Wyoming Newspapers, Disability Legislation, Removing Extremist Content, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 11, 2023

Wyoming Newspapers, Disability Legislation, Removing Extremist Content, More: Saturday ResearchBuzz, November 11, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Wyoming State Library: Wyoming Digital Newspaper Collection Adds Five Titles. “The Wyoming Digital Newspaper Collection has added five prison newspapers to its database. Titles include Best Scene, J-A-B-S, Wyoming State Honor Farm, Wyoming Pen, and The New Approach. These newspapers span from 1915 to 1992 and give insight into the daily lives of those in the prison system.”

Mother Jones: A New Tool Helps Disabled People Track—and Shape—Laws That Impact Them. “New Disabled South, a disability justice nonprofit founded in 2022, is trying to make more information available to disabled people on legislation that affects them, launching its Plain Language Policy Dashboard in November to cover 14 Southern states. As of now, the bills it explains fall into six categories: accessibility, civil rights, criminalization, poverty and care, democracy, and education.”

WIRED: This New Tool Aims to Keep Terrorism Content Off the Internet. “Launched in Paris on Friday, Altitude is a free tool built by Jigsaw—a unit within Google that tracks violent extremism, misinformation, and repressive censorship—and Tech Against Terrorism, a group that seeks to disrupt terrorists’ online activity. The tool aims to give smaller platforms the ability to easily and efficiently detect terrorist content on their networks and remove it.”

EVENTS

Space: Watch NASA build its VIPER moon rover with these free online watch parties. “The rover, called VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover), will explore the moon and collect water-ice samples from permanently shadowed areas near the lunar south pole. VIPER has an expected launch date of November 2024, and its mission team has begun final assembly and testing procedures, which NASA will broadcast live during monthly watch parties for the public to follow along in the final stages of preparing the rover for space.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Connecticut by the Numbers: Grant to Help Hartford Look Back to the Future. “The Hartford History Center at Hartford Public Library was recently awarded an $18,830 National Film Preservation Foundation grant to restore and digitize a collection of early 20th-century films by radio pioneer, inventor, and Hartford resident Hiram Percy Maxim. The films, which will be available on the Connecticut Digital Archive within the next year, feature Maxim and his wife, along with their family and friends.”

The Mainichi: Tokyo group creating database of Great Kanto Earthquake victims on 100th anniv. . “An organization in the capital has been creating a database of victims of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and aims to release it within this fiscal year as 100 years have passed since the disaster.”

Futurism: Adobe Caught Selling AI-Generated Images of Israel-Palestine Violence. “Software giant Adobe has been caught selling AI-generated images of the Israel-Hamas war, as first spotted by Australian news outlet Crikey, a shocking and morally reprehensible instance of a company directly profiting from the spread of misinformation online.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Planned to ‘Go Big in Europe’ After EU Android Case. “Google — under fire in court for allegedly resting on its laurels thanks to its 90% market dominance — only made an effort to beef up the quality of its search engine in the European Union after being hit by a record antitrust fine, according to internal documents revealed in the US Justice Department’s monopolization case against the tech giant.”

Times-Herald (California): Brendan Riley’s Solano Chronicles: Historic records panel shelved. “Solano County supervisors have voted 4-1 to dissolve the county’s Historical Records Commission, in what critics term a ‘catastrophic’ disservice to the public that should be reversed in order to preserve and protect a wealth of old documents.”

The Verge: What is Google trying to hide in its deal with Spotify?. “Is there something Google doesn’t want the world to know about its deal with Spotify? That’s what Google attorney Glenn Pomerantz suggested in Fortnite court this morning. Pomerantz argued that the court should seal portions of an upcoming exhibit revealing Google’s User Choice Billing agreement with Spotify — which lets Spotify use its own payment system for subscriptions while still giving Google a cut.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: Chatbots May ‘Hallucinate’ More Often Than Many Realize. “When summarizing facts, ChatGPT technology makes things up about 3 percent of the time, according to research from a new start-up. A Google system’s rate was 27 percent.” That link is to a gift article; you should not experience a paywall..

University of Central Florida: New UCF Tech Uses AI, VR to Monitor Safety of Bridges, Buildings. “Monitoring the structural health of the nation’s aging budlings and bridges is vital to keeping people safe and helping prevent tragedies such as the Surfside condominium collapse in 2021. That’s why University of Central Florida researchers have developed four new inventions that use artificial intelligence and virtual reality to improve the structural health monitoring of buildings, bridges, roads and other civil structures.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 11, 2023 at 06:31PM
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North Carolina Newspapers, New York Economic Incentives, YouTube, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2023

North Carolina Newspapers, New York Economic Incentives, YouTube, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Digital NC: 42 Newspapers from the North Carolina Collection. “Here we have new papers from the North Carolina Collection that have never been microfilmed! The North Carolina Collection originated in 1844 and is the largest traditional collection of library materials for any state.”

Governor of New York: New Database Builds on Governor’s State of the State Commitment to Making State Government Work Better for New Yorkers. “Governor Kathy Hochul today launched the enhanced Database of Economic Incentives as part of her ongoing commitment to transparency and making state government work better for New Yorkers…. The Database has expanded from 26 to 55 data fields and contains thousands of projects from 45 programs spanning multiple state agencies. The enhanced Database now contains an interactive dashboard offering high-level summary information of all projects.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: YouTube is testing a chatbot that will appear under select videos. “YouTube’s latest AI experiments includes a new chatbot that’s designed to give you more information about a video you’re watching. The conversational AI tool, as Google’s support post calls it, aims to answer your questions about a video and can also recommend related content.”

USEFUL STUFF

MIT News: Explained: Generative AI . “A quick scan of the headlines makes it seem like generative artificial intelligence is everywhere these days. In fact, some of those headlines may actually have been written by generative AI, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, a chatbot that has demonstrated an uncanny ability to produce text that seems to have been written by a human. But what do people really mean when they say ‘generative AI?'”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: The New Enemies of Argentina’s Far Right: Swifties and the BTS Army. “Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian economist, has stayed aloft in Argentina’s presidential campaign on the wings of the youth vote. To win the runoff election this month, he will need to hold on to that key demographic, pollsters say. But now, a major hurdle stands in his way: Swifties.”

Vernon Morning Star: Hiker rescued off B.C. cliffside after taking non-existent Google Maps trail . “The group says Saturday was the third time they’ve been called in to the area near Mount Fromme for a hiker in danger. The group says it had been concerned people were following what was marked as a path on Google Maps between the mountain and the Kennedy Falls area. In fact, North Shore SAR says, there are no trails in the area, only steep, wooded terrain and cliff bands.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Data broker’s “staggering” sale of sensitive info exposed in unsealed FTC filing . “One of the world’s largest mobile data brokers, Kochava, has lost its battle to stop the Federal Trade Commission from revealing what the FTC has alleged is a disturbing, widespread pattern of unfair use and sale of sensitive data without consent from hundreds of millions of people.”

Deutsche Welle: EU to crack down on targeted social media ads. “The European Union intends to usher in stricter rules on social media microtargeting — including tougher barriers for advertisers outside of the bloc to buy political ads aimed at residents of EU member states.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: People dig deeper to fact-check social media posts when paired with someone who doesn’t share their perspective – new research. “People fact-checked social media posts more carefully and were more willing to revise their initial beliefs when they were paired with someone from a different cultural background than their own, according to a study my collaborators Michael Baker and Françoise Détienne and I recently published in Frontiers in Psychology.”

University of Washington: New AI noise-canceling headphone technology lets wearers pick which sounds they hear. “…a team led by researchers at the University of Washington has developed deep-learning algorithms that let users pick which sounds filter through their headphones in real time. The team is calling the system ‘semantic hearing.’ Headphones stream captured audio to a connected smartphone, which cancels all environmental sounds. Either through voice commands or a smartphone app, headphone wearers can select which sounds they want to include from 20 classes, such as sirens, baby cries, speech, vacuum cleaners and bird chirps.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 11, 2023 at 01:14AM
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Large-Scale Solar Facilities, Accessibility in Web Design, Indigenous Reads Rising, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2023

Large-Scale Solar Facilities, Accessibility in Web Design, Indigenous Reads Rising, More: Friday ResearchBuzz, November 10, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

US Department of Energy: U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Geological Survey Release Online Public Database of Large-Scale Solar Facilities. “The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) released the largest and most comprehensive database to date on large-scale solar energy projects in the United States. The U.S. Large-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Database (USPVDB) includes the location, size, and other characteristics of large-scale solar projects.”

Design Week: New platform launches to help web designers navigate accessibility guidelines. “Edinburgh-based design consultancy Studio Lutalica and web design studio Lattimore + Friends have developed a free website in a bid to demystify the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and help designers make websites more accessible. Understanding Accessibility was created to be a simple step-by-step guide for web designers that they can use to help them design for disabilities.”

School Library Journal: We Need Diverse Books Launches Indigenous Kid Lit Website . “The site features booklists and articles on Native American literature, land acknowledgment, and tropes and stereotypes, as well as extensive resources for teachers, librarians, and readers. The goal of the resources is to help educators use Native books in the classroom and offer guidance and best practices on how to teach those books.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Smile FM (South Africa): City in talks with Google to caution visitors on certain areas. “Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says he has been in discussion with international companies providing GPS services, like Google and Waze, in a bid to caution visitors about certain areas in the Mother City. This after a 55 year old American tourist Walter Fischel was stabbed in the face and robbed in Nyanga on Friday afternoon… In yet another tourist attack, an elderly German couple were attacked along Baden Powell Drive yesterday.”

TechCrunch: LGBTQ suicide prevention org the Trevor Project is leaving Elon Musk’s X for good. “The Trevor Project announced Thursday that it has decided to end its presence on the platform in light of ‘increasing hate and vitriol’ targeting the queer community on X, which Elon Musk purchased one year ago. The organization is focused on suicide prevention and provides 24/7 counseling for young LGBTQ people struggling with mental health challenges.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Guardian: Cheese-rolling, straw bears and weird rituals galore: one man’s mission to record all of British folklore. “Fans of British folklore are championing a campaign to safeguard a unique archive cataloguing traditions from Britain and Ireland. The collection – of more than 20,000 books, 4,000 tape cassettes and 3,500 hours of reel-to-reel audio – has been amassed by one man. David ‘Doc’ Rowe is a 79-year-old folklorist who has travelled the UK since the 1960s, visiting calendar customs such as the Straw Bear Festival, the Krampus Run or the Hunting of the Earl of Rone.”

Wall Street Journal: Block’s Stock Price Is Down 80%. Enter CEO Jack Dorsey.. “Jack Dorsey has been notoriously hands-off. Recent events are forcing him to change. For years, his payments company, Block, was perceived as a success, even with him only in the background. Things changed last month when he started running Square, one of Block’s marquee units, after his handpicked deputy abruptly left.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Google mulled offering paid-for no-logging private Search subscription . “In 2018, concerned about the public’s perception of its privacy practices, Google leaders proposed a subscription-based private Search service, one that doesn’t log queries and other data. According to testimony in Google’s ongoing antitrust case, Danny Sullivan, public liaison for Google Search, endorsed the subscription idea in an email discussion with Meredith Hoffer, then director of marketing for Google Search, and numerous other Chocolate Factory executives including the then-head of Search Ben Gomes, who forwarded the discussion to a subset of participants.”

Reuters: Exclusive-YouTube, TikTok face EU requests for details on measures protecting minors. “Google’s YouTube and TikTok will be asked by EU industry chief Thierry Breton to explain how they protect children from illegal and harmful content on their platforms in line with new EU rules, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.”

Bloomberg: Google, Meta Win EU Court Fight to Avoid Austrian Content Curbs. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok won a ruling at the European Union’s top court that limits the scope for EU nations to pepper them with their own local rules.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Seattle Times: Google owes news outlets at least $10 billion yearly, study estimates. “A revelatory new study estimates that Google and Facebook owe U.S. news outlets at least $12 billion a year for the value news content adds to their platforms. Google owes publishers $10 billion to $12 billion annually and Facebook $1.9 billion, according to the study by professors at Columbia University and the University of Houston, with Boston-based consulting firm The Brattle Group.”

University of Rochester: Audio deepfake detective developing new sleuthing techniques. “With artificial intelligence-powered audio generation making it increasingly hard to distinguish between real and fake audio, an electrical and computer engineering PhD student is working to develop tools to protect against scammers. You ‘Neil’ Zhang of the Audio Information Research (AIR) Lab at the University of Rochester received a competitive National Institute of Justice graduate research fellowship to develop new audio deepfake detection systems.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 10, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Planning Considerations for Cyber Incidents, Pennsylvania In-Custody Deaths, Room-Temperature (Non) Superconductivity, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 9, 2023

Planning Considerations for Cyber Incidents, Pennsylvania In-Custody Deaths, Room-Temperature (Non) Superconductivity, More: Thursday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 9, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

FEMA: FEMA and CISA Release First-Ever Cyber Incidents Planning Guidance For Emergency Managers. “The new ‘Planning Considerations for Cyber Incidents: Guidance for Emergency Managers’ is a foundational product that provides a roadmap for emergency managers across the nation to plan for swift and effective solutions to address the consequences of a cyber incident.”

Penn Live: How many deaths occurred in your county’s jail? See our database. “The lack of proper reporting by Pa. jails is widespread, resulting in severe undercounting of in-custody deaths in the Commonwealth. PennLive and the Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism spent 6-months investigating in-custody deaths to create the first comprehensive database in Pa. Toggle over any county on this interactive map to see the number of deaths and details about those deaths.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

New York Times: Room-Temperature Superconductor Discovery Is Retracted. “Nature, one of the most prestigious journals in scientific publishing, on Tuesday retracted a high-profile paper it had published in March that claimed the discovery of a superconductor that worked at everyday temperatures.”

Mashable: Elon Musk, meet the Twitter resistance. “A Harris Poll/Ad Age survey in mid-September found that some 69% of U.S. adults still refer to the platform as Twitter. A Chrome extension that scrubs all mentions of X from Twitter.com has more than 100,000 users. All of which raises an interesting question: If Elon Musk is trying to make fetch happen, and fetch doesn’t seem to be happening, and a significant chunk of his users say that fetch is never, ever going to happen … what happens next?”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Gizmodo: Google Promises Its Christmas Game Doesn’t Use Kids to Train AI. “The game opens with an explanation encouraging you to ‘Help Tensor practice its image recognition!’ The description says Tensor is ‘Santa’s Machine Learning robot.’ According to the game, “The more you draw, the smarter Tensor will get,” which will “help Santa be more efficient than ever this holiday season.” In an email, a Google spokesperson said you shouldn’t take that literally.”

WIRED: Where the Hell Is X CEO Linda Yaccarino? . “LINDA YACCARINO HAS been the CEO of X since June, but you’d never know it. Elon Musk, the company’s owner, CTO, and super-user, still remains the gravitational force at its center. In an all-hands meeting last week, the transcript of which was published by The Verge, Musk said almost twice as much as Yaccarino—3,735 words to her 1,833. Yes, we counted. Parts of the all-hands read more as Yaccarino interviewing Musk about his vision for an everything app than as a CEO discussing their own.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: AI fake nudes are booming. It’s ruining real teens’ lives.. “On the top 10 websites that host AI-generated porn photos, fake nudes have ballooned by more than 290 percent since 2018, according to Genevieve Oh, an industry analyst. These sites feature celebrities and political figures such as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez alongside ordinary teenage girls, whose likenesses have been seized by bad actors to incite shame, extort money or live out private fantasies. Victims have little recourse.”

Semafor: Satellite companies are restricting Gaza images. “Key providers of satellite photographs to news organizations and other researchers have begun to restrict imagery of Gaza after a New York Times report on Israeli tank positions based on the images.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Notre Dame News: ‘Crowding out’ the competition: Study reveals surprising livestream chatting and tipping behavior. “Tips and chats are displayed on a livestream along with a viewer’s identity, so viewers are publicly recognized for those actions, but viewers who ‘like’ a livestream are not acknowledged. Because identities and payments are publicly viewable in livestreams, understanding how they influence broadcasters’ emotional reactions and other viewers’ engagement becomes relevant and meaningful. A new study from the University of Notre Dame examines these exchanges through a popular livestreaming platform in China.”

Phys.org: Snake species named Trimeresurus uetzi after Reptile Database creator. “A newly identified species of green pit viper snake has been named in honor of Virginia Commonwealth University professor Peter Uetz, Ph.D. The snake species, found in central and southern Myanmar, was named Trimeresurus uetzi, or Uetz’s pit viper, in honor of his creation of the Reptile Database, a catalog of reptile species and classification that is relied upon by scientists and hobbyists around the world who study reptiles.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 10, 2023 at 02:04AM
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Finland Natural Science Collections, Conradh na Gaeilge, US Judiciary Transparency, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, November 9, 2023

Finland Natural Science Collections, Conradh na Gaeilge, US Judiciary Transparency, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, November 9, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Helsinki Times: Revolutionizing research: Finland champions digital archive of 1.5 billion natural specimens. “In a major leap forward for scientific research and policy-making, Finland’s natural science collections are undergoing extensive digitalization, as part of a broader European effort. It’s estimated that Europe’s collections alone contain 1.5 billion specimens, and this wealth of quality nature data is set to become accessible to scientists, policy-makers, and the public alike.”

University of Galway: University of Galway unveils digitised collection of images from Conradh na Gaeilge archive. “Along with near complete runs of Oireachtas and Conradh na Gaeilge Ard Fheis programmes from 1890s to early 2000s, the material covers a range of topics from Irish language rights campaigns, including broadcasting and the status of the Irish language in Europe, through to material relating to the Northern Ireland peace process.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: Delays plague US judiciary’s financial disclosure database. “The law, which President Joe Biden signed in May 2022, requires judges to report any stock trades of more than $1,000 within 45 days, rather than just in their annual disclosure reports…. Yet an analysis by the judicial reform advocacy group Fix the Court found that hundreds of disclosure reports are still not online in the database the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts was mandated by the law to set up.”

Engadget: Google creates a brand new hub for shopping deals. “Ahead of the mad dash to find the best presents for the lowest prices, Google is attempting to undo some of that financial load with the launch of its new deals hub. Now, if you type in “shop deals” on Google, the search engine will bring you to a page filled with markdowns on categories like electronics and apparel.”

WIRED: YouTube’s Crackdown Spurs Record Uninstalls of Ad Blockers. “Previously unreported figures from ad blocking companies indicate that YouTube’s crackdown is working, with hundreds of thousands of people uninstalling ad blockers in October. The available data suggests that last month saw a record number of ad blockers uninstalled—and also a record for new ad blocker installs as people sought alternatives that wouldn’t trigger YouTube’s dreaded pop-up.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

UK Authority: TfL to take Google Steet View to Underground. “Transport for London (TfL) has launched a collaboration with Google to provide the Street View application to a number of Underground stations across the city. It said the project will involve the use of cameras that capture 360-degree images to develop virtual representations of around 30 of the busiest stations, including Green Park, King’s Cross St Pancras and Waterloo. They will identify key facilities such as toilets and help points.”

Mashable: Sony is removing Twitter/X integration from PlayStation consoles. “Yet another company has announced it will be removing X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, from its products. And this is a big one. Sony has announced that it is terminating PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4’s X integrations this month. The removal of this feature will mean that PS4 and PS5 gamers will no longer be able to publish video game clips and other content directly from their consoles.”

iNews: Robelinda2: Fans in mourning as ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ of retro cricket footage vanishes from the internet. “On Sunday, Rob Moody – a Melbournian known to cricket lovers throughout the world – tweeted that his Robelinda2 YouTube channel, a cricket insitution, was no more. Moody had recorded footage from pretty much every professional game played in Australia since 1982-83, and the world relied on his eclectic collection to get their cricket fix during the 2020 lockdown. His hundreds of videos generated millions of views as grounds around the world stood empty.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: Court Rejects Extremely Broad Google Search Warrant, Citing Both Carpenter And Riley. “A burglary case that included evidence found at the scene (broken glass, a canister of pepper spray) and an apparent eyewitness has fallen apart because the government decided going right to Google meant it could ignore Supreme Court precedent and the Constitution.”

Dong-A Ilbo (South Korea): Fair Trade Commission to look into Google’s unfair advertising practices. “The Korea Fair Trade Commission will investigate the suspicion of Google’s unfair advertising practices to find out if there were any unfair business practices taken by the Internet giant, including interfering with competitors, during its process of increasing market share in the South Korean search advertising market.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Ars Technica: 100+ researchers say they stopped studying X, fearing Elon Musk might sue them . “According to a ‘survey of 167 academic and civil society researchers conducted at Reuters’ request by the Coalition for Independent Technology Research’ (CITR) in September, more than 100 studies about X have been canceled, suspended, or switched to focus on another platform since Elon Musk began limiting researchers’ access to X data last February.”

Nature: The new Twitter is changing rapidly — study it before it’s too late. “My colleague, Kate Starbird, co-founder of the Center for an Informed Public, describes the shift to the new API-less environment as the difference between seeing a landscape through a picture window and looking at it through a series of portholes — now, several views must be pieced together to see the whole. Our recent research shows one piece of the new landscape; to comprehend it in its entirety will require the creativity and focus of many. For researchers who have studied Twitter over the past decade, revisiting the platform might seem like a step backwards. But because X is still influential — and is morphing into something notably different — such work might be more important now than ever before.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 9, 2023 at 06:31PM
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Digitized DAK Catalogs, Black Economic Prosperity Dashboards, Twitter Investors, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 8, 2023

Digitized DAK Catalogs, Black Economic Prosperity Dashboards, Twitter Investors, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, November 8, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Cabel Sasser: DAK and the Golden Age of Gadget Catalogs. “Thanks to the help of my friend Kay Savetz, I now present to you over 55 (!) fully-scanned, 600 DPI DAK catalogs, stored safely on the Internet Archive for you to enjoy. Best of all, there’s no charge for these downloads. Plus, as a special added bonus, I’ve also included 9 very-rare Products That Think / JS&A catalogs, never before available on the internet.”

The Oregonian: New economic data dashboard sheds light on Black Oregonians, businesses . “The Black Business Association of Oregon this week launched a new tool to access data on the socioeconomic status of Black Oregonians. The Black Economic Prosperity Dashboard… draws on existing federal, public and proprietary data. It includes data across five topics: population, health, education, economic well-being and business ownership.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Fast Company: Elon Musk isn’t the only one who lost a ton of money on X this year. “By my math, which is based on the value that Fidelity places on the X shares owned by its mutual funds, the massive mess Musk has made of Twitter has cost him $17 billion, a number that hasn’t gotten anything like the attention it deserves. But rather than going over the now-familiar ground of how Musk messed up, which I’ve covered several times, I’d like to show you something else: how even the smartest investors can hurt themselves by falling in love with the idea of investing alongside a mega-rich, mega-famous business rock star.”

USEFUL STUFF

CogDogBlog: Mastodon Link Play . “One of the Mastodon new user bumps is getting your head around the extra layer of your name or handle being doubled with the place you call home, both a positive for appreciating federation but maybe a complexity in unraveling names and links…. Here are a few things I’ve worked through or are trying to for a focus on fedispaces, over the single letter algebra variable one ”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: On Social Media, People Face Pressure to Speak Out About the War. “People who work across industries — from famous online influencers to those with far less prominent online profiles, including a yoga teacher, an interior designer, and tech and real estate workers — said in interviews that they faced an expectation to share their opinions about the war. The pressure is conveyed either explicitly or subtly from friends and followers. Silence is viewed by many as its own statement.”

ComicBook: Studio Ghibli Plans to Delete Its X (Twitter) Account ASAP. “In the aftermath of Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform, things are on edge for X. With ad revenue down more than 50% and monthly users in a slump, X is bleeding love. Now, Studio Ghibli has confirmed its plans to leave the site, and the company plans to shutter its page ASAP.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Play’s ‘Bribe and Block’ Ploy Hurt Rivals, Epic Says. “Alphabet Inc. used a ‘bribe and block’ strategy to thwart competition against its Google Play app marketplace, hurting developers and raising prices for consumers, Epic Games Inc. said as it began its courtroom battle with the technology giant.”

Syracuse University: Smart Speakers, Smarter Protection. “Whether you’re looking to try a new recipe, dimming the lights in your living room, or curious about the species of bacteria living inside your mouth, Amazon Alexa has got you covered. With a simple voice command, Alexa’s ability to perform various tasks or answer questions has made it widely popular, with over 40 million users in the United States alone. Despite the convenience smart speakers like Alexa offer, these devices have also raised some privacy concerns.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: First-Gen Social Media Users Have Nowhere to Go. “If the early promise of social media was to bring society closer to a virtual ideal, the most recent shift in how platforms are used has lost the plot. Along with Twitter, the erosion of the user experience on Facebook and Instagram—with tiered subscriptions, a proliferation of hate speech and misinformation, privacy being sold as a luxury, and the threat of generative AI—marks a sharp turning point in the value of the social web.”

Route Fifty: ‘Tripledemic’ dashboards set health agencies up for flu season. “COVID, influenza and RSV—oh my! Fall and winter bring an increase in respiratory illnesses, so state health departments are revamping their COVID dashboards for enhanced insights into their communities’ health.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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November 9, 2023 at 01:06AM
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Patriots of Color, Cowessess First Nation, Women in the Military, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, November 8, 2023

Patriots of Color, Cowessess First Nation, Women in the Military, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, November 8, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

KYW Radio Philadelphia: New digital archive allows Black and Native families to connect with ancestors who served in the Revolutionary War. “The Museum of the American Revolution and Ancestry.com are working together on a new family history resource for people of Native American and African American descent. The museum acquired the Patriots of Color Archive in 2022. In it: nearly 200 rare documents — original muster rolls, pay vouchers, enlistment papers, discharge forms and more — originally belonging to Black and Native American soldiers who served during the Revolutionary War…. Ancestry.com digitized the collection and made it available online for free.”

Discovered via Google Alerts: Listen, Hear Our Voices: A Digital Library Of Photographs For Cowessess First Nation. “Listen Hear our Voices is a digital library that consists of photographs of Cowessess First Nation membership, historical photos, events, and documents. Cowessess has many photos of community members who attended the Marieval Residential School.”

University of Maine: Women in the Military Oral History Collection Available Online. “Raymond H. Fogler Library Special Collections has published oral history recordings from MF144, the “Women in the Military” collection of the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History. The full collection features recorded interviews with nearly 70 female military veterans serving between World War II and the Gulf War. Forty-nine of these interviews were published in the institutional repository, DigitalCommons@UMaine, in advance of Veterans Day, 2023.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

ProPublica: UC Berkeley Takes Significant Step to Repatriate 4,400 Native American Human Remains. “A notice filed Tuesday in the Federal Register indicates UC Berkeley is committed to repatriating 4,440 ancestral remains and nearly 25,000 items — including jewelry, shells, beads and baskets — that were excavated from burial sites across the San Francisco Bay Area. The notice follows extensive consultations between the university and tribes, including those that claim the Bay Area as their ancestral lands but are not recognized by the federal government, the university said.”

TechCrunch: Brave’s Leo AI assistant is now available to desktop users. “Brave, a company building an alternative web browser, is releasing its AI-powered assistant, Leo, to all desktop users. The company is also releasing a $15 per month paid version called Leo Premium with features like access to faster and better large language models (LLMs) and higher-rate limits.”

USEFUL STUFF

WordPress: Meet Site Profiler: Instant Access to Everything You’ll Ever Need to Know About Any Domain. “Site Profiler is a fast, accurate, and ad-free tool designed to provide WHOIS and hosting information about any domain. Whether you’re a domain owner or just curious about where a site is hosted, Site Profiler is a fast way to pull up the details you need. Just drop in any URL and you’ll have the hosting and domain registration details right at your fingertips. It’s free, simple, and user-friendly.” I know there are lots of tools like this, but this one is blazing fast and I like how the information is laid out.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Yale Herald: “Computer Crossdressing”: Charting the Trans Digital Archive. “‘The contemporary trans movement as we know it now—with all its accomplishments and failures—could not have come to be without the Internet.’ This is the central claim of Avery Dame-Griff’s newly-released book The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet. Consulting archival resources from people and organizations across the country, like the promotional advertisement (below) for the umbrella Internet organization US TOO (United Sisterhood of Transsexual Outreach Organizations), Dame-Griff outlines the formation of the trans community’s online presence. ”

Ars Technica: Elon Musk’s new AI model doesn’t shy from questions about cocaine and orgies. “On Saturday, Elon Musk announced xAI’s launch of an early beta version of ‘Grok,’ an AI language model similar to ChatGPT that is designed to respond to user queries with a mix of information and humor. Grok reportedly integrates real-time data access from X (formerly Twitter)—and is apparently willing to tackle inquiries that might be declined by other AI systems due to content filters and conditioning.”

New York Times: LeVar Burton Wants to Be Heard. “LeVar Burton has spent much of his career encouraging children to read. Now he is urging them to listen — really listen. They can develop that skill, along with an ear for mysteries, in ‘Sound Detectives,’ a new podcast for audiences of elementary-school age that is part whodunit, part science exploration and part comic adventure.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Trace: The ATF’s Gun Tracing Database Is a Black Box. A Lawsuit Could Change That.. “On October 20, a California federal judge heard arguments in a lawsuit seeking to compel the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to turn over data about guns smuggled from the United States into Mexico and Central America. The data, if released, would represent just the second time in two decades that the ATF has offered a detailed glimpse inside its firearms tracing database, which has been a black box to the public since Congress restricted its disclosure in 2003.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Using social media for your holiday ‘inspo’ can be risky and even dangerous – here’s why. “How do you choose your next travel destination? Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok are handy tools for holiday research, full of #inspo for new and beautiful places to go. However, behind those mesmerising selfies, highlights and reels, there’s often a stark reality that isn’t shared. Our ongoing research shows that dangers abound from social media related misadventures. These include the hidden dangers of getting to the location, as well as the ecological strains on sites that get overcrowded with tourists.”

Hearing Review: Scientists Receive Grant to Develop Sign Language Lexicon for Chemistry. “Christina Goudreau Collison, professor in the School of Chemistry and Materials Science; Jennifer Swartzenberg, senior lecturer in the National Technical Institute for the Deaf’s Department of Science and Mathematics; Lea Michel, professor in the School of Chemistry and Materials Science; and Pepsi Holmquist, visiting assistant professor in NTID’s Department of Science and Mathematics, have been awarded nearly $380,000 for their proposal to transform chemistry for deaf and hard-of-hearing students via the design, implementation, and evaluation of a descriptive sign language lexicon.” Good morning, Internet…

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November 8, 2023 at 06:31PM
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