Exploding Star Catalog, Social Security Challenge, Duolingo, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 16, 2023

Exploding Star Catalog, Social Security Challenge, Duolingo, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 16, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Hawaii: Largest catalog of exploding stars now available. “The newly-released data contains information on nearly 2,000 supernovae and other luminous variable objects with observations in multiple colors. It is also the first to extensively use the multi-color imaging to classify the supernovae and estimate their distances.”

PR Newswire: Up to the Challenge? New American Academy of Actuaries Web App Puts You in Charge of Fixing Social Security Financing (PRESS RELEASE). “A new ‘Social Security Challenge’ web app published by the nonpartisan American Academy of Actuaries at actuary.org/socialsecurity immerses users in an animated virtual trek where they endeavor to solve one of the most consequential public policy challenges of our time: how to address the financing shortfall that could lead to future 20% cuts in payable Social Security benefits.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Duolingo’s Max plan offers AI tutoring for $30 per month. “You can add Duolingo to the growing list of companies jumping on the generative AI craze. On Wednesday, the company announced Duolingo Max, a new, more expensive subscription tier that comes with access to a pair of GPT-4 features.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Print Text Messages From iPhone. “iPhone text messages—including iMessage—live on your iPhone or Mac. If you want to get those messages into the real world—either for court or personal records—you’ll need to get creative. We’ll show you two ways to print text messages on iPhone.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Making Deepfakes Gets Cheaper and Easier Thanks to A.I.. “Meme-makers and misinformation peddlers are embracing artificial intelligence tools to create convincing fake videos on the cheap.”

Reuters: Swiss Google Workers Stage Walkout as Job Cuts Hit Europe . “Hundreds of Google employees staged a walkout on Wednesday at the company’s office in Zurich, Switzerland, after more than 200 workers were laid off.”

Rolling Stone: How Kevin Hart Reaction Memes Took Over the Internet. “You can’t deny the hustle: Hart consistently ranks among the highest-paid comedians, collaborates with big names on high-profile movie projects and, through his two separate production companies, maintains a dizzying number of partnerships and development deals. Oh, and last year, he launched a tequila brand. The upshot of all this labor is that Hart is more than famous — he’s omnipresent, perhaps one of the most recognizable faces in American culture today. Which helps to explain how he became a meme.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Guardian: Federal investigators examined Trump Media for possible money laundering, sources say. “Federal prosecutors in New York involved in the criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s social media company last year started examining whether it violated money laundering statutes in connection with the acceptance of $8m with suspected Russian ties, according to sources familiar with the matter.”

Dallas Morning News: Dallas deputy streamed traffic stop to TikTok, revealed man’s personal info, lawsuit says. “A Tarrant County man is suing Dallas County and a sheriff’s deputy after he says his personal information was revealed to more than 100 people after the deputy livestreamed a traffic stop through TikTok.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Lifehacker: Get a Settlement for That Bulky CRT TV You Bought Ages Ago. “A new class action lawsuit has been reached with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation involving Cathode Ray Tubes (‘CRTs’), a type of monitor technology that uses a large glass tube to display images. The lawsuit claimed that Mitsubishi Electric conspired with other TV brands to fix the prices of CRTs, making customers pay more for their TVs and monitors. This settlement is in addition to nine other similar settlements reached with Chunghwa, LG, Philips, Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba, Samsung SDI, Thomson, and Technologies Displays America, according to the settlement.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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March 17, 2023 at 12:35AM
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Want to Scan Entire Wikipedia Categories for Official Web Sites, Social Media Accounts, Metadata, and More? Check out Wikidata Quick Dip

Want to Scan Entire Wikipedia Categories for Official Web Sites, Social Media Accounts, Metadata, and More? Check out Wikidata Quick Dip
By ResearchBuzz

I don’t really know if I can express to you how much learning JavaScript has meant for me. It’s given me a way to turn my search ponderings of literally decades into real things. It feels like I had two or three rooms in my brain that were empty and locked, and JavaScript kicked the doors open and punched out a few windows for good measure.

And now that ChatGPT is available, it’s like I have an endlessly-patient JavaScript teacher who doesn’t mind explaining things and is willing to try different experiments. Granted, the teacher occasionally acts like they’ve taken a healthy belt of gin (or two), but even that is a learning experience.

With the launch of GPT-4, I decided to go WAY out over my skis and take on something I’ve always wanted: a way to get specific Wikidata values at Wikipedia category level. In other words, I wanted to be able to put in a Wikipedia category and get, say, all the pages with Twitter account Wikidata. Or the Quora topic category property. Or my personal favorite, the “official website” property (good old P856.)

It’s a little rough around the edges – I probably bumped it with the skis – but I’m pleased to present Wikidata Quick Dip, at https://searchgizmos.com/wqd/ . Here’s how it works.

Step by Step With Wikidata Quick Dip

Start by pasting in the name of a Wikipedia category (or start with the default if you want) and click the search button.

After a few seconds (or longer if you went wild and chose a huge category)  you’ll get a drop-down list of all the Wikidata properties shared by at least ten percent of the pages in the category.

Choose an item from the drop-down menu. You don’t have to hit the search button again. Say you want the SoundCloud IDs for all the artists in this category. Choose that, and in a few seconds to many seconds (you and your big categories) you’ll get a list of pages with SoundCloud links along with a summary and timestamp of last change.

Select something else from the drop-down menu and the display will change. Official website is always a great choice:

Look, mom – WikiMoz!

Researchers and journalists and other people who like to gather data by the scoopful, I think you’ll like this. Here are some examples of how it can be used:

Search for Category:Women in Arizona politics and then display the pages with a C-SPAN Person ID. You’ll get a link to a C-SPAN directory of clips for several members of the category, including Kris Mayes and Cindy McCain.

Looking for a new libation? Search the Category:Types_of_beer and choose the “TasteAtlas ID” property. You’ll get links to the TasteAtlas pages, which contain additional information and sometimes drink reviews.

Researching the business end of solar energy? Search Category:Photovoltaics manufacturers and choose the Crunchbase Organization ID property.

There are over ten thousand data properties available on Wikidata, so these are only a few of many, many, MANY ways you can aggregate information by Wikipedia category using Wikidata Quick Dip.

I think most of the bugs have been squashed, but if you’ve got any ideas for improvement drop a note.

March 16, 2023 at 10:50PM
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Touring Car Database, Underrepresented Composers, AustLit, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, March 16, 2023

Touring Car Database, Underrepresented Composers, AustLit, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, March 16, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

TouringCars .net: TouringCars.Net launches comprehensive touring car database. “TouringCars.Net is today (14 March) announcing the launch of the Touring Car Database, featuring one of the internet’s most comprehensive sources of tin-top history and information. Data spanning more than four decades, 263 seasons, 4,066 races, 3,477 drivers, 2,438 qualifying sessions and over 30,000 photographs (and counting) is included in the comprehensive dataset.” I wasn’t sure what touring cars were so I looked it up. As I understand it, touring cars are modified road-ready cars, as opposed to F1 cars and suchlike which are designed for racing.

The Violin Channel: Boulanger Initiative Launches Database for Underrepresented Composers. “All accessible for free, the database comprises extensive details of over 8,000 works written by 1,200 women and gender-marginalized composers… The current catalog focuses on historical works and curated information from non-living composers, with plans to expand.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

University of Queensland: Australia’s largest literary database hits one million records. “The University of Queensland’s AustLit project, to catalogue and celebrate Australia’s literary history, this week officially marks one million records. The milestone makes AustLit the only national bibliography of its scale in the world.”

Tulane News: Tulane dean to release podcast on Anti-Racism and the Disciplines featuring leading Black scholars. “Tulane University School of Liberal Arts will release a new podcast miniseries, Anti-Racism and the Disciplines, that explores the complex histories of liberal arts majors with the aim of identifying more accurate and effective practices in higher education.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Government of Canada: 1931 Census of Canada to be released on June 1, 2023. “On June 1, 2023, Canadians can expect to browse the digitized census images by geographic district and sub-district on the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) website. Following the initial release, LAC will work collaboratively with Ancestry® and FamilySearch International to create an advanced searchable database for Canadians and those with Canadian heritage who wish to look for their ancestors.”

Techdirt: Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Urbanity. “Last week, we had the first of our series of posts showcasing the winners in all six categories of the fifth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1927, and the spotlight was on Best Remix winner Lucia. This week, we’re taking a look at the winner of the Best Visuals category: Urbanity by Government Name.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Krebs on Security: Two U.S. Men Charged in 2022 Hacking of DEA Portal. “Two U.S. men have been charged with hacking into a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) online portal that taps into 16 different federal law enforcement databases. Both are alleged to be part of a larger criminal organization that specializes in using fake emergency data requests from compromised police and government email accounts to publicly threaten and extort their victims.”

TechCrunch: Police shut down dark web crypto laundering service linked to FTX hack. “An international coalition of law enforcement agencies announced on Wednesday that it had taken down the popular dark web crypto laundering service ChipMixer, seizing more than $46 million in crypto and terabytes of server data. The service, for example, was used last year by the attacker who stole funds from the now failed crypto exchange FTX, as well as by several ransomware groups.”

York University: Consumer Privacy Protection Act could lead to fines for deceptive designs in apps and websites. “Canada’s proposed Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA) prohibits online consent processes that are deceptive or misleading. Companies may face fines for breaking the act’s rules. This could be trouble for social media platforms, online shopping companies and other services that use deceptive user interface designs in their apps and websites.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

National Academies: Researchers Need to Rethink and Justify How and Why Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry Labels Are Used in Genetics and Genomics Research, Says New Report. “Researchers and scientists who utilize genetic and genomic data should rethink and justify how and why they use race, ethnicity, and ancestry labels in their work, says a new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report.”

NewsWise: Machine learning helps researchers separate compostable from conventional plastic waste with ‘very high’ accuracy. “Researchers at University College London (UCL) have published a paper in Frontiers in Sustainability in which they used machine learning to automatically sort different types of compostable and biodegradable plastics and differentiate them from conventional plastics.”

Wired: Cars That Watch Their Drivers Could Reteach the World to Drive. “As more of those driver-facing sensors make their way inside vehicles, industry experts expect the implications to go well beyond their role in automated driving features. Through alerts, alarms, and nudges they could retrain the fatigued, smartphone-fiddling, infotainment system-scrolling drivers of 21st century highways to make them safer—or at least force them to drive differently to avoid nagging from a digital overseer.” Good morning, Internet…

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March 16, 2023 at 05:33PM
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National Library of Finland, National Library of Israel, Malta Film Commission, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 15, 2023

National Library of Finland, National Library of Israel, Malta Film Commission, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Library of Finland: Dozens of online forums collected for the Finnish Web Archive. “Online forums and message boards have long been significant venues for special-interest discussion and debate. They have also played an important role in the emergence of Finnish online culture. The National Library of Finland has now collected 55 Finnish online forums as a part of national cultural heritage.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Haaretz: Deal Reached With Israeli Gov’t to Protect National Library’s Independence. “Israel’s education minister and the National Library of Israel have reached an agreement on the appointment of senior library officials, ending government efforts to undermine the institution’s independence.”

Times of Malta: Film commissioner IMDB page emptied following industry backlash. “Film commissioner Johann Grech’s IMDB page was temporarily wiped of its film and TV credits following criticism from industry insiders. In their place, five articles were added to Grech’s ‘Publicity’ section, the latest of which is Times of Malta’s story on the commissioner’s ‘completely unethical’ credits.”

CNBC: Google is bringing A.I. chat to Gmail and Docs. “Google is deepening its push into generative artificial intelligence, introducing features Tuesday that will let users create text in Gmail and Docs using the company’s AI technology.”

USEFUL STUFF

Wired: Make ChatGPT Work for You With These Browser Extensions . “Whether you’re using ChatGPT for free or paying for ChatGPT Plus ($20 a month), the impressiveness of its text-generating capabilities aren’t really matched by its interface, which sticks largely to the basics. That’s where third-party browser extensions come in: They can help you get easier access to ChatGPT from other websites, add missing features such as a chat exporter, and suggest better prompts for getting better answers out of the AI bot.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

George Mason University: NEH grant helps Mason, partners create digital archive of Civil War graffiti. “Working with R.B. Toth Associates LLC of Oakton, this grant will use a range of digital imaging technology and work processes to capture the graffiti on the walls of Historic Blenheim and the Graffiti House at Brandy Station, and develop a metadata schema that will allow for the digitization and contextualization of the graffiti. This schema will serve as a model for future digitization projects of images on vertical surfaces.”

TechCrunch: Google introduces Open Health Stack for developers. “Google announced a new open source program called Open Health Stack for developers to build health-related apps. These tools, unveiled at the company’s ‘The Check Up’ special event this week, include a Software Developer Kit (SDK) for Android and design guidelines for health apps.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Sky News: Disney wants Reddit and Google to reveal who leaked Marvel script. “Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania premiered last month, but not before dozens of pages of dialogue were posted online and revealed key story details. The 63-page transcript was shared as a Google Docs file on a Reddit community page dedicated to sharing and discussing leaks and rumours about Marvel films before they hit cinemas.”

Ars Technica: Botnet that knows your name and quotes your email is back with new tricks. “When Emotet has returned from previous breaks, it has brought new techniques designed to evade endpoint security products and to trick users into clicking on links or enabling dangerous macros in attached Microsoft Office documents. Last week’s resumption of activity was no different.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

MIT News: Python-based compiler achieves orders-of-magnitude speedups. “Codon compiles Python code to run more efficiently and effectively while allowing for customization and adaptation to various domains.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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March 16, 2023 at 12:50AM
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Nuremberg Trials, Pinterest, GPT-4, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, March 15, 2023

Nuremberg Trials, Pinterest, GPT-4, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, March 15, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

PR Newswire: Stanford Libraries launches Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-46 (PRESS RELEASE). “The Taube Archive of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, 1945-1946 (IMT) is now available as the result of a partnership between the Stanford Libraries and the Stanford Center for Human Rights and International Justice.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NBC News: Senators seek answers from Pinterest following NBC News investigation. “Days after an NBC News investigation revealed how grown men on Pinterest openly create sex-themed image boards filled with pictures of little girls, the company says it has ‘dramatically’ increased its number of human content moderators. It also unveiled two new features enabling users to report content and accounts for a range of violations.”

Engadget: OpenAI’s new GPT-4 can understand both text and image inputs. “Hot on the heels of Google’s Workspace AI announcement Tuesday, and ahead of Thursday’s Microsoft Future of Work event, OpenAI has released the latest iteration of its generative pre-trained transformer system, GPT-4. Whereas the current generation GPT-3.5, which powers OpenAI’s wildly popular ChatGPT conversational bot, can only read and respond with text, the new and improved GPT-4 will be able to generate text on input images as well.”

How-To Geek: Google-Owned Waze Will Help You Find EV Chargers. “If you’re using Waze and you need to stop for a quick top-up, the app will now help you find charging stations within, or close to, your route.”

USEFUL STUFF

The Conversation: How to use free satellite data to monitor natural disasters and environmental changes . “I work with geospatial big data as a professor. Here’s a quick tour of where you can find satellite images, plus some free, fairly simple tools that anyone can use to create time-lapse animations from satellite images. For example, state and urban planners – or people considering a new home – can watch over time how rivers have moved, construction crept into wildland areas or a coastline eroded.”

Lifehacker: These Interactive Tools Reveal Your Home’s Future Flood, Heat, and Wind Risk. “The following three organizations use advanced technology and models to estimate the risk most homes have of flooding by taking climate change and sea-level rise into account. They’ve created free and user-friendly tools with the latest data to help you make informed decisions regarding your home’s risk, where to build or invest, how to prepare for future flooding, and how to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: 10 Ways GPT-4 Is Impressive but Still Flawed. “A new version of the technology that powers an A.I. chatbot that captivated the tech industry four months ago has improved on its predecessor. It is an expert on an array of subjects, even wowing doctors with its medical advice. It can describe images, and it’s close to telling jokes that are almost funny. But the long-rumored new artificial intelligence system, GPT-4, still has a few of the quirks and makes some of the same habitual mistakes that baffled researchers when that chatbot, ChatGPT, was introduced.”

Christianity Today: John Stott: ‘Evangelical Traditions Are Not Infallible’ . “The public will soon have access to a digital collection of hundreds of John Stott’s recorded sermons and transcripts spanning five decades.”

Ars Technica: Report: Microsoft cut a key AI ethics team. “An entire team responsible for making sure that Microsoft’s AI products are shipped with safeguards to mitigate social harms was cut during the company’s most recently layoff of 10,000 employees, Platformer reported.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Tom’s Guide: Look out! These AI-generated YouTube tutorials are spreading dangerous malware. “According to a new report(opens in new tab) from the no-code platform CloudSEK, there has been a 200-300% month-to-month increase since November of last year of YouTube videos containing malicious links in their descriptions. These links take unsuspecting users to fake sites where their devices are infected with the Vidar, RedLine, Raccoon and other info-stealing malware.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NiemanLab: The Prison Newspaper Directory finds that the number of prison-based papers is growing. “The local newspaper industry has seen better days (though not so much in my lifetime). One growth spot, however, is where you might not expect it: Behind bars. According to the newly launched Prison Newspaper Directory by the Prison Journalism Project, there are 24 prison-based newspapers in 12 states. At least four of the papers were launched in the last year.”

TechCrunch: The AI revolution has outgrown the Turing Test: Introducing a new framework. “As AI becomes a transformative part of our technology landscape, a common vocabulary about the capabilities of each new tool and technique is essential. Common vocabularies create shared intellectual spaces allowing all stakeholders to accelerate understanding, increase adoption, facilitate collaboration, benchmark progress and drive innovation. So far, the most widely known tool for benchmarking AI is the Turing Test.” Good morning, Internet…

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March 15, 2023 at 05:30PM
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National Diet Library Japan, Client-Side GPT-3, Pokémon Archives, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 14, 2023

National Diet Library Japan, Client-Side GPT-3, Pokémon Archives, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, March 14, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Diet Library, Japan: 320,000 items from the National Diet Library Digital Collections have been made available via the Digitized Contents Transmission Service. “The National Diet Library has made roughly 320,000 items (ZIP: 45.7MB) from the National Diet Library Digital Collections newly available via the Digitized Contents Transmission Service, as detailed below.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ars Technica: You can now run a GPT-3-level AI model on your laptop, phone, and Raspberry Pi. “Things are moving at lightning speed in AI Land. On Friday, a software developer named Georgi Gerganov created a tool called ‘llama.cpp’ that can run Meta’s new GPT-3-class AI large language model, LLaMA, locally on a Mac laptop. Soon thereafter, people worked out how to run LLaMA on Windows as well. Then someone showed it running on a Pixel 6 phone, and next came a Raspberry Pi (albeit running very slowly).”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Kotaku: We’re Losing More Than We Realize When These Classic Pokémon Games Get Pulled. “The 3DS and Wii U eShops are two weeks away from shutting down on March 27 and taking digital access to the system’s library with them in the process. From a preservation standpoint, this is already a travesty, but for the Pokémon series, this is going to have a particularly devastating effect on the access and functionality of the entire franchise.”

Ars Technica: TikTok accused of mishandling sexual harassment allegations. “TikTok has been accused of mishandling allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment against a senior manager in London, highlighting longstanding concerns about the working culture at the fast-growing social media platform.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

United Nations: Myanmar: Social media companies must stand up to junta’s online terror campaign say UN experts. “Myanmar’s military junta is orchestrating an online campaign of terror, and weaponising social media platforms to crush democratic opposition, UN experts* said today.” The * looks a little odd but it just leads to a footnote listing sixteen experts by name.

Euractiv: France to regulate social media influencers. “The French government is set to present a plan to better regulate the commercial work of social media influencers to ensure they, as well as the consumers of their content, are better protected, Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told Franceinfo on Monday.”

CNBC: SEC and Justice Department reportedly investigating SVB’s collapse, including insider stock sales. “The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are investigating how Silicon Valley Bank became the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The probes, which are separate and in preliminary phases, include looking into stock sales that SVB executives’ conducted ahead of the tech-focused bank’s collapse, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

UConn Today: Pick a Card, Any Card: Undergrad Startup Combines Flashcards with Augmented Reality for Neurodivergent Students. “In traditional classrooms, young students might spend the day sitting still for extended periods while listening to teachers talk, sometimes too fast. It’s not a system that works for all, often leaving behind those who learn differently, such as neurodivergent students with conditions like dyslexia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or autism. Justin Nappi ’24 (CLAS) and Sudiksha Mallick ’23 (CLAS) hope to change that.”

BusinessWire: Cambridge Launches AI Research Ethics Policy (PRESS RELEASE). “The rules are set out in the first AI ethics policy from Cambridge University Press and apply to research papers, books and other scholarly works. They include a ban on AI being treated as an ‘author’ of academic papers and books published by Cambridge University Press.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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March 15, 2023 at 12:38AM
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European Soil Health, Non-Idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers, Kaurna Warra, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, March 14, 2023

European Soil Health, Non-Idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers, Kaurna Warra, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, March 14, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

EU Science Hub: A new tool maps the state of soil health across Europe. “EU-wide harmonised soil datasets and a novel methodology are among the main features of the soil health dashboard, a new tool of the EU Soil Observatory (EUSO), developed and run by the JRC. The dashboard supports the forthcoming European Commission proposal for a soil health law and indicators proposed by the Soil Mission of EU’s research and innovation programme Horizon Europe.”

New-to-me, via the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Beyond Elijah Rock: The Non-Idiomatic Choral Music of Black Composers. “Non-idiomatic, as it relates to black composers, refers to the original concert music that is not part of the traditional idiomatic canon associated with black musicians. That canon includes spirituals, gospel, jazz, hip-hop, and rap among others. There will be pieces that may be based on spirituals or gospel tunes but are, at their core, original songs similar to ones that use chorale tunes in cantatas and popular songs parodied in Renaissance masses.”

Cosmos: Kaurna online: new website to help people learn the language . “The just-established Kaurna Warra website has a host of resources for learning and teaching the language, including courses, guides, and a dictionary. The website also features educational videos, an online shop, and even a few games in Kaurna, like Wordle and Solitaire.” Kaurna is an Indigenous language of Australia that was almost wiped out in the 19th century.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Ukrainska Pravda: “Losing battle for Bakhmut”: Russians launch new wave of fake news in social networks. “The Russian occupiers began to actively spread new disinformation in social networks and spread publications about Ukraine’s alleged defeat in Bakhmut and the decrease in the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 6 Best Free XML Editors Online . “Whether you’re new to writing in XML and wanting to make sure that you haven’t produced any errors, or are an old hat with the language and want some tools to quickly clean up your code, there are a variety of online tools that can help. So, no matter why it is that you’re looking for an XML editor, know that there’s a free online XML editor that will work perfectly for you. Here are six of the very best to consider.” Heartily recommend CodeBeautify. It also has a JSON viewer and an HTML viewer; I use both constantly.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Times of Malta: Film commissioner Johann Grech’s IMDB portfolio ‘completely unethical’ . “Film insiders have questioned why Johann Grech is credited with 64 film productions on a popular online movie database when he is merely serving as Malta’s film commissioner. Grech has been linked to 64 productions on his IMDB page – an online database for the audio-visual industry – sparking accusations of unethical behaviour.”

New York Times: The Satisfaction of Viral Quitting. “TikTok is full of advice about what to do after quitting a job. Ms. Garcia is part of a different trend, one that predates TikTok, in which young people are posting mini dramas that draw millions of viewers. And in some cases, these very public videos can translate into new career opportunities, helping those who post them build their online personalities.”

PC Gamer: Put another notch on Google’s axe, Stadia’s switch to a licenced streaming platform is dead too. “In the midst of promoting a bundle of tools Google Cloud offers game publishers to support their live service games, reporter Stephen Totilo mentioned that the Stadia tech is no longer available to license.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: UK Probing TikTok’s Ownership, Security Minister Tugendhat Says. “The UK is carrying out an ‘important’ investigation into Chinese social media app TikTok, Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said, but he refused to be drawn on whether it would be banned from UK government mobile devices.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Verge: How a social network falls apart. “Twitter is in a period of decline. The site still functions, people are still using it, but there’s a familiar stink that lingers on the website. It reminds me of the twilight days of two other social media platforms I’ve used: LiveJournal and Tumblr — onetime vibrant communities that grew in popularity until everyone seemed to be using them, which then began a long, slow death.”

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute: Fake and Extremely Biased Twitter Content Decreased Between 2016-2020, But Top Influencers Were More Polarized. “On one hand, the amount of fake and extremely biased content decreased by 2020 compared to 2016, perhaps because of Twitter’s efforts to limit disinformation from going viral. The volume of tweets linking to disinformation websites dropped by half and the number of users sharing fake news dropped even more. On the other hand, users in 2020 were less likely to share information or interact with users who do not share their political beliefs than they were in 2016.”

ScienceDaily: A new and better way to create word lists. “Word lists are the basis of so much research in so many fields. Researchers have now developed an algorithm that can be applied to different languages and can expand word lists significantly better than others.” 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.

March 14, 2023 at 05:26PM
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