US Defense Budget, Idaho Wines, Twitter, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 12, 2023

US Defense Budget, Idaho Wines, Twitter, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 12, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Forecast International: Forecast International’s U.S. Defense Budget Spotlight. “Forecast International has launched a free U.S. Defense Budget Spotlight dashboard to provide a glimpse into the FY24 congressional budget cycle and reveal how defense committee proposals will impact Pentagon spending…. The president’s FY24 request was released in March, over a month behind schedule, and lawmakers spent the summer putting their initial spin on the administration’s spending plans. The dashboard can be used to compare the congressional proposals with the administration’s request.”

Idaho Business Review: Which wines pair best with travel? New website helps answer the question. “Planning to take a wine-centric trip? Or would you like to embark on a few wine tastings while getting away? Either way, the Idaho Wine Commission’s newly unveiled website should be able to help wine lovers get the most cabernet for their cash. The commission’s new website includes an interactive map showcasing each of Idaho’s six wine regions.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

WIRED: Elon Musk Is Shitposting His Way Through the Israel-Hamas War. “Instead of tackling the dangerous disinformation problem on his platform, Musk instead spent yesterday night into this morning continuing to spread disinformation about the conflict, conversing with a known QAnon promoter, boosting anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, and laughing at a video detailing how transphobic content on X can get you new followers.”

Gizmodo: So Far, AI Is a Money Pit That Isn’t Paying Off. “Silicon Valley has bet big on generative AI but it’s not totally clear whether that bet will pay off. A new report from the Wall Street Journal claims that, despite the endless hype around large language models and the automated platforms they power, tech companies are struggling to turn a profit when it comes to AI.”

Washington Post: Graphic war videos go viral, testing social media’s rules. “In deciding what posts to take down during a war, social media companies have to weigh their interest in shielding users from violent, hateful and misleading content against the goals of allowing free expression, including newsworthy material and potential evidence of war crimes, said Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School. And they often have to make those calls under time pressure, without full information.” The link is to a gift article so you should be able to read it without a paywall.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Rest of World: Why thousands of young Chinese people use a pink dinosaur as their alias. “[Emily] Yuan is just one of tens of thousands of Chinese social media users who have adopted momo the pink dinosaur as their online alias, as a way to speak more freely, evade harassment, and protect their privacy. Today, you can find momos in all corners of the Chinese internet — from Douban forums on youth unemployment to Xiaohongshu posts recommending New York restaurants to Weibo threads discussing new TV shows. Douban’s momo group has over 11,000 members, while Xiaohongshu has over 10,000 users named momo, according to Chinese social media analytics site NewRank.”

Variety: Google Will Drop Claim That YouTube TV Is ‘$600 Less Than Cable’ After Charter Complaint to Advertising Board. “Google said it will no longer claim that YouTube TV is ‘$600 less than cable’ in its advertising, after an industry ad-review board found the assertion was potentially misleading.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ZDNet: Google Cloud, AWS, and Cloudflare report largest DDoS attacks ever. “Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks may be one of the least sophisticated types of cyberattacks but they can do real damage. Now Google and other top cloud companies are reporting new records for the largest DDoS attacks ever.”

BBC: How a chatbot encouraged a man who wanted to kill the Queen. “The case of Jaswant Singh Chail has shone a light on the latest generation of artificial intelligence-powered chatbots. On Thursday, 21-year-old Chail was given a nine-year sentence for breaking into Windsor Castle with a crossbow and declaring he wanted to kill the Queen. Chail’s trial heard that, prior to his arrest on Christmas Day 2021, he had exchanged more than 5,000 messages with an online companion he’d named Sarai, and had created through the Replika app.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

US Federal Trade Commission: FTC proposes junk fee rule to put a stop to bogus and hidden charges. “In November 2022, the FTC published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking asking for your input about unfair or deceptive practices relating to fees. We received 12,000 comments from consumers, businesses, law enforcers, and others. Based on what you told us – as well as experience gained from decades of litigation challenging junk fees – the FTC is considering a proposed Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees and we’re asking for your comments again.” 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. I live at Calishat.

October 13, 2023 at 12:47AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/9BbO7jU

Delaware Mental Health, Google, TikTok, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 12, 2023

Delaware Mental Health, Google, TikTok, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, October 12, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Delaware.gov: DHSS Announces Launch of New Help Is Here Delaware Website. “Designed after months of listening sessions and focus groups, the new HelpIsHereDE.com is the state’s comprehensive resource for those seeking help for substance use disorder or mental illness, along with their family members, community organizations, and health care providers.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: Google-Extended does not stop Google Search Generative Experience from using your site’s content. “Google-Extended, the new standalone product token, to tell Google through your robots.txt to not use your site content for Bard and Vertex AI and other AI projects does not work for the AI-answers and snapshots provided in the Search Generative Experience.”

Engadget: TikTok now lets you post directly from third-party apps. “TikTok announced a new API today that will let you post (and do other things) directly to the platform from approved third-party apps.”

UPI: Germany’s Anti-Discrimination Agency quits X over ‘massive’ surge in hate speech, disinformation. “Germany’s Anti-Discrimination Agency announced Wednesday that it was quitting Elon Musk’s X due to ‘intolerable’ levels of hate content on the platform targeting the LGBTQ community, minorities, women and Jewish people.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Fortune: Google insiders are slamming Bard for not being worth it on private chat groups: ‘What are LLMs truly useful for?’. “For months, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Discord Inc. have run an invitation-only chat for heavy users of Bard, Google’s artificial intelligence-powered chatbot. Google product managers, designers and engineers are using the forum to openly debate the AI tool’s effectiveness and utility, with some questioning whether the enormous resources going into development are worth it.”

Wall Street Journal: Here’s How FTX Executives Secretly Spent $8 Billion in Customer Money. “The crypto exchange FTX went bust last year after executives spent billions in customer funds they had promised to safeguard. The tab was $7.7 billion, a Wall Street Journal analysis of company disclosures and legal filings shows. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and senior staff spent customer funds on technology investments, luxury real estate and political contributions, among other things.”

Library of Congress: Library Awards New Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative Grants to Organizations Developing Resources for History, Civics and Democracy Students. “The Library of Congress has awarded Lewis-Houghton Civics and Democracy Initiative grants to six organizations that are working to develop digital educational projects that teach history, civics, and democracy to secondary students using creative arts materials from the Library’s collections.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Thousands of Android devices come with unkillable backdoor preinstalled. “When you buy a TV streaming box, there are certain things you wouldn’t expect it to do. It shouldn’t secretly be laced with malware or start communicating with servers in China when it’s powered up. It definitely should not be acting as a node in an organized crime scheme making millions of dollars through fraud. However, that’s been the reality for thousands of unknowing people who own cheap Android TV devices.”

Techdirt: Elon Has To Pay The Legal Fees Of Former Execs He Fired. “Elon Musk really seems to hate paying legal bills (or, really, any bills), but now he’s got a few more to cover. Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Kathaleen McCormick, Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery (who is quite familiar with Elon Musk and Twitter) has ruled that exTwitter has to cover the legal fees of former CEO Parag Agrawal and former legal boss Vijaya Gadde.”

IANS: Hackers launch a cyberattack on Israeli websites. “As Hamas-Israel violence escalates, groups of hacktivists have targeted Israeli websites with floods of malicious traffic. Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post posted on X that its website was down ‘due to a series of cyberattacks initiated against us’ since Saturday morning when Hamas launched a surprise land, sea and air attack against Israel.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Maine: UMaine leading development of new state-of-the-art tool for tracking PFAS nationwide. “University of Maine computer scientist Torsten Hahmann is spearheading the development of an interactive digital tool that will allow users to explore and analyze data on sites and sources of PFAS contamination throughout the U.S. This software will help investigators and the general public track existing PFAS hotspots, which in turn can help them identify where to test for new ones and better understand how they travel through the natural and manmade environment.”

Johns Hopkins University: As Drone Traffic Increases, Researchers Turn To AI To Help Avoid Collisions. “A team of researchers led by the Institute for Assured Autonomy’s Lanier Watkins and Louis Whitcomb has used artificial intelligence to model a system that could more safely orchestrate drone traffic by replacing some human-in-the-loop processes with autonomous decision-making. Their results appeared in IEEE’s Computer.” 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. I live at Calishat.

October 12, 2023 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/1NteTbr

Smithsonian Folkways, Google, Fiction Writing, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 11, 2023

Smithsonian Folkways, Google, Fiction Writing, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Pitchfork: Smithsonian Folkways Opens Digital Archive to Monthly Donors. “Smithsonian Folkways has launched a new program, dubbed ‘Friends of Folkways,’ whereby fans can choose to donate to the nonprofit label in monthly increments as low as $5. In return, donors will have unlimited access to its full digital catalog—an archive of more than 60,000 recordings that includes Folkways titles, as well as those released on Arhoolie, Paredon, and others. According to a press release, the money raised from the program will be used to support the label and pay out artist royalties.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Journal: Google Search Generative Experience Lite Version Test. “Google is testing a lightweight version of the Search Generative Experience. This version shows a more subtle AI-generated answer box, without all the color and with just a few lines, which you can then expand to see more.”

The Verge: Google begins prompting users to create passwordless passkeys by default. “Google is making it easier for users to ditch passwords on their Google accounts in favor of passkeys — a fast, secure, and passwordless approach to logins that utilizes the pin, face, or fingerprint authentication built into your devices. Starting today, Google account users will be prompted to create a passkey for their account by default, sparing them from manually hunting through account settings for the setup process.”

USEFUL STUFF

Robert Kingett: My plain text workflow as a fiction writer. . “Simply put, plain text renders everywhere because the computer doesn’t have to render fonts or backgrounds or otherwise. This is also what makes it so portable. Any operating system can open plain text stuff. Because of the above factors, I wanted to see if I could completely shift to just working in plain text.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

TechCrunch: As misinfo circulates on X amid the Israel-Hamas war, reporters look to other platforms. “In the wake of increasing misinformation related to the Israel-Hamas war now circulating on X, the app formerly known as Twitter, a number of journalists are building up their networks on rival platforms. The shift, though potentially small in terms of raw user numbers, could have an outsized impact on X, where power users create the majority of posts.”

The Guardian: Unesco planning virtual museum of stolen cultural artefacts. “Unesco, the United Nations’ culture body, has announced plans for what it says will be the first virtual museum of stolen cultural artefacts, aimed at raising public awareness of trafficking and the unique importance of cultural heritage.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google’s Pichai Decried Bad ‘Optics’ of Search Engine Deal With Apple. “Google’s Sundar Pichai raised concerns years before he became the company’s chief executive officer that its deal with Apple Inc. had bad ‘optics’ because there was no choice of which search engine to use in the company’s web browser.”

Politico: Musk given 24 hours to address graphic images of Hamas attacks. “Elon Musk has until the end of Wednesday to respond to demands from Brussels to remove graphic images and disinformation linked to the violence in Israel from his social network X — or face the full force of Europe’s new social media rules.”

CISA: CISA, Government, and Industry Partners Publish Fact Sheet for Organizations Using Open Source Software. “The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), and U.S. Department of the Treasury published new guidance today on’Improving Security of Open Source Software (OSS) in Operational Technology (OT) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS),’ developed in collaboration with industry and government partners through the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC) as part of our 2023 OSS planning initiative.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Michigan Daily: Don’t let the archive become a death sentence. “In only displaying items given to museums, not taken, not donated by looters, museums can create an even more welcoming atmosphere — one that truly invites all visitors to partake in the feast of knowledge that the institutions and their staffs spend years painstakingly creating.” 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. I live at Calishat.

October 12, 2023 at 12:35AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/TqLEY31

Dr. Who, Twitter, Google, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, October 11, 2023

Dr. Who, Twitter, Google, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, October 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

BBC: 60 Years of Doctor Who drops on BBC iPlayer alongside landmark online archive. “Before the Anniversary Specials hit our screens, viewers will have the opportunity to travel back in time with any of the Doctors through the show’s 60 year history with the classic series… As the perfect companion to the back catalogue, the BBC will simultaneously launch an extensive online archive from the show’s history.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Now X posts can lock replies to only allow comment from verified accounts. “This change arrives about 11 months after Musk launched paid verification for Twitter Blue, apportioning blue checkmark labels to people willing to part with $7.99 per month. It also means it could be harder for those who don’t pay for the service (with the exception of accounts forced into verified status) to refute misinformation, which researchers report has continued to increase.”

TechCrunch: Google introduces new sustainability features, including a tool for people looking to buy an EV . “Google announced today that it’s introducing new sustainability features, including a new tool aimed at people who are considering buying an EV. The company is also launching an expanded Flood Hub and home energy comparisons.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: Chewing gum artist makes plea to save Millennium Bridge works. “An artist who paints tiny pictures on discarded chewing gum has pleaded for his works to be saved after being told most of them will be removed from the Millennium Bridge in London as part of engineering work.”

PBS: Former Twitter Insider Describes Elon Musk’s Mixed Signals on Free Speech. “Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover [is] a two-hour special premiering Oct. 10 on PBS and online. The investigation probes the billionaire’s journey from one of the platform’s most provocative users to its owner, and examines the far-reaching impact Musk’s decisions have had on U.S. politics, speech and culture in the year since his takeover.”

Tubefilter: Rooster Teeth moves shows to its website: “YouTube revenue just isn’t cutting it for us anymore.”. “Those animated hits were previously available on multiple platforms, including YouTube, where Rooster Teeth counts more than nine million subscribers on its primary channel. But Shawcross explained that “YouTube revenue just isn’t cutting it for us anymore,” necessitating a focus on the company’s website. ‘We know that it’s frustrating for some of you, but it’s just the reality of what we need to do,’ Shawcross said. ‘Animation is hard and expensive.'”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: 23andMe says private user data is up for sale after being scraped. “Genetic profiling service 23andMe has commenced an investigation after private user data was scraped off its website. Friday’s confirmation comes five days after an unknown entity took to an online crime forum to advertise the sale of private information for millions of 23andMe users.”

Bloomberg: SEC Probes Twitter Security Lapse Before Elon Musk Took Over. “The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating how Twitter Inc. managed a 2018 security lapse that exposed personal user information… The agency has been scrutinizing whether the former top executives failed to adequately disclose those privacy issues to shareholders or put in place proper controls, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing a confidential investigation.”

Associated Press: Utah sues TikTok, alleging it lures children into addictive and destructive social media habits. “Utah became the latest state Tuesday to file a lawsuit against TikTok, alleging the company is ‘baiting’ children into addictive and unhealthy social media habits. TikTok lures children into hours of social media use, misrepresents the app’s safety and deceptively portrays itself as independent of its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, Utah claims in the lawsuit.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Los Angeles Times: Commentary: Elon Musk bought Twitter just to break it. With a new war, we’re paying the price. “For Musk and those who’ve turned the place into a toxic dump of hate-fluencers and bad info, the goal is no longer sharing information. It’s about screaming into the void, no matter how ill-informed the message or baseless the accusation. It’s about eroding confidence in trustworthy sources, individual or institutional, and elevating nefarious users who must stoke fear, doubt and confusion in order to thrive. And as he nears his one-year anniversary, it’s never been clearer that Musk will go to great lengths to deliver.”

Poynter: Opinion | As cheap and dubious content spreads online, print finds a new value. “As the internet becomes flooded with cheap content, discerning truth from falsehood will turn into a Herculean task. A deluge of untrustworthy content threatens to drown out the voices of credibility. It’s under these circumstances we can imagine a revival in the value of print.”

Notre Dame News: New study offers improved strategy for social media communications during wildfires. “In collaboration with the CRC, the research team collected Twitter data on the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire in Alberta, Canada. They analyzed 934 tweets from the headquarters account, which received 33,861 retweets and 34,722 likes. They also looked at 629 tweets from the Alberta account, which received 4,802 retweets and 2,862 likes. Measuring engagement as the total number of likes, retweets, clicks and replies, the team used text analysis to identify the audience (victims or supporters) and then analyzed how audience match between accounts affected user engagement.” 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. I live at Calishat.

October 11, 2023 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/3aqsBE2

United States Meteorology, Fijian-Australians, Mastodon, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 10, 2023

United States Meteorology, Fijian-Australians, Mastodon, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 10, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

National Center for Atmospheric Research: Scientists Gain Powerful Tool To Scrutinize Changing U.S. Weather Patterns. “An extraordinary new dataset of high-resolution weather simulations that span more than four decades over the continental United States is now available to the Earth system science community.”

National Library of Australia: Collecting with Fijian Australians at the National Library. “The National Library has worked closely with Fijian Australians to make sure their contribution to Australian life is appropriately represented in the collection across all the formats that the Library collects. As a result, the National Library now holds one of the most substantial records of Fijian Australian life in the country.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Mastodon actually has 407K+ more monthly users than it thought. “The service, which competes with X (formerly Twitter) and other newcomers like Threads, Bluesky, Pebble and Spill, had been undercounting its users due to a network connectivity error, according to founder and CEO Eugen Rochko, and actually has 407,814 more monthly active users than it had been reporting previously. The adjustment also included a gain of 2.34 million registered users across an additional 727 servers that had not been counted due to the error.”

Retraction Watch: Signs of undeclared ChatGPT use in papers mounting. “Ostensibly authored by researchers in China, ‘Revitalizing our earth: unleashing the power of green energy in soil remediation for a sustainable future’ includes the extraneous phrase ‘Regenerate response’ at the end of a methods section. For those unfamiliar, ‘Regenerate response’ is a button in OpenAI’s ChatGPT that prompts the chatbot to rework an unsatisfactory answer.”

USEFUL STUFF

Musings About Librarianship: List of academic search engines that use Large Language models for generative answers. “This is a non-comprehensive list of academic search engines that use generative AI (almost always Large language models) to generate direct answers on top of list of relevant results, typically using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) Techniques. We expect a lot more!”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

NBC News: Verified accounts spread fake news release about a Biden $8 billion aid package to Israel. “A doctored White House news release posted online falsely claimed that the Biden administration had authorized $8 billion in emergency aid to Israel on Saturday. The fact that it was faked didn’t stop it from being posted across the internet and rising to the top of Google search results.”

Indian Express: National Film Archive of India seeks donations for digitisation, restoration of films. “National Film Archive of India, which is now a part of the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), has sought funds in the form of sponsorships and donations for carrying out film digitisation and restoration projects.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: Visa Applicants’ Social Media Data Doesn’t Help Screen for Terrorism, Documents Show. “A disputed rule that forces millions of applicants for a visa to enter the United States to disclose their social media profiles to the government has done little to help screen for possible terrorists, newly disclosed documents show.”

Hürriyet Daily News: SPK fines man for stock market manipulation via social media advice. “The Capital Markets Board (SPK) has issued a substantial fine of around 3.9 million Turkish Liras ($141,200) on an individual with a significant following on social media for alleged stock market manipulation through advice provided to his followers. The fine comes as a result of Halil İbrahim Babadağı’s recommendations to buy or hold certain stocks on his social media account.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

National Academies: Innovation Aided Completion of 2020 Census, But Coverage and Data Quality Issues Persist. “The U.S. Census Bureau’s ability to adjust its approaches and innovate enabled it to complete the 2020 census despite the difficulties raised by the COVID pandemic and other challenges, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report reviews the 2020 census and the quality of data collected and makes recommendations for the 2030 census.” 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. I live at Calishat.

October 11, 2023 at 12:17AM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/PNYiI4c

Working On Mastodon Content Curation Tools as Twitter Continues to Decline

Working On Mastodon Content Curation Tools as Twitter Continues to Decline
By ResearchBuzz

It’s funny how things change. Once I relied heavily on Twitter for current news and links via tools like Listimonkey and Nuzzel. Now both Listimonkey and Nuzzel are long dead and Twitter’s disinformation and hate speech problems get worse almost by the hour.

But ResearchBuzz is still here, and I still need to do content curation in order to bring you interesting news twice a day. RSS feeds and Google Alerts remain important parts of my toolbox, but I also need tools to monitor the current events link flow that takes place on social media. Nothing exists that is both suitable and affordable, so I’m making my own. Because its API is open and free, I am focusing on Mastodon. And because it’s the right thing to do I’m sharing the tools I make with you.

I’ve mentioned MastoGizmos.com several times, but that’s not the only kind of Mastodon tool I make. I’ve also made utilities that are designed to be used on a local machine. Those programs are available through my GitHub account. For the most part I’ve made them available as HTML files so all you have to do is download them and open them in your browser. (Make sure you’ve enabled JavaScript!). Here are three of them. Maybe you’ll find one useful.

Mastodon Stadium Seats

One of the disadvantages of Mastodon’s decentralized social media is a lack of a single flow to follow. If you’re on a big Mastodon instance like mstdn.social and news breaks, you will likely quickly get a lot of news and links about it. On the other hand if you’re on a small Mastodon instance, it might be a while before news trickles down to you unless you’ve put in a lot of work and followed a lot of people from larger instances. ( I know there are relays available but that’s not a solution for an end user.) I made Mastodon Stadium Seats for when a big news event is happening and I want to see what’s going on even from my tiny instance. It works by querying the larger instances for specified hashtags and showing the results on an HTML page. In the code there’s a space where you can specify the instances and hashtags you want to monitor:

Once you’ve downloaded the HTML file, edit the values above to your preference and open the file in your Web browser. It will give you a plain display of the last 14 posts mentioning your hashtags and it updates every 90 seconds.

This tool isn’t meant to be fancy — it’s just a cheap “stadium seat” where you can see more of what’s happening across the fediverse. For “regular” news days (I have to put that in quotes, it’s 2023, regular news days don’t exist, just less-busy ones) I have a more polished tool that I cast to a second monitor. It’s called VibesMasto News Monitor, and it’s named after Vibesmaster G-Nice.

VibesMasto News Monitor

 

I only use Mastodon Stadium Seats when there’s breaking news or a large event which much of social media will be watching (like a political debate.) For everyday news monitoring I use VibesMasto News Monitor. As you can see in the screenshot above it uses external content (in this case, headlines from the New York Times) and a list of trending links from Mastodon.Social in addition to hashtag monitors. I’m not really looking for specific information with this tool so much as I want a one glance display that tells me what’s happening (and links to more information if I want it.)

Like Stadium Seats, this tool is an HTML file that you can download and run locally. To customize it you change three parts of the code:

const rssFeeds = [

‘https://mastodon.social/tags/rss.rss’,
‘https://mastodon.social/tags/opensource.rss’,
‘https://mastodon.social/tags/foss.rss’,

];

This changes the tags you’re monitoring in the third column. You can change either the tag (the “opensource” part of opensource.rss) or the instance (the “mastodon.social” part of the URL.)

const response = await fetch(‘https://mastodon.social/api/v1/trends/links’);

This changes the trending links in the middle column. All you have to do is change the mastodon.social part with the instance name of your choice — for example, https://journa.host/api/v1/trends/links .

const feedUrl = ‘https://rss.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml’;

This changes the news source at the top of the first column. You should be able to use pretty much any RSS feed as long as it doesn’t have crazy formatting. Once you’ve downloaded the HTML page and made the changes you should be able to open it locally in your browser. I keep mine in a folder on my desktop and review the hashtags every morning before I launch it.

I cast VibesMasto to a second monitor that sits beside my computer and glance at it from time to time. It keeps me informed without me running to check news sites all the time and without alerts bleeping and blooping all over the place. But it doesn’t do the heavy lifting that something like Nuzzel could do. Nuzzel was valuable because it could go through Twitter lists and aggregate all the interesting links that your followings posted so you could review them at your leisure.

Mastodon is decentralized, so instead of gathering links from follows I made a tool to grab them from instances. Let me tell you about Mastodon Link Ripper.

Mastodon Link Ripper

 

Mastodon Link Ripper does just what it says — rips links from the current timelines of the Mastodon instances you specify. It then removes duplicates and presents them to you in aggregate. A basic filter allows you to remove posts based on keywords. The site is also hardcoded to filter out posts more than 48 hours old, but you can adjust that. (The code is well-commented and shows you what you need to change.)

Like the other tools I’ve mentioned so far, this is a single HTML file that you download and open locally in your browser. Unlike other tools I’ve mentioned so far, this one has text input forms so you don’t have to edit the page itself. Just enter your keywords, any filter words, rip the links, and have a good skim.

Twitter is only getting worse, Google’s search engine is filling up with infosewage. At this point I’ve been writing about search engines for almost 30 years and I’m discouraged. It seems to be more and more about giving the shareholders dollars and selling advertising than it is helping people find things.

Was it probably always that way? Possibly but not this baldly. We are surrounded by endless authoritative structures — FCC license databases, local business license records, secretary of state business filings, local government resource lists — and they are so rarely applied when we’re searching for real, true information. Why? There are structured resource lists available from places like Wikipedia that we could apply to our general Web searches. We don’t.

Well, they don’t. I do. And I will keep working on this problem. I’m only one person and I don’t count for much but I deeply believe there are ways we can counter what’s happening and I will keep trying to make tools for it and I will keep sharing them with you. It’s important.

 

 

 

 

 

 

October 10, 2023 at 07:18PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/gwNo1kE

Florida Civil Rights, 1960s San Francisco Photography, Google Chrome, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, October 10, 2023

Florida Civil Rights, 1960s San Francisco Photography, Google Chrome, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, October 10, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WFSU: A new virtual museum helps visitors learn about Florida’s civil rights leaders. “The first virtual civil rights museum in Florida launched earlier this month. It features civil rights leaders from the early 1900s all the way into the early 60s. Two Tallahassee natives, Jackie Perkins and Delaitre Hollinger, created the virtual museum. It tells the stories of what the founders call ‘pioneers’ in both education and civil rights. Perkins says the museum includes individuals from all walks of life regardless of race, color or religion.”

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. mystery images find a permanent home (where you can see them too). “A cache of mysterious Kodachrome slides found abandoned on a Mission District street corner are going to the San Francisco Public Library’s History Center — where they’ll join collections including Harvey Milk’s papers and the San Francisco Call-Bulletin photo morgue.” The digitizing process is already underway.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Bleeping Computer: Google Chrome’s organize tabs will automatically reorder tabs. “In a bid to upgrade user experience, the Chrome team is developing an ‘Organise Tabs’ feature, soon to be seen at the top left corner of the browser, adjacent to the tab search function. This new addition would be a natural extension of Tab Groups functionality.”

Search Engine Journal: Google Launches October 2023 Core Algorithm Update. “Google has confirmed the rollout of its latest core algorithm update, dubbed the ‘October 2023 Core Update.’ This marks the third core update to Google’s search ranking systems this year, following the March and August core updates.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: Graphic Images of Violence Flood Social Media Amid Israel-Gaza Conflict. “On X, formerly known as Twitter, a violent video claiming to show the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers had been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on Saturday morning. The New York Times found hundreds of X accounts sharing images of dead bodies, claiming to be Israeli civilians killed in the past 24 hours of fighting. Some of the images viewed by The Times appeared to be manipulated and edited. Underneath some of the videos and images posted on X, people warned that they could be spread as part of a campaign to stoke fear among Israelis. Some of the accounts claimed to be working on behalf of Hamas.”

Ars Technica: 4chan users manipulate AI tools to unleash torrent of racist images. “Despite leading AI companies’ attempts to block users from turning AI image generators into engines of racist content, many 4chan users are still turning to these tools to ‘quickly flood the Internet with racist garbage,’ 404 Media reported.”

Daily Bruin: UCLA Library receives donation of political cartoon collection dating back to 1690. “The collection, donated by Michael and Susan Kahn, contains more than one million political cartoons and caricatures originating between 1690 and 2022. The donation from the family also includes additional funding for classes and workshops focused on political cartoons…. The political cartoon collection contains works from 59 countries and in 30 languages, according to the UCLA Library. It will be available digitally during the 2024-2025 academic year through the UCLA Library Special Collections.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Alphabet’s Pichai Set to Testify in Google Pay Antitrust Trial. “Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai is set to be called by Epic Games Inc. to testify in an antitrust trial over Google Play policies that could threaten billions of dollars in revenue generated by the app marketplace.”

Hyperallergic: Artists Call on Congress to Stop Corporations From Copyrighting AI Art. “To keep large corporations from gaining copyrights over art made with AI, artists and allies are being called upon to post about the AI Day Of Action on their social media accounts today and to contact their congresspeople using links and scripts provided by Fight for the Future. Artists’ rights over their work have long been contested, yet nothing has brought the conversation to such a head as the advent of generative AI and its potential for corporate exploitation.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

ABS: ABS Joins Korean Industry Leaders on 3D Printing Project for Ship Operations . “ABS signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to work with key stakeholders in Korea to develop and demonstrate a 3D printing system for ocean-going vessels. Using a digital library for the design process, the system aims to support rapid maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) by using 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), to manufacture parts on a vessel while at sea.”

Nature: ‘In case I die, I need to publish this paper’: scientist who left the lab to fight in Ukraine. “When Russia invaded his home country in February 2022, neuroscientist Sergiy Sylantyev was leading a research programme at the University of Aberdeen, UK, investigating chemical signalling in the brain. Within weeks, Sylantyev — who had no military experience — travelled to Ukraine, where he was quickly deployed to the front lines as a foot soldier.”

Princeton University: The world has a food-waste problem. Can this wireless tech help fix it?. “One bad apple may not spoil the whole bunch, but when it comes to distributing food, a lot of good goes out with the bad. Now, researchers from Princeton University and Microsoft Research have developed a fast and accurate way to determine fruit quality, piece by piece, using high-frequency wireless technology. The new tool gives suppliers a way to sort fruit based on fine-grained ripeness measurements.” 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. I live at Calishat.

October 10, 2023 at 05:31PM
via ResearchBuzz https://ift.tt/Z5GTywR