Saturday, January 28, 2023

PIRATE Act Enforcement, Solitary Confinement Legislation, LGBTQ+ Arizona, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, January 28, 2023

PIRATE Act Enforcement, Solitary Confinement Legislation, LGBTQ+ Arizona, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, January 28, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Radio World: FCC Publishes Pirate Enforcement Database. “The PIRATE Act became law three years ago. But thanks to the pandemic and delays in funding, the Federal Communications Commission has been slow in carrying out several of the law’s requirements. Now the FCC has published a database listing the people against whom it has taken pirate radio enforcement actions. It has posted field agent openings, begun sweeps of major markets and planned the purchase of a half-dozen specialized vehicles.”

Solitary Watch: New Report And Public Database Track Legislation To Limit Or End Solitary Confinement . “The first-of-its-kind report utilizes new data made available through the Unlock The Box Legislation Tracker, an interactive database of solitary confinement bills from 2009 to present day. Justice advocates, government officials and policy makers, and public citizens can freely access the Legislation Tracker to review state by state proposals and actions, as well as trend-based data visualizations.”

New-to-me, from The State Press: Asu’s BJ Bud Archives Works To Preserve LGBTQ+ History. “Phoenix Pride and Marshall Shore, Hip Historian, responded to the reality of vanishing queer history by launching a project called the Arizona LGBTQ+ History Project with the intent to preserve the under-documented history of the state’s LGBTQ community. They found a natural partner with ASU’s Bj Bud Archives, the largest LGBTQ+ collection in Arizona.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Hill: Nick Fuentes Twitter account suspended less than 24 hours after reinstatement. “Twitter has suspended the account of white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes less than 24 hours after his reinstatement on the platform.”

TechCrunch: Google to make changes to Android business terms in India after antitrust blow. “Google is revising its business agreements with phonemakers and other partners in India and making a series of other changes in the South Asian market to comply with the local antitrust watchdog’s directions in a major shift that could invite regulators in other regions to make similar suggestions.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

PA Media: Trump baby blimp inflated again to establish ‘how best to preserve it’. “The return of the Donald Trump baby blimp, the huge inflatable depicting the former US president in a nappy and clutching a mobile phone, has begun with a test inflation by the Museum of London. A conservation analysis of the blimp has led staff at the museum, its ‘final resting place’ after it took to the skies above Parliament Square during protests over Mr Trump’s state visit to the UK in June 2019, to blow the balloon up once again.”

San Diego Union-Tribune: Bram Dijkstra’s $2.3 million collection of rare albums, once bound for SDSU, is headed to Stanford University . “Stanford University has acquired the $2.3 million vinyl record collection of San Diegan Bram Dijkstra, just 11 months after a signed 2020 agreement for the one-of-a-kind collection to go to SDSU’s Love Library imploded. Numbering more than 8,000 jazz, blues, gospel, soul and reggae discs that span nearly a century, The Dijkstra Black Music Collection will be housed at Stanford’s Archive of Recorded Sound.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ProPublica: What to Know About TurboTax Before You File Your Taxes This Year. “Under the Free File agreement, Americans who make less than $73,000 per year should be able to file their taxes for free with one of the tax preparation companies that partners with the IRS. But this program has been historically underutilized, with just 4% of eligible Americans filing for free in 2021. The story of the Free File program is long and twisting, and it can seem more like a fight against free tax filing than a fight for it. One of the biggest players is Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, one of the largest tax preparation software companies in the country.”

Ars Technica: Ransomware victims are refusing to pay, tanking attackers’ profits. “Two new studies suggest that ransomware isn’t the lucrative, enterprise-scale gotcha it used to be. Profits to attackers’ wallets, and the percentage of victims paying, fell dramatically in 2022, according to two separate reports.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Undark: Wanted (by Scientists): Dead Birds and Bats, Felled by Renewables. “[Todd] Katzner, [Mark] Davis, and other biologists are working with the renewable energy industry to create a nationwide repository of dead birds and bats killed at wind and solar facilities. The bodies hold clues about how the animals lived and died, and could help scientists and project operators understand how to reduce the environmental impact of clean energy installations, Davis said.”

The Verge: Elon Musk thinks Twitter is real life. “Apparently the steady growth of his own Twitter presence is all the evidence he needs that his tweets are right and good and his online antics are beyond reproach. No mention of the white supremacists he’s let back on the platform (and then kicked off again after they have reverted to type and said Nazi things) or the worrying rise in hate speech and harassment. No mention of his own declining reputation or the growing calls to ditch his post at Twitter and refocus on the company that actually matters, Tesla. Just look at that scoreboard.”

Washington State University: COVID-19 conspiracy theories that spread fastest focused on evil, secrecy. “In the early pandemic, conspiracy theories that were shared the most on Twitter highlighted malicious purposes and secretive actions of supposed bad actors behind the crisis, according to an analysis of nearly 400,000 posts.” Good morning, Internet…

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January 28, 2023 at 06:27PM
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Friday, January 27, 2023

Animal Protein Professing Resource Database, Shutterstock, Custom iPhone Widgets, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 27, 2023

Animal Protein Professing Resource Database, Shutterstock, Custom iPhone Widgets, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Meat+Poultry: New database provides information hub for meat processors. “The launch of a new resource allows meat processors to find answers to common industry questions. On Jan. 24, the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI) announced the release of the Animal Protein Processing Resource Database. The digital database offers information on training and financial programs, which users can filter by topic, species and location.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ReviewGeek: Now You Can Create Your Own AI Images with Shutterstock. “While some stock photography and image websites are fighting AI-generated content, others like Adobe and Shutterstock are embracing it. After partnering with DALLE-2 back in October, today Shutterstock released an AI-generation tool for its customers.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: Explore the World of Custom iPhone Widgets. “You’ve probably seen iPhone Home Screens that just look cool, sporting dynamic text, fun images, and custom icons…but even with iOS 16’s new Lock Screen editor, there’s no way to use Apple’s built-in tools to make them. For that, you’ll need to look outward. Fortunately, there’s a simple way to turn a boring iPhone Home Screen into something interesting and fun, without getting into the whole ‘Home Screen aesthetic’ thing. All you need is a custom widget app like Widgy.”

How-To Geek: The 5 Best To-Do List Apps of 2023 . “Are you still writing your to-do list? If so, you may find that a to-do list app makes managing your tasks easier. However, with so many apps out there, which do you choose? Here’s our list of the best task management apps for 2023. This list of to-do list apps is in no particular order. Because each one offers the basic features you’d expect in a task management app, we’ll highlight notable features that make it stand out.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Daily Dot: What creators need to know about Logan Paul’s ‘CryptoZoo’ NFT scandal. “When an influencer promises an investment on their project will soar in value only to disappear with any capital, the Web3 community refers to it as a ‘rug pull’ scam. Accusations of rug pulls often fly, but it’s often unclear and difficult to prove if the founders of NFT projects did cash out for millions at the expense of their followers, and even if they did, if it was premeditated and intentionally malicious.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

NewsWise: “Flexible electronics” may one day secure classified documents. “Both President Biden and former President Trump have had issues with having classified government documents in their possession that they were not supposed to have. But there may soon be a relatively simple way to prevent situations like this, according to Paul Berger, professor of electrical and computer engineering at The Ohio State University. Flexible electronics enables the production of thin, flexible stickers, like the radio frequency identification tags one finds on some items in stores to prevent shoplifting.”

Bloomberg: FBI Examines Snapchat’s Role in Fentanyl Poisoning Deaths. “Federal agencies are questioning Snapchat’s role in the spread and sale of fentanyl-laced pills in the US as part of a broader probe into the deadly counterfeit drugs crisis.”

City & State Florida: Francis Suarez, un(block)chained . “Suarez’s championing of cryptocurrency outfits like FTX is emblematic of his tenure as Miami’s top elected official. Entering the second year of his second term, critics say Suarez, a Republican, is more concerned with elevating his national profile and fueling his presidential ambitions rather than tackling the city’s wealth gap, crumbling public infrastructure and affordable housing crisis.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Map Room: The Return of Paper Maps, Again. “… there’s always at least one thing the old tech did better that gets lost when you switch to the new. Compared to computers, typewriters encourage disciplined, distraction-free and linear writing. Vinyl encourages active, purposeful listening. And paper maps aren’t just used for immediate navigational needs: you browse them, you study them. Each of these technologies fulfil needs that haven’t gone away and haven’t been met by their replacements.”

Purdue University: Purdue launches new AI-based global forest mapping project. “[Jingjing] Liang is developing an artificial intelligence model that will combine information collected about billions of trees measured on-site with satellite and other geospatial data to map local forest growth rates throughout the global forest range.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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January 28, 2023 at 01:12AM
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Global Mine Production, Creative Modern Languages Hub, Microsoft, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, January 27, 2023

Global Mine Production, Creative Modern Languages Hub, Microsoft, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, January 27, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Data Descriptor: An open database on global coal and metal mine production . “… presenting an open database on global coal and metal mine production on the level of individual mines. It is based on manually gathered information from more than 1900 freely available reports of mining companies, where every data point is linked to its source document, ensuring full transparency.”

Aberystwyth University: Language teachers could ditch essays in favour of graphic novels. “… a team of Modern Languages academics are inspiring teachers and students to adopt new and creative ways of researching language and assessing language learning – through art. The team have launched the Creative Modern Languages Hub, a free online resource which provides examples of creative assessment and artistic research from the UK and beyond.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Microsoft expands its pact with OpenAI in ‘multibillion dollar’ deal. “Microsoft is once again pouring money into OpenAI as part of an expanded partnership. The tech giant is making a ‘multibillion dollar’ investment that will lead to wider uses of OpenAI’s technology, as well as stronger behind-the-scenes support.”

USEFUL STUFF

Larry Ferlazzo: The Best New – & Free – Artificial Intelligence Tools That Could Be Used In The Classroom. “I also thought it would be helpful to readers – and to me – to begin yet another AI list where I collect various free (or ones that let you do enough free stuff to make it worth our time before they start charging) AI tools. I’ll add them to various specific other ‘Best’ lists too – if they fit and as I have time – but this list will also be more-or-less an AI potpourri of sorts. Who knows how long this list is going to end up being!”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Hollywood Reporter: Elon Musk’s Twitter Bows to India Request to Censor Links to BBC’s Narendra Modi Doc. “Despite the Twitter owner’s self-proclaimed stance as a ‘free speech absolutist,’ the platform has removed all links to videos from a documentary exploring allegations against Modi for fanning the flames of prejudice against Indian Muslims.”

Inverness Courier: Highland Archive staff rescue records after heavy snow falls. “Staff with the Highland Archive service sprang to the rescue after a leak was spotted at one of its records stores due to heavy snow falls. The incident happened on Friday after the Inverness area was hit by wintry weather and freezing temperatures.”

The Nation: The Growing Political Power of TikTok. “Because of the short-form video platform’s unique content-sharing algorithm and vertical-swipe interface, TikTok allows tens of millions of users to quickly access political information directly from community organizers, candidates, and journalists. Crucially, though, it’s the platform’s video-first focus that sets the app apart from competitors like Twitter.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Classified records pose conundrum stretching back to Carter. “It turns out former officials from all levels of government discover they are in possession of classified material and turn them over to the authorities at least several times a year, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of classified documents.”

The Hindu: Blogger arrested for throwing currency notes from flyover to garner social media attention. “Commotion prevailed at the busy City Market junction and the flyover above it, as a man with a wall clock around his neck, carrying a bag, stopped his scooter and started showering currency notes from the flyover on to the road below on January 24, Tuesday. As motorists stopped their vehicles abruptly, and people cheered and gathered to pick the ₹10 currency notes, traffic on the flyover and the junction below came to a grinding halt.”

Bloomberg: Twitter Sued in Germany Over Vetting of Anti-Semitic Posts. “Twitter Inc. was hit by a lawsuit in Germany by an anti-hate speech organization and a European group of Jewish students in a bid to force the platform to remove antisemitic content. HateAid and the European Union of Jewish Students filed the suit against Twitter to require the platform to clarify basic obligations when moderating criminal content, according to a statement on Wednesday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Curtin University: Everyday Aussies’ social media posts help find missing plant species . “Scientists have identified six new or rediscovered Western Australian plant species from photos taken and uploaded to the internet by members of public, including a nature photographer from Jurien Bay, a pair of wildflower enthusiasts from Dongara and a farmer from near the Stirling Range National Park.”

Sydney Morning Herald: ‘An ethical and moral imperative’: One woman’s quest to save Australia’s dying songs. “Australia sits at the centre of an extraordinary web of linguistic and cultural diversity. More than 2000 of the world’s 6000 languages are spoken in Australia, the South Pacific and South-East Asia. Within the next 100 years, the number is predicted to dwindle to just a few hundred as communities age, traditions break down, and the climate crisis claims islands across the Pacific. The archive contains field recordings from the village of Tahal Nessa on Paama Island – a part of Vanuatu that is no longer inhabitable due to climate change.” Good morning, Internet…

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January 27, 2023 at 06:29PM
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Thursday, January 26, 2023

Mitsubishi Rallies, Google, Microsoft Edge, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 26, 2023

Mitsubishi Rallies, Google, Microsoft Edge, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Drive: Mitsubishi Just Uploaded 40 Years of Spectacular Classic Rally Footage to YouTube. “Uploaded to the YouTube channel Mitsubishi Motors TV, the footage spans four decades from 1967 to 2007. It encompasses both the World Rally Championship and Dakar Rally, both of which Mitsubishi won multiple times consecutively to establish itself as racing royalty.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Google will once again apply Gmail spam detection to political campaign emails. “Google doesn’t plan to let political campaigns dodge Gmail’s spam detection for much longer. The Washington Post has learned that Google plans to end the email filter bypass pilot program by the end of this month.”

ReviewGeek: Microsoft Edge’s New “Split Screen” Will Change the Way You Use Tabs. “As discovered by Reddit user u/Leopeva64-2, Microsoft is working on a Split Screen feature for the Microsoft Edge browser. The idea behind this feature is very straightforward—it lets you view two tabs in a single browser window.”

Reuters: Ad spending on Twitter falls by over 70% in Dec – data. “Advertising spend on Twitter Inc dropped by 71% in December, data from an advertising research firm showed, as top advertisers slashed their spending on the social-media platform after Elon Musk’s takeover. The recent data by Standard Media Index comes (SMI) as Twitter is moving to reverse the advertiser exodus. It has introduced a slew of initiatives to win back advertisers, offering some free ads, lifting a ban on political advertising and allowing companies greater control over the positioning of their ads.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

UMass Amherst: New England Quaker Records To Be Digitized. “The New England Yearly Meeting of Friends Records—rich and voluminous materials of Quakers going back to their mid-17th-century beginnings—will be the focus of a new digitization project by the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center (SCUA), in the UMass Amherst Libraries.”

Villanova University: Villanova University’s Falvey Library Acquires Senatorial Papers of Former Pennsylvania Senator Patrick J. Toomey. “Villanova University’s Falvey Library has acquired the senatorial papers of Patrick J. Toomey, who served as US Senator from Pennsylvania from 2011 to 2023. The collection includes extensive electronic records and media, as well as papers from Toomey’s service as a member of the House of Representatives for the 15th District of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2005, campaign materials and social media archives.”

Prospect: Meet the archive moles. “Most of the time, my work feels more like that of a detective than an editor. Falling down endless online rabbit holes is an occupational hazard. I read old reviews in digitised newspaper archives, and trawl obituaries, looking for interesting titbits. Internet Archive—the non-profit digital library that houses millions of books—is an indispensable resource, not least because so many of the titles it holds can’t be easily found IRL. But none of this would work without access to various bricks-and-mortar collections, especially the London Library. You’ll find me in the stacks, rootling out books that—as revealed by the stampings inside—no one’s read since the 1980s, or earlier.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Inside Higher Ed: Fake College Prompts Scrutiny. “Prospective students be warned: not all college websites are what they say they are. That’s the message the North Carolina attorney general sent when he tweeted about the ‘so-called, unlicensed King’s College.’ Attorney General Josh Stein announced on Jan. 18 that the state Department of Justice is working with the University of North Carolina system to stop a fraudulent website purporting to belong to what once was a real institution in Charlotte, N.C.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ars Technica: Appliance makers sad that 50% of customers won’t connect smart appliances. “Appliance makers like Whirlpool and LG just can’t understand. They added Wi-Fi antennae to their latest dishwashers, ovens, and refrigerators and built apps for them—and yet only 50 percent or fewer of their owners have connected them. What gives?”

Stuff New Zealand: Learning to lie: AI tools adept at creating disinformation. “Artificial intelligence is writing fiction, making images inspired by Van Gogh and fighting wildfires. Now it’s competing in another endeavour once limited to humans – creating propaganda and disinformation.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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January 27, 2023 at 01:55AM
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Belgium Genealogy, Working-Class Poetry, Trove, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, January 26, 2023

Belgium Genealogy, Working-Class Poetry, Trove, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, January 26, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

Hey! Did you see my article about my Search Gizmos in ONLINE SEARCHER? Go look! https://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/jan23/Calishain–Creating-Search-Gizmos-to-Simplify-Web-Searching.shtml

NEW RESOURCES

Brussels Times: Tracing Belgian family trees made easier by massive new archive. “On this new platform, you can search for useful sources to learn more about your ancestors, provided they lived in Belgium. In total, millions of pages of documents have been digitised: birth, baptism, marriage, death or burial certificates, as well as all the registers (called decennial tables) that list these documents. You will be able to browse more easily through no less than 28,527 parish registers and 36,780 civil registers, which have a total of 2.2 million pages. Consultation of these digitised archives is free of charge, but limited to ten downloads per day.”

University of Stirling: Burns’ influence on working class English writers revealed after the discovery of ‘lost’ works. “The influence of Robert Burns saw poets in the north of England writing verse in Scots, say researchers who have uncovered a host of ‘lost’ literary works penned by industrial workers in the 19th Century. The team, led by Professor Kirstie Blair of the University of Stirling, has discovered a deluge of poems, songs and short stories penned by navvies, shipbuilders, railwaymen, factory workers and miners, from Scotland and the north of England, which give unique, first-hand accounts of their lives in the late 1800s and early 1900s.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Cosmos: Trove in trouble: why does it cost money to keep the resource online?. “The online database Trove may go offline in the middle of the year without additional funding. Trove, which is owned and operated by the National Library of Australia (NLA), is a free resource which provides access to billions of digital documents, images, media and records of physical documents. It also contains millions of digitised Australian newspaper pages and issues.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 6 Free Job Tracking Templates to Organize Your Job Search . “Do you need help tracking your job applications? When looking for a job, it’s common to feel overwhelmed or miss out on an important task. To avoid the stress of job hunting, use a pre-made template. Here are some job-tracking templates that you can download for free.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Michigan Daily: Nichetok/Corecore: TikTok’s trendy nihilistic echo chamber. “Calling someone ‘scenecore’ is the same as saying ‘you look scene’ in an adapted, chronically online way. There exist dozens of these -core terms, creating an almost absurd amount of micro-niche aesthetics and tastes. So now that we understand the -core suffix, what does ‘corecore’ mean? What does it look like? The answer is rather simple: Its purpose seems to be against this hyper-specific trend culture. It doesn’t fit any defined look or aesthetic, it just exists to compile feelings.”

Wall Street Journal: The Chess World’s New Villain: A Cat Named Mittens. “Mittens—or technically the chess bot known as Mittens—might look cute. Her listed chess rating of a single point seems innocuous. But her play over the past few weeks, which has bedeviled regular pawn-pushers, grandmasters, and champions who could play for the world title, is downright terrifying. And as it turns out, people are gluttons for punishment.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: DOJ sues Google over its dominance in online advertising market. “The Justice Department and eight states sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the company of harming competition with its dominance in the online advertising market and calling for it to be broken up. The move marks the Biden administration’s first blockbuster antitrust case against a Big Tech company. The eight states joining the suit include California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia.”

Washington Post: Ex-Twitter engineer tells FTC security violations persist after Musk. “The former employee has told members of Congress and staff at the Federal Trade Commission that any Twitter engineer can activate an internal program until recently called ‘GodMode’ and tweet from any account today, three months after Musk’s takeover. The allegation was also made in a complaint filed in October by the nonprofit law firm Whistleblower Aid with the FTC, which is continuing to interview former employees.”

Bleeping Computer: GoTo says hackers stole customers’ backups and encryption key. “GoTo (formerly LogMeIn) is warning customers that threat actors who breached its development environment in November 2022 stole encrypted backups containing customer information and an encryption key for a portion of that data. GoTo provides a platform for cloud-based remote working, collaboration, and communication, as well as remote IT management and technical support solutions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Larry Ferlazzo: How I’m Using AI Art Generation To Teach English To Newcomers. “I’ve previously shared THE BEST RESOURCES FOR TEACHING & LEARNING WITH AI ART GENERATION TOOLS, which included some preliminary ideas on how to us AI art creation sites in the classroom. I thought I would share how I’ve been using them in my ELL Newcomers class over the past few weeks, and hope that readers will share even better ideas.” I have a great deal of respect for Larry, but this time I want to disagree with him about terminology. I don’t think we should call them “art generators”. I think we should call them “image generators.” Referring to the output as “art” gives it a cultural credibility it does not deserve.

ABC News (Australia): Murray River flood photos on social media to help create archive for future planning. “When water levels along the South Australian stretch of the river started increasing in mid-to-late 2022, so too did the number of photographs capturing the changing landscape. Multiple social media pages dedicated to sharing visual updates of floodwaters have gained thousands of audience members far and wide.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

New Lines Magazine: Who Invented Paper?. “A new discovery at a long-neglected site suggests the ancient Egyptians used it more than 2,000 years before the Chinese.” 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. Check out Search Gizmos when you have a minute. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.



January 26, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Minnesota Lakes, Internet Archive, Internet Video Archive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 25, 2023

Minnesota Lakes, Internet Archive, Internet Video Archive, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, January 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources: News release: New DNR tool provides health information for thousands of lakes. “The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has created a new online tool, called the Watershed Health Assessment Framework for Lakes (WHAF for Lakes)… Users can compare a lake’s health measures to other nearby lakes. Along with graphics showing lakes’ relative water quality, biology, and hydrology, WHAF for Lakes includes information about basic lake characteristics and lake stewardship.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Hindu: Internet Archive takes down upload of BBC’s Modi documentary. “The Internet Archive, a US-based repository of webpage archives and media uploads by users around the world, has taken down a widely circulated upload of the first episode of the BBC’s The Modi Question, the documentary that was ordered off of YouTube and Twitter by the Union government, The Hindu has found.”

TV Tech: Fabric Acquires Internet Video Archive. “The media and entertainment catalog management solution provider Fabric has acquired Internet Video Archive (IVA), which has a large inventory of entertainment trailers, as well as a substantial baseline catalog of film and television metadata. Financial terms of the deal for IVA were not disclosed. For the past 18 years, IVA has been providing movie, TV, and game promotional content to some of the largest names in the media industry.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 5 Best Free Screen Recording Apps Without Time Limits or Watermarks. “Screen recordings are an excellent way to explain things easier, whether it’s a how-to tutorial, an app demonstration, an online presentation, or an online meeting discussion. But most of the ‘free’ screen recording tools have some restrictions or the other. They’ll set a time limit for the recording, render lower resolution videos, add watermarks, or show ads. And you usually have to pay to remove those annoyances. If you’re tired of this and want the best free screen recording apps, you’re in luck.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Stack: After 20 years at Google, there were no flowers, no card, and no goodbye. “On Friday staff at the company’s New York offices had queued to try and get in to work after mass Google layoffs. If their passes flashed green, they still had a job. If they flashed red, they had been let go. For many, a terminating email had come in overnight and then their access to corporate email shut down in the morning before they left for the office. It was, said one observer, all a bit ‘Squid Game’.”

Android Police: Spam invites for Google Classrooms are out of control and unstoppable. “Spam has a way of getting around to all the platforms we use online. Whether it’s good ol’ fashioned phone calls or email, the comments section of anything, or automated content generation polluting the tubes of YouTube, it’s all unpleasant and messy and the only real saving grace we have is the ability to ignore it. But for Google Classroom users who are dealing with a wave of fresh textual horrors, they might not even have a valid way of doing so.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

MarketWatch: Feds poised to file another antitrust suit against Google this week: report. “The U.S. Justice Department is preparing to sue Alphabet Inc. in the coming days over its dominance in the online ad market, according to a report late Monday. Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reported the antitrust suit is expected to be filed in federal court before the end of this week, and as soon as Tuesday.”

Washington Post: ChatGPT is now writing legislation. Is this the future?. “…in what may be a first, a Massachusetts state senator has used a surging new tool to help write a bill aimed at restricting it: ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot. On Friday, state Sen. Barry Finegold (D) introduced legislation to set data privacy and security safeguards for the service and others like it that was ‘drafted with the help of ChatGPT.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PsyPost: TikTok use is associated with increased body dissatisfaction, study finds. “TikTok, a social media application consisting of short videos, has grown rapidly in popularity over the last half a decade. It is most popular with Gen Z, and around 40% of the users range in age from 16 to 24. While other social media has been linked with body image issues, TikTok, which has not been extensively researched, has some unique features that may exacerbate this issue.”

Tubefilter: In 2022, 65% of all internet traffic came from video sites . “Each year, intelligence firm Sandvine identifies the websites and applications that gobble up the most bandwidth. In 2022, Sandvine’s Global Internet Phenomena Report reinforced an ongoing trend: Data usage from video sites increased by 24% year-over-year, and video now accounts for 65% of all internet traffic.” 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. Check out Search Gizmos when you have a minute. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you.



January 26, 2023 at 01:06AM
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Historical Congressional Directories, CNET, Windows 10, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, January 25, 2023

Historical Congressional Directories, CNET, Windows 10, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, January 25, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

US Government Publishing Office: GPO Digitizes Historic Congressional Directories From the 1800s. The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) is digitizing historic volumes of the Congressional Directory from the 19th and 20th centuries. The first release includes Directories from 1869–1888, as well as 1993. Additional digitized historic Congressional Directories will be released on GovInfo as they are completed. Historically, the Congressional Directory has been one of the most comprehensive and detailed resources for identifying the components of the three branches of the Federal Government.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Futurism: CNET’s AI Journalist Appears to Have Committed Extensive Plagiarism. “The prominent tech news site CNET’s attempt to pass off AI-written work keeps getting worse. First, the site was caught quietly publishing the machine learning-generated stories in the first place. Then the AI-generated content was found to be riddled with factual errors. Now, CNET’s AI also appears to have been a serial plagiarist — of actual humans’ work.” Needless to say my CNET links will be very basic things, like announcement of Google easter eggs, and probably not even much of that.

The Verge: Microsoft to stop selling Windows 10 downloads on January 31st. “Microsoft says it will stop selling downloads for Windows 10 Home and Pro licenses later this month. Windows 10 will continue to be supported until October 2025.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: How to Delete Your House’s Pictures From Sites Like Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor. “Our personal data shows up in so many public online spaces. But while there are ways to review and delete your data from social media profiles or even Google search, one place you may not think to check is your property’s listing on sites like Redfin, Zillow, or Realtor.com.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Daily Dot: ‘You might wanna look up if you might be getting laid off’: Woman shares database you can check to see if your company is about to do layoffs. “Recession anxiety and layoff anxiety are real in 2023, and a TikToker has taken to the platform to show that companies might indicate online when they’re about to do layoffs. The video comes from Seattle-based creator Emma, who generated more than 589,000 views as of Saturday for her information about the Department of Labor’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act — and how you can use it to tell if your company’s about to lay people off.”

Yorkshire Post: World’s Largest Brass Band archive to open in Yorkshire with unseen historical items from exclusive brass bands collection – on public display for the first time. “Launching early March at the Heritage Quay in Huddersfield to coincide with The Yorkshire Brass Band Championships, the archive will be publicly accessible to researchers, brass bands enthusiasts and anyone else hoping to learn from over a century of banding heritage.”

TechCrunch: India blocks YouTube videos and Twitter posts on BBC Modi documentary. “The Indian government has ordered YouTube and Twitter to take down videos and tweets about a BBC documentary that is critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Supreme Court Puts Off Considering State Laws Curbing Internet Platforms. “The Supreme Court asked the Biden administration on Monday for its views on whether the Constitution allows Florida and Texas to prevent large social media companies from removing posts based on the views they express.”

Ahram Online: Egypt drafting legislation to regulate social media platforms. “Egypt’s Supreme Council for Media Regulation is preparing legislation that would require social media platforms to obtain a license to access mobile users in the country, the head of the Supreme Council for Media Regulation Karam Gabr told the Senate on Sunday.”

CNN: UK’s Crown Estate sues Twitter over alleged non-payment of rent in London offices. “The Crown Estate, a British commercial property portfolio historically belonging to the monarch, began court proceedings against Twitter over the tech giant’s alleged non-payment of rent in its London offices, a spokesperson of the property business told CNN on Monday.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: The ‘Enshittification’ of TikTok . “HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.”

Northeastern Global News: Here’s what nobody is talking about when it comes to ChatGPT. “Regardless of where people come down on ChatGPT, most people have been obsessing over what it can produce. But Laura Huang, a distinguished professor of management and organizational development at Northeastern, says the future of tools like ChatGPT rests on the other side of the process. ‘Most people are focused on the output of this,’ Huang says. ‘Very few people are focused on the input. You don’t magically just get something.'” Good morning, Internet…

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January 25, 2023 at 06:29PM
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