New researches

Monday, March 6, 2023

I Hate Searching Google For News So I Created A Gizmo To Make It Better

I Hate Searching Google For News So I Created A Gizmo To Make It Better
By ResearchBuzz

I have been unhappy with Google News search for a long time. Over the years it’s become less information-rich, with a number of useless sources slipping through (I wrote about this in 2019.) On top of that, the Internet is filling up with fake local news sites. I can’t imagine the introduction of ChatGPT and AI-generation tools is going to do anything but make it worse.

I use the Internet to discover and learn and hopefully to help OTHER people discover and learn. Trying to navigate through all the junk and garbage populating Google News search is unsatisfying and annoying and too often unfruitful.

I’ve been thinking about possible ways around this for a while. If the main problem with my Google search for news is that there’s too much fake junk, why not create a way to direct my search through a list of media news outlets and search THEIR sites exclusively? Unfortunately my attempts at a solution didn’t work well. I couldn’t find a news outlet list that was open, free, and accessible, and when I did find a good group (like a membership page for a statewide newspaper association, for example) it was too limited in scope.

A few days ago I crumpled everything up and started over with the idea of using Wikipedia to find media sources. And that worked, so I’m pleased to share with you the Non-Sketchy News Search ( https://searchgizmos.com/nsns/ ).

Let me show you its features!

Using the Non-Sketchy News Search

The NSNS lets you search Wikipedia categories by news source. Choose a category and you’ll get a list of the media outlets with Web sites in that category. Choose as many on the list as you like (with the caveat that Google has a search limit of 32 words) and they’ll be bundled into a Google search via Google’s site: syntax along with your original query and opened in a new tab. Easy peasy.

For example, say you want to learn more about banned books in Florida. I’m going to start with the Google query and search for Wikipedia categories which contain the Miami Herald, a Florida newspaper. (I’m looking for categories which contain media in Florida, so the Miami Herald or any actual Florida newspaper works fine.) Then I click the Search for Wikipedia Categories Containing this Outlet button.

I’ll get a drop-down menu of all relevant categories containing the outlet for which you searched (the results are filtered, more about that later.) I’ll choose a category (in this case Mass media in Miami) and click the List Media Outlets With Web Sites From This Category button.

Now you have to wait a few seconds. Depending on whether you chose a category with a lot of media outlets, you may have to wait several seconds. In the case of this search, I waited about five seconds before I got a list of 17 media based in Miami with Web sites. I’ve cropped the list a bit but you get the idea. I’ve checked the news outlets I want to search and when I’m done I’ll click the Site: Search Google for the Outlets You Checked button.

When I check the button, a new browser tab opens with a Google search containing your original query and a site: search for the sources you chose.

Obviously using this you are not going to get the bajillion results you would from an open Google search. On the other hand, I think you’ll find the results a lot more focused and useful. You also know you can check the Wikipedia article on the outlet if you want to.

I’ve also discovered that I can get some search focus options that aren’t available with Google. If I search for the Daily Tar Heel I can search media focused on the University of North Carolina:

You can also find outlets nationwide that report on a particular theme. I did a search for Bay Area Reporter and got a big list of LGBTQ media outlets:

A surprising but wonderful discovery was that I could use NSNS to find English-language news outlets in other countries. Here’s what I found after I did a search for the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun:

I got the Non-Sketchy News Search working on Saturday and spent Sunday playing with it on-and-off. It works really well but does have problems. Here’s where I’m dissatisfied:

Limited sources mean limited results: Considering Google’s 32-word query limit I’m afraid this is baked-in. On the other hand, when I need to do focused news search, whether it’s topical or location-based, I suspect this is going to be a feature instead of a bug.
Not all possible resources are included: True. On the other hand junk is not included. Further, I suspect it’s easier to set up your news outlet with a Wikipedia page than it is to figure out Google’s inclusion requirements.
The categories are limited: This is on me. Right now the only categories you’ll get in your search results are ones that include the strings “news” or “media”. I didn’t want you to get ridiculous categories. I could relax it some and include strings for radio or television stations. On the other hand I could go in the other direction and figure out several categories to make searchable, like NGOs or area-based searches.

Sound fun? Let me know. Thanks for reading.

March 6, 2023 at 09:13PM
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Ukraine Cultural Heritage, Minnesota Prescription Prices, Blender, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, March 6, 2023

Ukraine Cultural Heritage, Minnesota Prescription Prices, Blender, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, March 6, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Winnipeg Free Press: A treasure of Ukrainian culture open to the world. “The curator of Oseredok Ukrainian Culture and Exhibition Centre has spent the last 14 months digitizing items in aid of its newly launched online catalogue. The catalogue currently lists 1,252 museum artifacts, 1,235 library holdings, 424 fine art pieces, 4,583 photographs and 600 glass slides. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Minnesota Department of Health: New prescription drug price transparency dashboard, report show high and varied prices. “The first-of-its-kind data release for Minnesota was issued today by MDH as part of the implementation of the Minnesota Prescription Drug Price Transparency (RxPT) initiative. It gives Minnesotans new insight into how much drug prices increased in 2022 and at what prices new drugs came to the market. These detailed data are available in several interactive dashboards, giving Minnesota policymakers and payers additional information to begin addressing high drug prices.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Blender can now use AI to create images and effects from text descriptions. “Stability AI has introduced a Stability for Blender tool that, as the name implies, brings Stable Diffusion’s image creation tech to the open-source 3D tool. You can create AI-based textures, effects and animations, whether using source material from your renders or nothing more than a text description.”

The Verge: Hey, where’s the Twitter Blue revenue sharing Elon Musk promised a month ago?. “As far as I can tell, the sum total of publicly available info on Twitter Blue’s ad revenue sharing is contained within Musk’s tweet about its launch.”

USEFUL STUFF

EL PAÍS: How to get the most out of cellphone photo editing: Tips from professional photographers. “Most people (91%) take photos with their cellphones, rather than with digital cameras (7%) or tablets (3%). Keeping the lens clean and avoiding flash use as much as possible are key to taking a good picture. But, once the shot is taken, there is another phase that is almost equally important: photo editing. Here are some tips from professional photographers who are active on social media.” This article is far better than the headline might indicate.

Hongkiat: 50+ Sites to Download Creative Commons Music for Commercial Use. “One of the best things about the internet is that you can find a lot of free creative resources on it. Like all other useful stuff, there is a ton of music on an array of websites that you can download and use for free. This post is meant to give you a comprehensive list of websites through which you can access and download Creative Commons music for free.” Decent annotation considering the size of the list.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

UPI: 50 U.S. medical, science organizations launch group to fight health misinformation. “Called the Coalition for Trust in Health & Science, the group brings together reputable associations representing American academics, researchers, scientists, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, drug and insurance companies, consumer advocates, public health professionals and even medical ethicists.”

Hyperallergic: Museum Under Fire for Showing AI Version of Vermeer Masterpiece. “On view online and in person through June 4, My Girl with a Pearl displays fans’ recreations of the 17th-century masterpiece, including versions featuring self-portraits, miniature art, and a glamorous dinosaur. But out of all the wacky interpretations shown at the Mauritshuis, one artwork produced using artificial intelligence has proved especially provocative.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Turkish competition board says fines Elon Musk over Twitter takeover. “The Turkish Competition Board said on Monday it had decided to fine billionaire Elon Musk 0.1% of Twitter’s gross income in Turkey in 2022, as his takeover of the company occurred without the board’s permission.”

WFLA: Florida bill would require bloggers who write about governor to register with the state. “Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York University: Virtual Reality Boxing Game Effective in Reducing Stress, Improving Cognitive Function in Adolescents, New Study Finds. “In a head-to-head between virtual reality boxing and a YouTube-guided boxing exercise, VR boxing takes the win in reducing stress and improving cognitive function among adolescents, shows a new study of high school students.”

Scientific Data: Ten lessons for data sharing with a data commons . “A data commons is a cloud-based data platform with a governance structure that allows a community to manage, analyze and share its data. Data commons provide a research community with the ability to manage and analyze large datasets using the elastic scalability provided by cloud computing and to share data securely and compliantly, and, in this way, accelerate the pace of research. Over the past decade, a number of data commons have been developed and we discuss some of the lessons learned from this effort.” Good morning, Internet…

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March 6, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Sunday, March 5, 2023

Ohio Caretakers, Tech Ethics, Throwaway Culture, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 5, 2023

Ohio Caretakers, Tech Ethics, Throwaway Culture, More: Sunday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 5, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Court News Ohio: Free Online Help for Kinship Caretakers. “Ohio Legal Help, with funding from a Supreme Court of Ohio federal Court Improvement Grant, has developed an interactive section of its website to help kinship caregivers navigate complex topics that can impact displaced children and their caretakers.”

University of Notre Dame: ND TEC launches series of animated videos explaining tech ethics concepts. “Tech Ethics Animated is a series of short animated videos unpacking central concepts and concerns in the field in a manner intended for a broad audience without an extensive background in technology ethics.” There are six videos. The first was released March 1, while the others will be released weekly for the next five weeks.

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin: New Online Platform on Throwaway Culture with Objects from the Museum Europäischer Kulturen. “The multilingual and interactive online platform Throwaway: The History of a Modern Crisis is now available. It offers object biographies for over seventy digitalised objects for the collections of participating museums, audiovisual stories from Europe on the topic of rubbish, blog posts, photo reportages, live event broadcasts and podcasts on many different activities and events.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Internet Archive Blog: DLARC Amateur Radio Library Adds 10,000 Magazines, Bulletins, Newsletters, and Podcasts. “Launched just five months ago, Internet Archive’s Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications has expanded to more than 61,000 items related to amateur radio, shortwave listening, and related communications. The library’s newest additions include deep historical resources and contemporary reporting about the world of radio.”

Gizmodo: FTX Confirms $9 Billion in Customer Funds Vanished. “The folks handling the ongoing FTX bankruptcy admitted Thursday it is still on the hook for around $9 billion in customer funds that it simply cannot locate under the morass of financials left over from the exchange’s collapse.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Marie Claire: Beauty 3.0. “The use of filters across platforms has emphasized impossible aesthetic standards and warped people’s sense of themselves—with perfection just a few taps and swipes out of reach. It remains to be seen just how those forces operate in the metaverse, which is at once more ‘unreal’ than social media and more immersive.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Reuters reporters’ online accounts faked to approach China activists. “Two Reuters journalists had their identities faked by an unknown person or people who then used sham social media accounts to engage with Chinese activists on several online platforms over several months.”

IFEX: New tool for fighting online violence against women in Africa, positive change in Tanzania and journalists targeted in Cameroon. “Whether private individuals or rising stars like Kenyan Elsa Majimbo, African women are often targeted with online violence. Could Resolution 522, recently adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), push States to address these issues?”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Horsetalk New Zealand: Database likely to aid parentage testing in Thoroughbreds, identify gene doping. “Dr Teruaki Tozaki and his fellow researchers, writing in the journal Genes, said the database they constructed from their findings will provide useful information for genetic studies and industrial applications in Thoroughbred horses. These include a gene-editing test for gene-doping control and a parentage test using insertions and deletions for horse registration and identification.” Good afternoon, Internet…

March 6, 2023 at 01:09AM
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British Library Endangered Archives, Twitter, National Library of the Philippines, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, March 5, 2023

British Library Endangered Archives, Twitter, National Library of the Philippines, More: Sunday ResearchBuzz, March 5, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

British Library Endangered Archives Blog: New online – February 2023. “This month we would like to highlight five new collections that can be accessed via the EAP website. Two of these are from India, with the others from Mali, Mongolia, and Brazil.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: Twitter’s revenue, adjusted earnings drop about 40% in December – WSJ. ” Twitter Inc reported a drop of about 40% year-over-year in both revenue and adjusted earnings for the month of December, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday citing people familiar with the matter.”

CNN: Twitter rolls out updated, ‘zero tolerance’ policy on violent speech. “Twitter has unveiled a new policy on violent speech that expands restrictions on some types of threats uttered on its platform, including new prohibitions on using coded language to incite violence indirectly as well as a ban on wishing harm on others and on making direct threats against physical infrastructure.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

National Library of the Philippines: NHCP’s National Memory Project (NMP). “The National Library of the Philippines joins the National Historical Commission of the Philippines in democratizing public access to three of the former’s important special collections, namely the Philippine Revolutionary Records, the Historical Data Papers, and the Jose Rizal Collection. These collections will be made available online for free via NHCP’s National Memory Project (NMP).”

Variety: John Mellencamp to Donate Archives to Indiana University. “Singer-songwriter John Mellencamp, the proudest Hoosier in rock, plans to donate his archives to Indiana University, the institution announced Friday during a Mellencamp Symposium being held on campus.”

Associated Press: Betting on social media as a news destination for the young. “If young people are spending so much time on social media, it stands to reason that’s a good place to reach them with news. Operators of the News Movement are betting their business on that hunch. The company, which has been operating for more than a year, hopes to succeed despite journalism being littered with years of unsuccessful attempts to entice people in their 20s to become news consumers.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Civil rights audit at Google proposes better tackling of hate speech, misinformation. “Google on Friday released an audit that examined how its policies and services impacted civil rights, and recommended the tech giant take steps to tackle misinformation and hate speech, following pressure by advocates to hold such a review.”

WIRED: This Hacker Tool Can Pinpoint a DJI Drone Operator’s Exact Location. “Every DJI quadcopter broadcasts its operator’s position via radio—unencrypted. Now, a group of researchers has learned to decode those coordinates.”

Irish Times: State accused of ‘stonewalling’ and ‘hiding evidence’ over Magdalene laundries. “The Government has been accused of stonewalling requests for access to the archives chronicling the State’s involvement in Magdalene laundries, despite a 2020 finding by the Information Commissioner that it is covered by Freedom of Information (FOI).”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Harvard Gazette: Using AI to target Alzheimer’s. “Although investigators have made strides in detecting signs of Alzheimer’s disease using high-quality brain imaging tests collected as part of research studies, a team at Massachusetts General Hospital recently developed an accurate method that relies on routinely collected clinical brain images. The advance could lead to more accurate diagnoses.”

Newswise: Scientists find that people use emojis to hide, as well as show, their feelings. “As more social interaction goes online, scientists are investigating how emojis are used to reflect our emotions in different contexts. Are there display rules that apply to emojis, and how do those affect people’s wellbeing?”

Brigham Young University: What type of GIF user are you?. “BYU communications professor Scott Church said even though people don’t think much about their GIF usage, understanding them and how we use them can help us better understand ourselves and how we communicate in today’s media environment. According to a new study by Church and a team of BYU coauthors, GIF users fall into one of three categories.” Good morning, Internet…

March 5, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Saturday, March 4, 2023

CNET, Google, Undocumented APIs, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 4, 2023

CNET, Google, Undocumented APIs, More: Saturday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 4, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Wrap: CNET Lays Off 10% of Staff Just Weeks After Launching Articles Written by AI. “CNET is laying off roughly 10 percent of its editorial staff – around a dozen people, including long-time veterans of the media and reviews website – just weeks after acknowledging it has started using artificial intelligence programs to write certain articles, the Verge reported Thursday.”

Ars Technica: Google adds client-side encryption to Gmail and Calendar. Should you care?. “…Google made client-side encryption available to a limited set of Gmail and Calendar users in a move designed to give them more control over who sees sensitive communications and schedules.”

PC Magazine: Google Search Has a Surprise Easter Egg for ‘Mandalorian’ Fans. “The Mandalorian’s third season wasn’t the only thing that dropped this week: Google on Thursday introduced an Easter egg for fans of the Disney+ series’ most adorable character.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Markup: Journalists, You Should Be Looking for Undocumented APIs. Here’s How to Start. “Especially in circumstances when data is not accessible otherwise, finding an undocumented API can be the key to allowing us to do an investigation—by finding public access to the data.” This article links to a tutorial which I want to spend the next six hours splashing around in, but alas, ResearchBuzz calls. GREAT stuff.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Slate: What Happens After You Become a Main Character on Elon Musk’s Twitter. “That Twitter’s changes had produced a new generation of ‘main characters’ became apparent in January with the viral fame of ‘menswear dude,’ aka fashion blogger Derek Guy, whose @DieWorkwear account had been recommended to many tweeters with little interest in fashion.”

The Verge: Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche are getting their own in-car app store — and yes, that includes TikTok. “If you’ve long felt like the one thing missing from your Audi was in-car TikTok, fret no more. Volkswagen Group is the latest to join the in-car app party, and it’s doing it in a big way. And it’s a preview of the conglomerate’s big plans for a unified in-car software platform that will govern how its cars operate for years to come.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: Google ‘Incognito’ users lose appeal to sue for damages as class. “Consumers suing Alphabet Inc’s Google LLC over its data collection practices have lost their early appeal to pursue money damages as a class action seeking billions of dollars.”

Bleeping Computer: Russia bans foreign messaging apps in government organizations. “Russia’s internet watchdog agency Roskomnadzor warns that laws banning the use of many foreign private messaging applications in Russian government and state agencies came into force today.”

National Post: Google CEO, U.S. executives disregard summons to appear before House of Commons committee. “Google will send Canadian representatives to a Parliamentary committee looking into the company’s blocking of some Canadians’ access to news on its platforms — despite a summons for its top U.S.-based executives.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Ironic Sans: The Funny Pages in Modern Times. “What I really wanted was to take all those ComicsRSS feeds, pull the most recent comic from each one, and display them all on a single page. But I’m not a coder and I have no idea how to do that. I know, I know. We’re all sick of talking about ChatGPT. But dammit, that thing is useful.” Good afternoon, Internet…

March 5, 2023 at 01:54AM
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Race Today Magazine, Google Dataset Search, Public Domain Game Jam Winners, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, March 4, 2023

Race Today Magazine, Google Dataset Search, Public Domain Game Jam Winners, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, March 4, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

The Guardian: Race Today archive chronicling lives of black Britons to launch online. “The archive of a magazine chronicling the lives of Britain’s black community during the 1970s and 1980s will be available online for the first time. Race Today magazine, first launched in 1973, combined radical journalism with campaigning zeal to shine a light on the issues affecting Britain’s black communities, as well as providing insight and commentary on politics in Britain and abroad.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Research Blog: Datasets at your fingertips in Google Search. “To facilitate discovery of content with this level of statistical detail and better distill this information from across the web, Google now makes it easier to search for datasets. You can click on any of the top three results (see below) to get to the dataset page or you can explore further by clicking ‘More datasets.'”

Techdirt; Announcing The Winners Of The 5th Annual Public Domain Game Jam!. “In January, we asked designers to create games based on works that entered the public domain this year for our fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927! It took us a little while to get through all the entries, but now it’s time to announce the winners, and it was not an easy decision.”

ArtsHub (Australia): Australian collection hits 4 million items. “There are not many collecting institutions in Australia that can boast over four million items. This week, the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) – which is located in Canberra – has done the numbers, and, thanks to a boost in collection acquisitions during 2022, it can now stand among a coterie of collections that are truly representative of Australian culture.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Smithsonian: National Museum of the American Latino Opens Latino Museum Studies Program for Undergraduate Students Nationwide. “Latino Museum Studies Program internships offer hands-on learning opportunities for non-curatorial roles in the arts and humanities, including museum conservation, collections management, museum education, digital culture, exhibition design and exhibition fabrication and production. Interns receive a stipend, housing and round-trip travel to Washington, D.C.”

Lifehacker: Why You Need to Stop Clicking Sponsored Google Links. “These links appear at the top of any given Google search, depending on who pays the most to be there. Even though these links can be largely irrelevant to what you’re actually searching for, sometimes they’re right on the money. However, even if it looks like a sponsored link applies to your search, don’t click it. It might be a scam.”

UPI: Korean department store using AI to write ads. “A growing number of businesses are taking advantage of artificial intelligence. One such company is South Korea’s Hyundai Department Store, which announced it will use AI technology to write its advertising copy starting this month.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Krebs on Security: Hackers Claim They Breached T-Mobile More Than 100 Times in 2022. “Three different cybercriminal groups claimed access to internal networks at communications giant T-Mobile in more than 100 separate incidents throughout 2022, new data suggests.”

Associated Press: Biden administration releases new cybersecurity strategy. “The U.S. government plans to expand minimum cybersecurity requirements for critical sectors and to be faster and more aggressive in preventing cyberattacks before they can occur, including by using military, law enforcement and diplomatic tools, according to a Biden administration strategy document released Thursday.”

BBC: How fake copyright complaints are muzzling journalists. “Journalists have been forced to temporarily take down articles critical of powerful oil lobbyists due to the exploitation of US copyright law, according to a new report.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: How WIRED Will Use Generative AI Tools. “This is WIRED, so we want to be on the front lines of new technology, but also to be ethical and appropriately circumspect. Here, then, are some ground rules on how we are using the current set of generative AI tools. We recognize that AI will develop and so may modify our perspective over time, and we’ll acknowledge any changes in this post. We welcome feedback in the comments.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hackaday: Collection Of Old Films Rescued For Preservation. “Periscope Film owners [Doug] and [Nick] just released a mini-documentary about the rescue of a large collection of old 16 mm celluloid films from the landfill. The video shows the process of the films being collected from the donor and then being sorted and organized in a temporary storage warehouse.” Good morning, Internet…

March 4, 2023 at 06:32PM
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Friday, March 3, 2023

Codex Atlanticus, Georgia Newspapers, ChatGPT, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 3, 2023

Codex Atlanticus, Georgia Newspapers, ChatGPT, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 3, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Museo Galileo: Leonardo//Thek@. “Leonardo//Thek@-Codex Atlanticus is an innovative digital repository that provides access to images and transcriptions of the nearly 1200 pages of the Codex Atlanticus, and to the results of over two centuries of scholarly work on this resource. Thanks to the multiplicity of research tools, the repository constitutes an indispensable means for exploring the vast and chaotic ocean of data stored within the Codex.”

Digital Library of Georgia: R.J. Taylor, Jr. Foundation-Funded Underdocumented Newspapers Now Available. “As part of a $27,103.50 grant from the R. J. Taylor, Jr. Foundation, the Digital Library of Georgia has digitized over 109,000 pages of Georgia newspaper titles. The newly-released collection includes Georgia newspapers of the late 19th century from under documented Georgia counties from microfilm held by the Georgia Newspaper Project.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: OpenAI announces an API for ChatGPT and its Whisper speech-to-text tech. “OpenAI has announced that it’s now letting third-party developers integrate ChatGPT into their apps and services via an API and that doing so will be significantly cheaper than using its existing language models.”

Bleeping Computer: GitHub’s secret scanning alerts now available for all public repos. “GitHub has announced that its secret scanning alerts service is now generally available to all public repositories and can be enabled to detect leaked secrets across an entire publishing history.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Asahi Shimbun: Descendants pass on memories of now-forbidden island of Iwojima. “One recent day, Tokiko Okuyama recounted her childhood memories on Iwojima over black-and-white photographs spread out on a table as two descendants of war-displaced islanders were writing down her accounts in notebooks.”

Engadget: Google workers in Japan have joined a labor union in response to planned layoffs. “Dozens of Google Japan employees have organized under the Tokyo Managers’ Union. It’s the first labor union at Google Japan, according to Meiji University Assistant Professor Ken Yamazaki, who also posted a copy of the group’s statements from a press conference. Apparently, the employees chose to organize out of fear that they could be abruptly laid off, especially since some of them are in Japan on work visas.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CBC: MPs summon top Alphabet/Google executives to explain decision to block news content. “A parliamentary committee is calling four of Google’s top executives to appear before it after the company began testing ways it could block news content from searches if Parliament passes the Online News Act.”

Federal News Network: The government’s secrets apparatus could collapse under its own weight. “Former President Donald Trump, former vice president Mike Pence, and President Joe Biden don’t have much in common. But all three got caught with classified documents that they took home. The incidents show a lot of things, including how cumbersome the classification system is. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with someone who spends a lot explaining this challenging issue: Yale law professor Oona Hathaway.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Daily Herald: After historic find, University of Illinois soil scientists want to dig up more on state’s land. “After stumbling upon thousands of Mason jars filled with soil in a University of Illinois barn, some of them over 100 years old, Andrew Margenot knew he had found something special…. In an attempt to gain unique insight into how Illinois soils have changed over the course of 120 years, Margenot and his team are now trying to resample soils at 450 locations throughout the state and compare them to the samples gathered by their predecessors.”

Northwestern Now: Survey: Half of Americans uncertain about ability to identify false political claims. “Only 8% of nearly 25,000 Americans correctly identified all false political claims presented to them as part of a recent national survey. The survey also found that those who believed false vaccine statements were more than twice as likely to believe inaccurate claims about politics when compared with those who could correctly identify false vaccine claims.” Good afternoon, Internet…

March 4, 2023 at 01:07AM
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