpha understand natural language—there’s finally the opportunity to combine these to make something much stronger than either could ever achieve on their own.” Good morning, Internet…

January 11, 2023 at 06:28PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/MZDeqpi

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

AI Detection, Section 504 at 50, Android, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 10, 2023

AI Detection, Section 504 at 50, Android, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 10, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

NPR: A college student created an app that can tell whether AI wrote an essay. “Teachers worried about students turning in essays written by a popular artificial intelligence chatbot now have a new tool of their own. Edward Tian, a 22-year-old senior at Princeton University, has built an app to detect whether text is written by ChatGPT, the viral chatbot that’s sparked fears over its potential for unethical uses in academia.”

Syracuse University News: Southeast ADA Center Launches Virtual Interview Series: Section 504 at 50. “In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Southeast ADA Center has launched a special virtual interview series where we speak with leaders of the disability rights movement who advance the cause of equal rights through their tireless work. The interview series and resources are available at the website Section 504 at 50. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects the rights of qualified individuals with disabilities from discrimination.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google’s bringing new features to older versions of Android. “Google is taking another shot at bringing new features to phones that haven’t gotten OS updates in years. It’s releasing something called the ‘Extension Software Developer Kit,’ which should let developers use features like Android 13’s new photo picker in apps running on some versions of Android 11 and 12.”

USEFUL STUFF

Larry Ferlazzo: Four New & Helpful Resources About Using ChatGPT For Education. “I’ve been adding quite a few new links to THE BEST POSTS ON EDUCATION & CHATGPT over the past couple of weeks without highlighting them, so you might want to check it out.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

University of York: World-famous Avebury site to be brought to life online for first time. “Avebury comprises one of the UK’s largest Henge monuments, containing the world’s largest stone circle at almost 350m in diameter, with avenues of paired standing stones… The four-year project will analyse, expand, digitise, and share Avebury’s unique multimedia archive, detailing its Neolithic origins, and a history that ranges from a medieval hamlet to a modern site of heritage, tourism, creativity, and spirituality.”

WIRED: How an Iraqi Instagram Influencer Became a People Smuggler. “[Abdulrahman] Khalid Is Now Working As A Waiter In Western Turkey. He Makes Only Occasional Posts To His Instagram Account. He Claims Instagram Has Suspended The Account 10 Times, Including One Five-month Ban, And Worries More Posts About Atheism Would Prompt A Permanent Deletion. Deletion Would Matter Because Khalid Has Become More Than An Influencer. He’s A People Smuggler, Too.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Education Week: There Are Hundreds of New Bills Targeting Cyberattacks in Schools. Will They Work?. “More state policymakers are recognizing the serious consequences that cyberattacks can have on K-12 schools, but the policy response is ‘still insufficient,’ according to the Consortium for School Networking’s analysis of school-related cybersecurity bills introduced in 2022.”

Motherboard: Citizen App Doxes Billie Eilish’s Family Home to Tens of Thousands of People. “A push notification informed thousands of users of the crime reporting app Citizen Thursday night that police were responding to a 911 call in Los Angeles, an attempted burglary at a specific home in the city’s Highland Park neighborhood. At 9:41 p.m., the notification was updated to disclose that, according to police, the home belonged to pop star Billie Eilish. The notification—which included the home’s exact address—was sent to 178,000 people, according to the metrics that Citizen shows its users, and was viewed by nearly 78,000 people.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Hill: Americans more inclined to browse social media than post their own content: Gallup . “Although YouTube is the most popular platform that Americans said they used, only 11 percent of those who have accounts said they posted their own content. Twitter… is one of the least popular platforms among Americans, with about 39 percent of Americans saying they use the platform but only 11 percent saying they frequently post their own content.”

Smithsonian Magazine: How an Unorthodox Scholar Uses Technology to Expose Biblical Forgeries . “As it turns out, [Michael] Langlois is a professional musician, having played bass on some 20 French studio albums, from soul to gospel to pop. He had recently laid down the bass tracks on an album of Celtic music by the French composer Hélène Goussebayle, and that summer he would perform in France with the Christian rock singer Chris Christensen. But he is also perhaps the most versatile—and unorthodox—biblical scholar of his generation.” Good afternoon, Internet…

January 11, 2023 at 01:55AM
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No Mastodon Account? No Problem! Explore Instances and Hashtags with MastoWindow

No Mastodon Account? No Problem! Explore Instances and Hashtags with MastoWindow
By ResearchBuzz

Are you rethinking your social platforms of choice lately? You’re not the only one. Between Mark Zuckerberg’s all-in on a legless metaverse and Twitter doing whatever it’s doing (I can’t even speculate at this point) people are rethinking where they want to establish and maintain their online communities.

My husband and I are social media opposites: his main platform is Facebook, and while he has a Twitter account he doesn’t use it. Meanwhile, until recently Twitter was my main platform, and I only use Messenger on Facebook.

With the social media shakeup, we have both been rethinking our options. I haven’t had too much trouble moving myself to Counter.Social and Mastodon. But my husband isn’t as technical as I am. He wants to explore Mastodon, but he finds the decentralized aspect confusing and he doesn’t know how to find people to follow.

We talked about it some. I asked if he could do account discovery via hashtags, and he said yes. So I asked if it would help if he had a way to explore different Mastodon instances and how different hashtags look on them. Another yes. So I made MastoWindow for him – and you!

MastoWindow uses the Instances.Social API to list Mastodon Instances by language. After it’s generated a list of languages, you can specify a hashtag and get a list of recent posts from that instance with that hashtag.

Let’s walk through an example using one of my husband’s current interests – David Graeber. The first thing he’d do is specify en to get Mastodon Instances in English:

Once he’s clicked the button, he’ll see a dropdown list of the top 30 English-using Mastodon instances, sorted by most active users. MastoWindow will not list instances with less than 200 active users. MastoWindow will also not list instances which don’t specify languages, so if you see your Instance missing from the list and you’ve confirmed it’s on Instances.Social, consider adding languages-used to your listing.

The listings include the name of the instance, the number of active users, and a short description. We’ll pick the first one, mastodon.social.

Underneath the drop-down menu is a place for you to specify the hashtag you want to explore. The default hashtag is openaccess, but you can put anything that you think might be hashtagged. (Stick to general topics at first – you’ll find plenty of posts about #music and a lot fewer about #QveenHerby. There are some, though, so shout to the fellow fans out there.) You don’t have to use the hash(#) but if you do, don’t worry, MastoWindow will just toss it and it won’t mess anything up.

In this case we’ll replace openaccess with graeber and click the big blue button.

After a moment, you’ll get a list of the most recent posts in the mastodon.social instance which use the hashtag graeber.

You’ll notice the first part of the post is a link. That generally takes you to the permanent post on its home Mastodon Instance. From there you can explore the instance further, look at more of that account’s posts, etc. In the case of the third post the first link takes you to a list of posts on that instance tagged with #graeber.

You’ll also notice that the second post is in Catalan. That’s because instances can specify multiple languages.

Maybe my husband doesn’t find anything interesting here and he wants to look at another instance. All he has to do is choose another from the dropdown menu and click the big blue button again. Let’s look at results from mstdn.ca:

You’ll notice that there’s some overlap in posts. In large instances and with common hashtags, there will be a lot of overlap as popular posts get responded to and reposted. If you’re finding too much overlap for your taste, try making your hashtags a little more obscure and try smaller instances. Here’s what mstdn.plus, a comparatively smaller instance (just under 2700 active users) has for #graeber:

When my husband gets tired of searching for #graeber, he can click on the Review New Hashtag button and the page resets and starts over.

I’m not sure if my husband is going to get into Mastodon or not. He might find some other platforms that he likes more, or he may decide to stick with Facebook. Wherever he ends up, I’m glad he’s getting the chance to explore Mastodon without having to figure out an account or find an instance. Maybe you’ll like exploring it too.

January 10, 2023 at 08:57PM
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