UK Areas of Research Interest, Colorado BIPOC Businesses, Google, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 13, 2023

UK Areas of Research Interest, Colorado BIPOC Businesses, Google, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 13, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

UK Government: New one-stop shop to find the topics government is interested in researching. “A new tool which brings together all Areas of Research Interest (ARI) documents from across government departments in a one-stop shop is now live. ARIs are lists of research questions or topics which government departments and agencies would welcome more research on to inform their policies and help close the evidence policy gap. This new database allows anyone accessing it to search for particular areas of research interest, and find out what are the main research questions facing government departments.”

ABC 7 Denver: New website ShopBIPOC.com connects consumers with BIPOC-owned businesses. “Consumers in Denver looking to support businesses owned by people of color now have a way to do so with just a few taps and clicks. It’s all thanks to The Center for Community Wealth Building, a Denver-based nonprofit organization, which recently helped launch a website dedicated to connecting consumers with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)-owned businesses.” I checked this Web site to see if it was Denver-only, but after finding results in Colorado Springs and other places I’m pretty confident it’s for all Colorado.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Google’s big antitrust trial kicks off, with even bigger implications. “The Justice Department’s landmark antitrust case against Google kicked off in court today, marking the beginning of a trial that will stretch on for months, potentially upending the tech world in the process. At issue is Google’s search business. The Justice Department says that Google has run afoul of antitrust laws in the course of maintaining its top spot in search, while the tech giant argues that it maintains its dominance naturally by offering consumers a superior product.”

Mashable: X has hidden Quote tweets. Here’s how to find them.. “X/Twitter, which used to display Quote Tweets via a simple click, has been through a redesign recently. Now, you can no longer quickly access Quotes via a post itself — instead, you have to click the three dots in the top-right corner, then click on ‘View post engagements’ in order to see the Quotes. Sigh.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

SF Gate: Family finally leases property so Google can make its village a reality. “Google has finally acquired the remaining piece of property it needed to realize its vision for a bespoke village near its Mountain View headquarters. The Molinari-Martinelli family has leased its 1 acre of land to the tech giant for 35 years for around $3 million, as first reported by the Silicon Valley Business Journal, with an option to extend and potentially buy the property should it become available. The family held on to the property for years as Google continued to acquire land surrounding its offices in a quest to remake the area into a small village that would include homes, retail, hotels, parks and a school.”

Jewish News: More than 36 volumes of work by Rabbi Lord Sacks to be made digitally available. “A digital library, leading publisher and The Rabbi Sacks Legacy are collaborating to bring previously unpublished literary works by the late Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks to the digital realm…. Ultimately, all of Rabbi Sacks’ works published by Koren, which focus on Jewish texts and teachings, will be available to the public on digital platform Sefaria—more than three dozen volumes in total.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ABC News: Sarah Sanders seeks to limit public records law amid suit related to her travel. “Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ push to overhaul the state’s expansive public records law stumbled at the start of a special legislative session she called this week, with Republican leaders late Monday reworking a bill to enact her changes as Sanders, who says the move is about security and government efficiency, faces criticism over the issue — even from within her party.”

Reuters: Dutch groups sue Google over alleged privacy violations. “The Dutch consumers’ association Consumentenbond together with the Privacy Protection Foundation issued legal proceedings against Google on Tuesday for alleged large-scale privacy violations, they said in a statement.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: Information sciences professor developing tool to make data visualizations accessible to blind researchers, students. “Information sciences professor JooYoung Seo is developing a data visualization tool that converts data to sound or Braille to make visual representations of statistical data accessible to researchers who are blind or visually impaired.”

University of Georgia: Socializing boosts mood more than screentime. “A new study from researchers in the University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences found that when asked to scroll on their phones, sit quietly by themselves or have a conversation with a stranger, participants typically found talking was the most enjoyable.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 14, 2023 at 12:55AM
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Open Source STEM Textbook, Transparent Idaho, TikTok Bans, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, September 13, 2023

Open Source STEM Textbook, Transparent Idaho, TikTok Bans, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, September 13, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

University of Illinois: Open-source textbook makes STEM education more accessible . “The textbook’s name, ‘Free Energy,’ plays on both the lack of a price tag and thermodynamics, one of the book’s core concepts. Other subjects covered include entropy, electrochemistry and quantum mechanics, following the curriculum of most Physical Chemistry I and II courses at U.S. universities. ”

Idaho Capital Sun: Transparent Idaho offers info on state pay, expenses. Soon local governments will be included, too.. “Transparent Idaho’s data on state government agencies lets people look deep into government finance — including transactions. Transparent Idaho lets users look up expenses, create data visualizations and download the data. Townhall Idaho, also run by the state, lists public meeting agendas and schedules for state agencies and boards. Only information on budgets, fund balances and employee salary information are being shared about local governments right now, but Idaho Deputy Controller John Iasonides said the Idaho Controller’s Office plans to provide more ‘granular’ details in the long run.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: VPNs, Verizon, and Instagram Reels: how students are getting around the TikTok ban. “Some of the restrictions, such as the one Montana Governor Greg Gianforte signed a few months ago, are far-reaching, stipulating broadly that TikTok may not operate within the state. That law is set to take effect next year. But for most — Texas included — the restrictions extend merely to government entities. Agencies have been tasked with eliminating the use of the platform on state-issued devices (as well as personal devices used for state business) and Wi-Fi networks. Those agencies include state universities.”

New York Times: 8 More Companies Pledge to Make A.I. Safe, White House Says. “The White House said on Tuesday that eight more companies involved in artificial intelligence had pledged to voluntarily follow standards for safety, security and trust with the fast-evolving technology. The companies include Adobe, IBM, Palantir, Nvidia and Salesforce. They joined Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection AI, Microsoft and OpenAI, which initiated an industry-led effort on safeguards in an announcement with the White House in July.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Gothamist: Google Translate blamed for linking NYC agency with ‘Communist Party of China’. “No, Mayor Eric Adams and the Chinese government did not team up to build a better New York City, no matter what you might have read on the city’s website. Earlier this summer, a reporter for a Chinese-language news site noticed something strange about the text on a New York City agency’s website after clicking on the ‘Translate’ button and opting for the Chinese-language translation. What they got back were phrases such as ‘Building a City Together with the Communist Party of China.'”

Gizmodo: Salacious Chinese Disinformation Campaign Blames Maui Fires on Deadly American ‘Weather Weapon’. “Researchers say they’ve discovered 85 social media accounts and blogs originating from China and working in tandem to amplify a conspiracy theory claiming the deadly fires in Maui were caused by a secretive “weather weapon” unleashed by the US military. NewsGuard, which has previously uncovered other online influence operations from China and Russia, claims the new ‘coordinated online campaign’ represents the most expansive Chinese operation it has uncovered to date.” Did I intentionally put these two articles together? No.

Dextero: Major anime archive set to “destroy” history after closing. “Tokyo Laboratory is closing its doors after nearly 70 years of working on iconic, historic anime – and original prints of movies and TV shows are set to be ‘destroyed.’… In a statement, the company wrote: ‘Due to the termination of our business at the end of November this year, we will no longer be able to continue storing the original film plates from December onwards, so we are currently working on returning them to our customers.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CISA: CISA Announces Open Source Software Security Roadmap . “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published the Open Source Software Security Roadmap today that articulates how the agency will enable the secure usage of open source software within the federal government and support a healthy, secure, and sustainable global open source software ecosystem.”

Washington Post: Musk may have violated FTC privacy order, new court filing shows. “Elon Musk repeatedly made business decisions after his takeover of Twitter last year that violated the company’s internal policies and likely ran afoul of a 2022 government order that put sweeping restrictions on the company’s data security and privacy practices, according to depositions from former employees that the Justice Department published in a court filing Tuesday.”

Reuters: Indonesia to ban goods transactions on social media – deputy minister. ” Indonesia is planning to ban goods transactions on social media under new trade regulations, the deputy trade minister told a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday. Ministers have repeatedly said that e-commerce sellers using predatory pricing on social media platforms were threatening offline markets in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Cornell University: Library gets grant to raise algorithmic literacy. “Cornell University Library has been awarded a grant by the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) to support a project aimed at creating open educational resources on algorithmic literacy—building the public’s knowledge about what algorithms are, how they function, and how they shape modern life.”

University of Bath: Customising avatars to look more like you improves learning in virtual environments . “Learning a new skill using VR works better if your virtual instructor is customised to look more like you, according to research by the University of Bath. The study suggests that even minimal customisation can make a difference in how well people learn in a virtual environment.” Good morning, Internet…

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September 13, 2023 at 05:31PM
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Anaphy for Learning Anatomy, Internet Archive, Google Advertising, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 12, 2023

Anaphy for Learning Anatomy, Internet Archive, Google Advertising, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 12, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Clemson University: Clemson student creates coloring app to help students learn anatomy. “Anaphy combines color recognition and location association to allow students to study anatomy effectively. It includes multiple anatomy structure diagrams, each with a list of terms and associated colors for each part of the structure. After labeling and coloring a diagram, students submit their colored diagrams and receive personalized feedback, denoting what they got correct or incorrect. The app includes numerous diagrams for all the human body systems.” It’s designed for the iPad and available in the app store. It is free.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Internet Archive appeals loss in library ebook lawsuit. “The Internet Archive announced today that it has appealed its loss in a major ebook copyright case. A notice indicates that it’s filed with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Hachette v. Internet Archive, a publishing industry lawsuit over the nonprofit group’s Open Library program. The appeal follows a settlement that saw the Archive limit access to some of its scanned books as well as a second suit filed by music publishers over the Archive’s digitization of vintage records.”

The Guardian: Google fails to list voice ads from prominent organisations in political ad disclosure database. “Google’s political ad library is missing paid messaging from prominent organisations trying to influence the vote over the Indigenous voice to parliament, limiting transparency around their efforts before the referendum.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: Top 5 Image Upscaling Tools to Try in 2023 (Review). “I’ve spent a considerable amount of time testing and experimenting with various image upscaling software. In this article, I’ll share with you the top 5 image upscaling tools that have impressed me the most. I’ll also provide before-and-after samples to showcase the remarkable improvements these tools can offer. So, if you’re looking to rejuvenate your old, pixelated photos, read on.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

PC Gamer: Atari acquires massive Atari archive after revealing a ‘new’ 2600 that takes cartridges. “Atari is to acquire AtariAge, which you could call a retro forum though that would vastly undersell what it is: over time this has grown into the best repository for everything Atari (as well as some other companies), both hardware and software, as well as being a major publisher for homebrew software….On top of this [AtariAge founder Albert] Yarusso is to become Atari’s internal historian, which seems rather a good fit, and the site will get the investment it needs for some long-mooted ecommerce functionality.”

The Herald News: Portuguese American Digital Archive receives $300,000 grant. Here’s what it’ll be used for. ” UMass Lowell’s Saab Center for Portuguese Studies has received a major boost to chronicle the experience of the Portuguese in Massachusetts with a second $300,000 grant from the William M. Wood Foundation of Boston. Dr. Frank Sousa, the center’s director, said the funds will support the expansion of the collections of the Portuguese American Digital Archive (PADA) at UMass Lowell’s Center for Lowell History.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Verdict: OpenAI faces further copyright lawsuits from leading authors. “Three more authors have filed copyright lawsuits against OpenAI alleging their works were used in the training of its ChatGPT AI. The authors, Michael Chabon, Rachel Snyder and Ayelet Waldman, have all claimed their published works have been used in the training process of ChatGPT without their consent or knowledge.”

The Register: Save the Children feared hit by ransomware, 7TB stolen . “As highlighted by VX-Underground and Emsisoft threat analyst Brett Callow earlier today, BianLian bragged on its website it had hit an organization that, based on the gang’s description of its unnamed victim, looks to be Save The Children International. The NGO, which employs about 25,000 people, says it has helped more than a billion kids since it was founded in 1919.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Carnegie Mellon University: Student SURF Project Amplifies Unheard Voices in Kingdom of a Million Rice Fields. “[Andy] Jiang received a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) to create an interactive, online archive of the stories shared by villagers in this area of Thailand, also known as the Kingdom of a Million Rice Fields. Drawing inspiration from engaging site designs like Refugee Republic, he hopes the archive will amplify the people’s voices and increase the public’s awareness around the new developments, the city’s growth and the loss of agricultural land.”

University of Michigan News: AI tool helps optimize antibody medicines. “Antibody treatments may be able to activate the immune system to fight diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and colorectal cancer, but they are less effective when they bind with themselves and other molecules that aren’t markers of disease. Now, new machine-learning algorithms developed at the University of Michigan can highlight problem areas in antibodies that make them prone to binding non-target molecules.” 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.

September 13, 2023 at 12:51AM
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Pakistan Food, Google Photos, Twitter, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, September 12, 2023

Pakistan Food, Google Photos, Twitter, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, September 12, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

Starting Friday and continuing through the weekend, I got several complaints about the formatting of RB — it was being delivered headline-only, with no content. I put in a ticket with WordPress, but in the meantime I turned off AMP in the post editor. (AMP is a feature that’s supposed to speed page loading for mobile internet users.) I haven’t heard back from WordPress but two people have reported that their issue has been resolved. If you were having the same problem I hope it’s okay now. I’ll see if ever hear anything from WordPress.

NEW RESOURCES

Evening Standard: Pakistan museum of food: New project to offer ‘most comprehensive’ picture of country’s culinary landscape. “Filmmaker and activist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has collaborated with Google Arts and Culture and the British Council to build the ‘most comprehensive’ picture of Pakistan’s culinary landscape. A new website, launching at Google’s UK offices in King’s Cross, will feature more than 80 videos alongside hundreds of articles and documents with the aim to preserve Pakistani heritage and chart the evolution of the nation’s dishes.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: How to use the new web-based editing tools in Google Photos. “Google Photos isn’t just a place for storing and sorting your photos and videos — both the web interface and the mobile apps come with a slew of image editing tools so you can spruce up and enhance your pictures before sharing them with the wider world. Google regularly updates these editing tools, and a significant upgrade just arrived on the web.”

PBS News Hour: Elon Musk’s refusal to provide Starlink support for Ukraine attack in Crimea raises questions for Pentagon. “SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s refusal to allow Ukraine to use Starlink internet services to launch a surprise attack on Russian forces in Crimea last September has raised questions as to whether the U.S. military needs to be more explicit in future contracts that services or products it purchases could be used in war, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Monday.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

TorrentFreak: Z-Library Opens ‘Z-Points’ Around the World to Share Paper Books. “Z-Library, which is commonly known as a pirate ebook repository, has opened up 11 physical book distribution points around the world. From the United States to South Sudan, there are Z-Points in every inhabited continent. The ultimate goal is to broaden the library’s scope to the physical realm, further promoting book sharing.”

Semafor: Twitter appears to throttle New York Times. “X, Elon Musk’s social media platform formerly known as Twitter, appears to be attempting to limit its users’ access to The New York Times. Since late July, engagement on X posts linking to the New York Times has dropped dramatically. The drop in shares and other engagement on tweets with Times links is abrupt, and is not reflected in links to similar news organizations including CNN, the Washington Post, and the BBC, according to NewsWhip’s data on 300,000 influential users of X.”

Business Insider: Elon Musk poached a Google scientist and justified it by telling Larry Page he shouldn’t have been ‘so cavalier about AI safety’. “In 2015, Elon Musk and Sam Altman convinced one Google scientist to jump ship — with a $1.9 million salary and starting bonus — and join them in cofounding OpenAI. Walter Isaacson’s biography on Musk, written after shadowing the tech billionaire for three years and published on Tuesday, detailed the aftermath of the incident and recounted how Musk justified poaching talent from Google to the company’s then-CEO Larry Page.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Is Google’s Search Engine Smart or Sneaky? A Court Will Decide. “A FAMILY MEMBER’S hurried Google search for a last-second visa to visit New Zealand recently caused a headache—and provided a timely reminder of why Google faces a landmark US antitrust trial next week. Tapping on the first link took us off to a website that after a few swipes charged $118 for the necessary paperwork. Only later did it emerge that we’d paid a so-called ‘internet-based travel technology company’ and not a government agency, and been fleeced for more than double the required cost.”

Europol: New Europol report shines light on multi-billion euro underground criminal economy . “The world is getting smaller, as trade, communication and infrastructure on a global scale brings us closer together. However, there is another, darker, side to the coin: our interconnected world is being abused by criminals who have created an underground economy to sustain their illegal operations.”

Georgia Tech: New Tool Skewers Socially Engineered Attack Ads. ” Georgia Tech researchers are countering deceptive online ads with a pioneering solution designed to challenge the rising threat of online social engineering attacks by cutting them off at the source. Trident, created by Ph.D. student Zheng Yang and his team of researchers, is an add-on compatible with Google Chrome that has proven to block these ads with nearly 100% efficiency.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Can s change minds? How social media influences public opinion and news circulation. “Social media use has been shown to decrease mental health and well-being, and to increase levels of political polarization. But social media also provides many benefits, including facilitating access to information, enabling connections with friends, serving as an outlet for expressing opinions and allowing news to be shared freely. To maximize the benefits of social media while minimizing its harms, we need to better understand the different ways in which it affects us. Social science can contribute to this understanding. I recently conducted two studies with colleagues to investigate and disentangle some of the complex effects of social media.”

The Journal (Ireland): Major internet companies not doing enough to combat misinformation, report finds. “MAJOR INTERNET COMPANIES are not doing enough to combat misinformation on their platforms, according the CoP Monitor Report co-authored by the EDMO Ireland hub in DCU’s Institute for Future Media Democracy and Society. The report is an international collaboration of 9 academics who conducted a systematic analysis of all information provided by Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok and X (formerly Twitter), in the first self-reports submitted under the Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation.”

Dartmouth College: Subscriptions Drive Views of Extremist Videos on YouTube. “According to a new study published in Science Advances, however, exposure to alternative and extremist video channels on YouTube is not driven by recommendations. Instead, most consumption of these channels on the platform can be attributed to a small group of users high in gender and racial resentment and who subscribe to these channels and follow links to their videos. The study authors caution that these findings do not exonerate the platform.” 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.

September 12, 2023 at 05:28PM
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Wood Database, Twitter, ChatGPT Plugins, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 11, 2023

Wood Database, Twitter, ChatGPT Plugins, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, September 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

I have gotten several complaints that these emails haven’t been readable. I made a couple of changes and two people have reported that the issue is resolved. I hope it’s fixed.

NEW RESOURCES

New-to-me and wow, what a collection of enthusiasm and expertise. It’s the Wood Database! https://www.wood-database.com/ . This is a collection of information about wood — almost 600 species according to the front page, with tons of articles, a wood identification guide, and more. Just wow.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Times of Israel: Netanyahu said set to meet Elon Musk in US amid antisemitism feud with ADL. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will reportedly meet with Elon Musk when he travels to San Francisco next week. The meeting would come despite Musk being accused of amplifying antisemitism on his X social media platform and his embroilment in a feud with the Anti-Defamation League.”

USEFUL STUFF

PC Magazine: Do More With AI: The 10 Best ChatGPT Plugins and How to Install Them. “A paid subscription to OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus offers access to hundreds of plugins designed to expand the capabilities of the AI chatbot. You can use these plugins to interact with external apps, services, and companies to make travel arrangements, reserve a table at a restaurant, order food delivery, apply for a job, play a game, track your diet, or learn a new language. But with almost 900 plugins at last count and more popping up each day, which ones are worth using? Here are the best plugins we have found, and how to use them the right way.”

WIRED: How to Escape the YouTube Algorithm. “We’ve all heard about how the YouTube algorithm can go terribly wrong, mostly in the context of radicalization. But even without that extreme result, the algorithm is a huge time sink—a system designed to keep you watching videos for as long as possible. Some people like this, but if you want more control over how you spend your time, I recommend avoiding the algorithm entirely. And Google just made that easier: Now, if you turn off your YouTube watch history, there will be no recommended videos on the homepage. Here’s how to set that up.”

Android Police: How to track stock prices in Google Sheets. “Google Sheets is a web-based tool, and the tricks below should work completely fine on your desktop, Mac, or a top Chromebook. While the Google Workspace Marketplace is packed with several powerful add-ons to manage your finances, nothing beats the seamless experience of a built-in tool in Google Sheets.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Reuters: UAW union embraces social media as labor talks toughen ahead of deadline. “The United Auto Workers union is leveraging the power of social media to attract public support in demanding substantial wage increases for hourly workers as a deadline looms with the Detroit Three automakers.”

Ubergizmo: Meet Noonoouri, The AI Pop Star That Just Signed With Warner Music. “Warner Music has made headlines by signing an unconventional record deal with Noonoouri, the world’s first AI virtual pop singer and Instagram influencer. Unlike traditional artists, Noonoouri is entirely digital, existing solely on the internet without the limitations of aging, fatigue, or sleep.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Hacker News: Millions Infected by Spyware Hidden in Fake Telegram Apps on Google Play. “Spyware masquerading as modified versions of Telegram have been spotted in the Google Play Store that’s designed to harvest sensitive information from compromised Android devices. According to Kaspersky security researcher Igor Golovin, the apps come with nefarious features to capture and exfiltrate names, user IDs, contacts, phone numbers, and chat messages to an actor-controlled server.”

The Verge: Your Wyze webcam might have let other owners peek into your house. “Some Wyze security camera owners reported Friday that they were unexpectedly able to see webcam feeds that weren’t theirs, meaning that they were unintentionally able to see inside of other people’s houses. A Wyze spokesperson tells The Verge that this was due to a web caching issue.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Forward: How I stumbled upon thousands of Holocaust-era letters and traced the stories behind them. “The letter was dated July 17, 1939, and signed by a man named Joseph Gross. He was writing from New York to thank the Forward for helping to find his relatives. Alongside it in the digital archive was a letter written in Yiddish, dated the following week, sent from Brussels and signed by Avrom Gross, Joseph’s cousin. ‘I read the letter with such great astonishment,” Avrom wrote. “I have no way of thanking you.’ I stumbled across these letters online, in the digitized archives of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Jerusalem, while searching for references to a column called Seeking Relatives that ran for decades in the Forward.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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September 12, 2023 at 12:38AM
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Introducing the Big Mastodon Hashtag Search

Introducing the Big Mastodon Hashtag Search
By ResearchBuzz

Last week while writing about recent doodads I’ve made for Mastodon, I complained that I found the Google experience rather flat relative to the amount of understanding we as online searchers have developed. We have understandings about social signals and identity verification and content freshness that we didn’t have (or in the case of content freshness, weren’t as relevant) a couple of decades ago.

This weekend, while listening to some excellent DJs on Twitch (recommended: Air Adam, Mix Master Hak, DJ Ray Domingo, DJ Swirlz , Steve Disco Newsome, Hentalia, Vibesmaster G-Nice) , I dived into the Mastodon API with the intention of making something that was capable of filtering Mastodon’s hashtag search thoroughly but not in a way that requires much understanding of special syntax. I ended up with the Big Mastodon Hashtag Search: https://mastogizmos.com/bmhs/ .

 

Let me show you its features!

What it searches

The BMHS does searches for multiple hashtags across 14 large Mastodon instances. It then removes the duplicates and and presents the results to you in a filterable list.

How it Filters

The BMHS offers a number of ways to filter results, from social engagement to post characteristics to hashtags.

Filtering by social engagement

Each post in the search results has a social score. It’s calculated as a weighted sum of the replies/reposts/favorites: replies get 1 point, reposts 2, favorites 3. (I might change that ratio.)

Underneath the search box you’ll see a slider labeled “Slide to filter by social score”:

You can click and drag the slider to filter your search results by social engagement. The number at the right (0 in the screenshot) specifies what social score is currently filtering the results; it changes as you drag the slider. What ALSO changes is the result count in the search box, so you can immediately see how you’re impacting your search results. (All filtering methods reflect in the search result count immediately.) I made a very very terrible GIF to give you an idea of how it works.

Filtering by Post Characteristics

Beneath the slider you’ll see a series of checkboxes representing post characteristics. Ticking one of these immediately changes your search count and results list:

“Sensitive” means posts marked as having sensitive content. By Bots means posts marked as bot-generated by the API’s response. By Verified Accounts means posts whose authors have self-verified at least one of the links in their bio. By High Follower Count OR Verified Accounts means either verified account posts or posts with more than 5,000 followers; that’s why I call it “Influencer Mode.” You can also use checkboxes to limit your search results to the last day, week, or month.

Filtering by Full Text

The initial search is by hashtag, but once you have the results you can use this form to filter by all the text in the post’s content:

Filtering by Hashtag

Finally, BMHS aggregates the top 20 most frequently-appearing hashtags. Click on one and it’ll filter your results by that hashtag. Click the Reset Hashtag Display button to clear the filter.

Viewing Search Results

Search results appear beneath the filters. I added a couple of visual indicators; posts with a social score of more than 40 are outlined in red. Posts from users who have verified at least one of their bio links are outlined in gold. (If the post has both characteristics the outline will be red.)

I already have some things I want to add to this so stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

September 11, 2023 at 10:03PM
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Data for Defenders, Georgia Newspapers, Reddit, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, September 11, 2023

Data for Defenders, Georgia Newspapers, Reddit, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, September 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Michigan Law / University of Michigan: Michigan Law Launches Data for Defenders Project to Aid Defense Work. “A new public database housed at the Law School aims to help public defenders assist indigent clients by making a wide range of social-science resources readily available. Data for Defenders collects briefs, motions, and transcripts focused on social science research and data that public defenders could find useful. It includes information on topics like the science of eyewitness memory; problems with racism and bias in the criminal legal system; and the use of unreliable, seemingly scientific evidence.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Digital Library of Georgia: Georgia Historic Newspapers Update Summer 2023. “This summer, the Digital Library of Georgia released several new grant-funded newspaper titles to the Georgia Historic Newspapers website. Included below is a list of the newly available titles.”

The Verge: Reddit can now translate posts. “Reddit can now translate posts into eight different languages when viewing them on Reddit’s iOS or Android apps or on the web while logged out, according to a post from a Reddit admin (employee). To start, posts can be translated into English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, and Swedish.”

Associated Press: Amazon to require some authors to disclose the use of AI material. “After months of complaints from the Authors Guild and other groups, Amazon.com has started requiring writers who want to sell books through its e-book program to tell the company in advance that their work includes artificial intelligence material.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Vulture: The Decomposition of Rotten Tomatoes. “The Ophelia affair is a useful microcosm for understanding how Rotten Tomatoes, which turned 25 in August, has come to function. The site was conceived in the early days of the web as a Hot or Not for movies. Now, it can make or break them — with implications for how films are perceived, released, marketed, and possibly even green-lit. The Tomatometer may be the most important metric in entertainment, yet it’s also erratic, reductive, and easily hacked.”

Los Angeles Daily News: West Hollywood’s Grindr loses nearly half its staff to return-to-office rule. “Grindr Inc. has lost about 45% of its staff as it enforces a strict return-to-office policy that was introduced after a majority of employees announced a plan to unionize. About 80 of the 178 employees at the LGBTQ dating app company were forced to resign after the company in August mandated workers return to work in person two days a week at assigned ‘hub’ offices or be fired, the Communications Workers of America said in a statement Wednesday.”

South China Morning Post: TikTok’s new Amazon copycat ‘Shop’, now live in the US, full of cheap Chinese goods. “Many of the listings mention being shipped from China, where TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is based. That could reignite US regulatory concerns if it puts user data in the hands of Chinese sellers. TikTok Shop will be competing with Amazon to sell a target of US$20 billion in merchandise this year, Bloomberg has reported.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

PC Gamer: Crypto baron behind $2.5B rug-pull declares ‘I am smart enough to lead any institution on Earth’ as court sentences him to 11,196 years in jail. “Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder and CEO of the now-defunct crypto exchange Thodex, has been sentenced to 11,196 years in prison by a court in Istanbul for crimes including aggravated fraud, money laundering, and organised crime. His sister Serap and brother Guven were also found guilty and received the same jail term.”

Reuters: Microsoft to defend customers on AI copyright challenges. “Microsoft will pay legal damages on behalf of customers using its artificial intelligence (AI) products if they are sued for copyright infringement for the output generated by such systems, the company said on Thursday.”

TechCrunch: FCC Proposes Voluntary Security Labels For ‘Internet Of Things’ Devices Most Companies Will Probably Ignore. “The program will initially take aim at stuff like smart refrigerators, TVs and fitness trackers. Eventually it will shift to routers, where lax security has also long been a problem. It’s certainly not the first time government or other organizations have advocated for more robust IOT standards. Consumer Reports in 2017 proposed an open source IOT standards system that (IIRC) never really went anywhere.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Daily Aztec: Death of the Bluebird: The Twitter we once knew is `X-ecuted´. “Elon Musk did not put a lot of intentional effort into X, unlike the original creators of the app. The rebranding of the platform could be a strategy to lead people’s attention away from what Musk is actually doing, which appears to be censoring freedom of speech — something this app is known for providing to its users.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Boing Boing: Man makes a shortwave radio antenna out of a measuring tape to listen to numbers stations . “If numbers stations are a channel for governments to give info to agents in the field, this guy found a way to MacGyver an antenna that’ll let him listen in out of a measuring tape. I also found the software radio dongle he’s using to connect the antenna to his smartphone exciting!” Good morning, Internet…

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September 11, 2023 at 05:29PM
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