Overdose Deaths, Twitter, Smithsonian, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, August 24, 2023

Overdose Deaths, Twitter, Smithsonian, More: Thursday ResearchBuzz, August 24, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

WLWT: New database highlights overdose death rates in every county in the U.S.. “WLWT’s news partner, Hearst-owned newspaper The San Francisco Chronicle, created a database tracking U.S. drug overdoses. The data comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were 32.3 overdose deaths for every 100,000 people in the United States in 2022.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: X says it’s fixed the bug that broke links and images in pre-December 2014 tweets. “There are no details mentioned in the post about what the bug was, when it started happening, or why it will take an unspecified amount of time to resolve. In looking up the problem, we learned that changes by Twitter in 2016 used metadata on tweets posted from December 2014 going forward to fill in additional data from linked webpages and allow attachments that didn’t eat up a tweet’s character count, and it was only earlier posts that were hit by the bug.”

Mashable: Fyre Festival 2 tickets are on sale if you can believe it. “Billy McFarland, the co-organizer of the now-ridiculed 2017 disaster of an event, announced that tickets are on sale for Fyre Festival II, supposedly set to take place at the end of 2024. McFarland spent four years behind bars on multiple counts of fraud after the festival, located on on the Bahamian island of Great Exuma, was deemed a scam, with McFarland duping investors and customers out of $26 million.”

Smithsonian Institution: Smithsonian Continues Collecting Artifacts From Jan. 6 Capitol Attack. “Artifacts reflecting the violence, chaos and confusion at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, have been added to the collections of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in a continuing effort to document the attack on that day and its larger impact on American democracy.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

BBC: Why you rarely believe celebrity apologies on social media. “It’s a change from the world of sterile press releases from publicity reps. Instead, public figures now use social media to convey their contrition. They intend these apologies to meet their audiences where they are – be it Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, X or even LinkedIn – with the hope the platforms will help to mimic the good faith of a face-to-face mea culpa. Yet some experts say this practice has changed our relationship to apologies: both how to give them and how to receive them. This shift isn’t always positive, and often renders these displays of remorse ineffective.”

ZDNet: New ‘BeFake’ social media app encourages users to transform their photos with AI. “Although most social media sites claim to be platforms where people can share their most authentic selves with the world, the profiles display carefully curated windows into what users want others to see. BeFake AI, a new free app, leans into the fakeness of social media. BeFake AI claims to be the ‘First AI-Augmented Social Network’ where users can use AI to modify their images into art creations and upload them online.”

Deadspin: NBA social media whistleblower: Login was an accident, but league needs to hire more employees [Updated] . “When it comes to the NBA’s stars, Adam Silver has been open about addressing the anxiety NBA players face under the microscope. They’ve also done wonders for player rest, limiting back-to-backs. However, when it comes to the well-being of its social media employees, the league allegedly still has work to do. At least, that’s what a former NBA social media manager, Dean Joannou, explained on the league’s Facebook account months after leaving his former employer. After some brief guerilla advertising for his own media consulting business, Joannou explained the conditions that led him to quit.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Radio New Zealand: Google offshoot ‘X’ lobbies NZ government over electricity projects. “An offshoot of Google has lobbied the government hard over electricity projects and had multiple meetings with Minister of Energy Megan Woods. Woods initiated the meetings and was ‘very excited’ by the huge US company’s so-called ‘moonshot’ ideas.”

Radio Nigeria: Somalia bans TikTok, Telegram over indecent contents. “Somalia has banned TikTok, messaging app Telegram and online betting website 1XBet to limit the spread of indecent content and propaganda. Somalia Communications Minister, Jama Hassan Khalif said members of the insurgent group al Shabaab and immoral groups use apps to spread constant horrific images and misinformation to the public.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NewsWise: New study shows algorithms promote bias–and that consumers cooperate. “Every time you engage with Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Netflix and other online sites, algorithms are busy behind the scenes chronicling your activities and queuing up recommendations tailored to what they know about you. The invisible work of algorithms and recommendation systems spares people from a deluge of information and ensures they receive relevant responses to searches. But Sachin Banker says a new study shows that subtle gender biases shape the information served up to consumers.”

WIRED: Use of AI Is Seeping Into Academic Journals—and It’s Proving Difficult to Detect. “IN ITS AUGUST edition, Resources Policy, an academic journal under the Elsevier publishing umbrella, featured a peer-reviewed study about how ecommerce has affected fossil fuel efficiency in developing nations. But buried in the report was a curious sentence: ‘Please note that as an AI language model, I am unable to generate specific tables or conduct tests, so the actual results should be included in the table.'”

USC Viterbi School of Engineering: AI That Teaches Other AI. “A new USC study finds that by sharing knowledge with each other at the same time, AI agents can quickly learn a wider range of tasks, with applications in medicine and beyond.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 24, 2023 at 05:29PM
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Massachusetts Police Misconduct, Microplastics Database, AI-Generated Images, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 23, 2023

Massachusetts Police Misconduct, Microplastics Database, AI-Generated Images, More: Wednesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 23, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Worcester Telegram: Mass. POST Commission releases police discipline database; 46 Worcester officers included. “The Massachusetts Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission on Tuesday morning released a database containing 3,413 disciplinary records involving law enforcement officers from across the state dating to December 1984, including 71 records involving 46 current or former Worcester police officers.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

NOAA: Sail & Explore Association Partnership Expands Microplastics Database. “The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) archives data collected by a variety of scientists and institutions. The partnership between NCEI and nonprofit organization Sail & Explore Association has improved and expanded the Marine Microplastics database. The goal of this partnership is to not only expand the database, but to establish a diverse international community of public users and data providers.”

Designboom: AI has generated 150 years worth of photographs in less than 12 months, study shows. “Stock image search engine Everypixel released a detailed report that quantifies that growing phenomenon with a rough estimate: In only 12 months, text-to-image algorithms generated over 150 billion images. ‘Since the launch of DALL·E 2, people are creating an average of 34 million images daily,’ writes Everypixel. According to the report, it took us humans 150 years to amass 10% (15 billion) of that mark, demonstrating the incredible — and equally alarming — power of machine learning.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Tom’s Hardware: Google’s AI Bots Tout ‘Benefits’ of Genocide, Slavery, Fascism, Other Evils . ‘For example, when I went to Google.com and asked “was slavery beneficial” on a couple of different days, Google’s SGE gave the following two sets of answers which list a variety of ways in which this evil institution was “good” for the U.S. economy. The downsides it lists are not human suffering or hundreds of years of racism, but that “slave labor was inefficient” or that it “impeded the southern economy.”’

New York Times: After Vice’s Downfall, Top Journalists Start Their Own Tech Publication . “After watching Vice Media descend into bankruptcy this spring, a group of journalists from its popular tech brand, Motherboard, decided that the best way to do their work in a financially sustainable way was to strike out on their own. And so 404 Media was born.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Sneaky Amazon Google ad leads to Microsoft support scam. “A legitimate-looking ad for Amazon in Google search results redirects visitors to a Microsoft Defender tech support scam that locks up their browser.”

BBC: Baghdad advertising boards turned off over porn screening. “Iraqi officials have ordered all electronic advertising screens to be shut down in Baghdad after a hacker used one to show a pornographic film. It happened at a major road junction in the Iraqi capital. Videos have been shared widely on social media. A man has been arrested in connection with the incident, police say.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

SiliconAngle: Harvard researchers clone supercomputer on Google Cloud. “Researchers at Harvard University have used Google LLC’s public cloud infrastructure platform to create a clone of a supercomputer that was used to perform a heart disease study. They claim it’s a highly original use of cloud computing resources that can help other researchers who are struggling to access powerful supercomputers to complete their studies.”

Mashable: Your mental health internet search may lead to malware. “New research conducted by Beyond Identity, a passwordless identity management provider, analyzed high-volume mental health search terms and found that many of them involve an elevated risk of encountering links leading to software that can steal data or damage your device or network.”

Newswise: Rediscovering the joy of music collection. “A series of three studies led by Prof. Ofer Bergman from Bar-Ilan University in Israel has uncovered a fascinating relationship between music collection and listening enjoyment in the era of streaming music. The studies shed light on the impact of streaming applications on the subjective evaluation of music and suggest that rediscovering the act of music collecting can significantly enhance the overall listening experience.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 24, 2023 at 12:19AM
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BluegrassArchive, Congress.gov Public Forum, Twitter, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, August 23, 2023

BluegrassArchive, Congress.gov Public Forum, Twitter, More: Wednesday ResearchBuzz, August 23, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

NEW RESOURCES

Discovered on Mastodon: BluegrassArchive.com ( https://bluegrassarchive.com/ ). This Web site is plain as plain (just fine!) and filled with music. It’s a list of bluegrass music artists and live concerts for which you can get recordings. Click on the name of the artist and you’ll get a directory list of folders, one per concert. The folders I looked at had concerts divided up into songs. The audio files are in FLAC format. I looked up Carolina Chocolate Drops, and they had dozens of concerts available.

EVENTS

Library of Congress: Join Us for a Congress.gov Public Forum on September 13th!. “We are pleased to announce that we are holding a “Congress.gov Public Forum” in the Mumford Room, which is located in the Madison Building, on September 13th, 2023, from 1-3 p.m. EDT. If you are a professional or a concerned citizen who uses Congress.gov regularly to keep up with the latest federal legislative activity, we want to hear from you!” The event will also be available via Zoom.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: X tests removing headlines from links to news articles. “X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, is testing stripping headlines from articles shared on the site. The move was initially reported by Fortune, before X owner Elon Musk confirmed it directly. Posts would only include the lead image and the URL, unless the person or publisher posting the link adds their own text, per materials the outlet viewed.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNBC: Google executive turnover and role changes come as the company searches for new identity. “Key members of Google’s old guard have been shifting roles or leaving the company as it searches for its new identity. The changes encompass high-profile executives such as finance chief Ruth Porat, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and employee No. 8, Urs Hölzle, among others. Some say they have left their roles for a new challenge and others have left to seek opportunities in artificial intelligence.” I have a comment for this but my keyboard keeps catching fire. Oh well.

Gizmodo: ‘I Was Shadowbanned:’ How Hinge’s Algorithm Decides Who You Date . “A lot of online daters think Hinge and other dating apps are keeping them from seeing or matching with the most appealing singles. Anthony isn’t the only one. I talked to another man who said he an identical experience but asked not to be quoted, and it’s not just frustrated guys either. Five women who spoke to me for this story swore that Hinge and other dating apps withhold their most attractive prospects. Some said it’s their own accounts being hidden from other users. And social media is full of people across the gender spectrum describing dating app shadowbans, sometimes offering tips and techniques to escape the algorithm.”

Washington University in St. Louis: New Grant to Preserve Born-Digital Poetry. “The Washington University Libraries were awarded a two-year grant by the Mellon Foundation to support an exploration of essential questions surrounding the acquisition, discoverability, preservation, and use of born-digital poetry collections. The $250,000 award will enable the University Libraries to develop online resources and systems to process, preserve, and steward the collections of a new generation of digital-native poets.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: Scammers Used ChatGPT to Unleash a Crypto Botnet on X . “Researchers at Indiana University Bloomington discovered a botnet powered by ChatGPT operating on X—the social network formerly known as Twitter—in May of this year. The botnet, which the researchers dub Fox8 because of its connection to cryptocurrency websites bearing some variation of the same name, consisted of 1,140 accounts. Many of them seemed to use ChatGPT to craft social media posts and to reply to each other’s posts. The auto-generated content was apparently designed to lure unsuspecting humans into clicking links through to the crypto-hyping sites.”

Techdirt: HP Fails To Dodge Lawsuit Over Blocking Users From Using Their Printer Scanner If Ink Cartridges Aren’t Installed. “In 2022 HP was also hit with a lawsuit (pdf) for preventing scanners from working without sanctioned ink cartridges installed, and not being transparent about this with customers. HP has spent a few years trying to wiggle out of the suit, but hasn’t had much luck. Last week, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman ruled that the case could proceed.”

TorrentFreak: ‘Z-Library ‘Fugitives’ Should Be Brought to Trial in The United States’. “The U.S. has responded to a motion to dismiss submitted a few weeks ago by two arrested operators of Z-Library. According to the prosecution, the Russian defendants are fugitives because they continue to protest their extradition to the United States. As such, they should not be allowed to request a dismissal from the U.S. judicial system they are trying to avoid.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Stanford University: Gauging the ‘subscription economy’ boon to companies. “A new study co-authored by Stanford economists Liran Einav and Neale Mahoney examines how much companies gain when customers aren’t paying attention… Einav and Mahoney find that business revenues are from 14 percent to more than 200 percent higher than they would be if consumers were more proactive about managing their unwanted accounts.”

The Conversation: How Ukraine’s savvy official social media rallied the world and raised the bar for national propaganda. “We decided to study all of the posts that the Ukrainian government and the city of Kyiv posted to their official Twitter accounts during the first days of the Russian invasion. We found that the governments strategically used the platform as a form of crisis communication and public diplomacy. While Ukraine was battling the Russian army on its land, it was also fighting for the hearts and minds of people following the conflict on social media from afar.”

Harvard Gazette: Mental health ills are rising. Do mood-tracking apps help?. “Jukka-Pekka Onnela is an associate professor of biostatistics and co-director of the Master of Science in Health Data Science program in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He studies how data collected from digital devices can help us understand our social interactions, behavior, and moods. The Gazette spoke with Onnela to better understand how the mood tracking works. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 23, 2023 at 05:29PM
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Twitter, LibreOffice, Interactive Learning, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2023

Twitter, LibreOffice, Interactive Learning, More: Tuesday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: X’s new mobile logo looks like bad distressed jeans. “Elon Musk’s X — the app formally known as Twitter — has updated the logo for its app to look like distressed jeans from the ’90s. The initial X logo replaced the iconic Twitter bird with an X that had a striking resemblance to the font Monotype. Now, Musk’s X has updated the app’s logo to have a distressed look. Why a microblogging app should be distressed like a pair of black jeans in the ’90s, no one knows. But here’s the new look.”

How-To Geek: LibreOffice 7.6 is Now Available: Here’s What’s New. “LibreOffice is a popular open-source software suite, serving as a replacement for Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other applications. It’s a great option if you want to edit documents and spreadsheets without paying a subscription for Microsoft 365, especially since LibreOffice has more features and supports more file formats than many other free alternatives. The Document Foundation has now released LibreOffice 7.6 across all platforms, making the office suite even better.”

USEFUL STUFF

Hongkiat: 9 Best Education Apps for Interactive Learning in 2023. “Ever found yourself frustrated that a simple Google search doesn’t quite cut it? Or perhaps you’re someone with an insatiable curiosity, constantly seeking new knowledge? You’re in good company, and the great news is that our smartphones are now more than just communication devices; they can be our personal learning guides. Yes, education apps have arrived, and they have the potential to revolutionize how we acquire new skills and knowledge, one app at a time.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Verge: Microsoft says listing the Ottawa Food Bank as a tourist destination wasn’t the result of ‘unsupervised AI’. “The ‘human oversight’ curating algorithmic content on MSN somehow missed a list of tourist hot spots that put the food bank at number three.’

CNN: Meet Khan Academy’s chatbot tutor. “More than 8,000 teachers and students will test education nonprofit Khan Academy’s artificial intelligence tutor in the classroom this upcoming school year, toying with its interactive features and funneling feedback to Khan Academy if the AI botches an answer. The chatbot, Khanmigo, offers individualized guidance to students on math, science and humanities problems; a debate tool with suggested topics like student debt cancellation and AI’s impact on the job market; and a writing tutor that helps the student craft a story, among other features.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Search Engine Journal: Is Google Collecting Children’s Data For Ads? New Report Sparks Concern. “A new report accuses Google of serving targeted ads to children and harvesting their data, potentially violating federal privacy laws. The allegations cast doubt on Google’s previous promises to protect children better online.”

Krebs on Security: Karma Catches Up to Global Phishing Service 16Shop. “The international police organization INTERPOL said last week it had shuttered the notorious 16Shop, a popular phishing-as-a-service platform launched in 2017 that made it simple for even complete novices to conduct complex and convincing phishing scams. INTERPOL said authorities in Indonesia arrested the 21-year-old proprietor and one of his alleged facilitators, and that a third suspect was apprehended in Japan.”

Vice: An Online Prophet With a Huge Following Has Been Convicted of Child Abuse. “Rashad Jamal, a New Age prophet with a huge online following among esoteric Black communities, has been convicted of child molestation and cruelty to children. According to court documents obtained by Motherboard, a Georgia judge sentenced him to 18 years in prison and 22 more on probation, for a total of 40 years.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: What if You Knew What You Were Missing on Social Media?. “The Twitter takeover has been a public reckoning with algorithmic control, but any tech company could do something similar. To prevent those who would hijack algorithms for power, we need a pro-choice movement for algorithms. We, the users, should be able to decide what we read at the newsstand.”

Duke University: How to Depolarize Political Toxicity on Social Media. “While social media is often blamed for exacerbating incivility and partisan polarization, research led by Duke University scholars found that anonymous online conversations using a mobile chat platform they developed can reduce political polarization. The research also showed how varying levels of anonymity can shape conversations about politics.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 23, 2023 at 12:13AM
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Twitter, Pinterest, Dax Sorrenti, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2023

Twitter, Pinterest, Dax Sorrenti, More: Tuesday ResearchBuzz, August 22, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: X glitch wipes out most pictures and links tweeted before December 2014. “Ellen’s famous ‘most retweeted’ selfie from the 2014 Oscars has had its image restored, but most old tweets have broken short links instead of the media or links that should be there.”

Boing Boing: Twitter sinks in app store ranking and general findability after “X” rebrand. “Twitter, or “X” as it’s now supposed to be called, has suffered a ‘dramatic decrease’ in its popularity on app stores and in other measures of online findability. Searching for the old name, still in wide use among confused normies and indifferent users, now brings up ads from competitors and hinky SEO plays for the abandoned brand. Searching for X, if you’re even doing it? Good luck!”

TechCrunch: Pinterest rolls out new teen safety features, including wiping followers from users 15 and under . “Pinterest today introduced a series of new safety features aimed at better protecting teens using its service. The features — which include things like private profiles, more control over followers, and message safety controls — are similar to those introduced on other popular social media platforms with teens, like Instagram.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

North Shore News: One YouTuber is saving and sharing Vancouver TV from the 80s and 90s. “The nostalgia of 80s and 90s TV in Vancouver is being preserved on a YouTube channel. RetroVancouver, run by Dax Sorrenti, has become the home to commercials and clips from the pre-Internet decades that many remember but may not be able to find online. Sorrenti says he runs the account to give people a chance to relive memories and the feeling of being younger.”

Wall Street Journal: How Dozens of Websites Sell Knock-Off Drugs, No Prescription Required. “The Wall Street Journal identified more than 50 websites selling semaglutide and tirzepatide, the active ingredients in Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro. Nearly all of them include disclaimers that the substances are ‘not for human consumption.’ But several also include instructions for how to prepare human doses, or sponsor online forums where people explain how to inject the substances.”

Digital Library of Georgia: Digital Library Of Georgia Awards Digitization Subgrants To 7 Georgia Cultural Heritage Institutions Across The State. “The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) announced today the 7 recipients of its latest set of digitization service awards. These awards expand the scope of the Georgia communities documented in the Digital Library of Georgia. Among the awardees are 5 new partners. Awardee projects include documentation of the Leo Frank trial and folk pottery of Northeast Georgia.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

San Francisco Chronicle: Hack of critical real estate tool upends Bay Area house showings. “A cyberattack on a software service used by real estate agents to track property listing data is in its second week, upending open house tours in San Francisco. ‘It is wreaking havoc everywhere,’ said David Bellings, an agent for 37 years. ‘It is disrupting and frustrating. Clients are asking for information and we just have to tell them we don’t have access.'”

Mashable: Which countries have banned TikTok?. “Beyond, across North America, Europe and Asia, several countries have implemented some level of restriction on the the app, largely over privacy and cybersecurity concerns connected to its parent company ByteDance, which has ties to the Chinese government. International government bodies including the European Commission and NATO have banned staff from using TikTok on their corporate phones, as have federal governments in countries across the globe. Here are the countries that have invoked partial or total bans on the app.”

The Register: Interpol arrests 14 who allegedly scammed $40m from victims in ‘cyber surge’. “An Interpol-led operation arrested 14 suspects and identified 20,674 ‘suspicious’ networks spanning 25 African countries that international cops have linked to more than $40 million in cybercrime losses.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Social media algorithms warp how people learn from each other, research shows. “People’s daily interactions with online algorithms affect how they learn from others, with negative consequences including social misperceptions, conflict and the spread of misinformation, my colleagues and I have found.”

University of Wisconsin-Madison: Study Finds Teens, Young Adults Benefit From Clinician Advice About Safe Social Media Use. “Teens and young adults who received a brief social media counseling session during a health care visit remembered the lessons and reported safer online behavior six months later, according to a large new study from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.”

Vanderbilt University: Guidance on AI Detection and Why We’re Disabling Turnitin’s AI Detector. “In April of this year, Turnitin released an update to their product that reviewed submitted papers and presented their determination of how much of a paper was written by AI. … After several months of using and testing this tool, meeting with Turnitin and other AI leaders, and talking to other universities who also have access, Vanderbilt has decided to disable Turnitin’s AI detection tool for the foreseeable future.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 22, 2023 at 05:30PM
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Amazon, YouTube Music, Adobe Illustrator Alternatives, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 21, 2023

Amazon, YouTube Music, Adobe Illustrator Alternatives, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, August 21, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: Amazon is reportedly testing a confusing star rating system. “Amazon has started testing a new way to display its star rating system in specific regions that makes it harder to gauge how buyers are liking a specific product. Android Police has spotted the the experimental system on the company’s mobile app in India, its German website and its global website when accessed from Germany.”

How-To Geek: YouTube Music’s New “Samples” Will Help You Find New Songs. “TikTok has been such a runaway success that many other apps have implemented similar short-form videos, from Instagram Reels to YouTube Shorts. Google is now experimenting with them in YouTube Music, the company’s music streaming service, with the introduction of ‘Samples.'”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: The 9 Best Free Browser-Based Adobe Illustrator Alternatives. “Adobe Illustrator is the default choice for anyone who needs high-quality graphic design software. But Adobe’s subscription model is pretty expensive, and you can’t use Illustrator online—it only works on Windows and Mac. If you’re a hobbyist on a budget, use Linux or a Chromebook, or want a more mobile option, what can you do? Fortunately, there are plenty of free, browser-based Adobe Illustrator alternatives you can try.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Verge: Linus Tech Tips pauses production as controversy swirls. “Linus Sebastian’s Linus Media Group YouTube empire is currently in crisis, with accusations of theft, lapses in ethics, and most recently, allegations of sexual harassment. The company has currently paused all production to improve its review processes, and CEO Terren Tong tells The Verge an outside investigator will be hired to examine the harassment allegations.”

MuckRock: Call for Proposals: Better ways to help collect, understand and preserve the public’s documents. “MuckRock’s first two rounds of Gateway Grantees are using DocumentCloud to reveal those secretly profiting from the destruction of Brazil’s rainforests, probe police misconduct in Chicago and much more. Now’s your chance to pitch a project that uses primary source documents to help inform and strengthen the public while leveraging AI, distributed storage and other leading technologies, baked right into DocumentCloud. Selected projects will receive funding of up to $50,000 as well as technical and editorial support.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

New York Times: In a War of Tanks, Ukrainian Soldiers Play World of Tanks Online. “Somewhere along the several hundred miles of front line in Ukraine, a Ukrainian soldier is probably playing World of Tanks — the video game. A war hero recently admitted to gaming although he had to open a new account when he lost his login information. During training in June, border guards outside Bakhmut, where one of the war’s bloodiest battles was fought, were found playing. And a tank crew seen grabbing a quick lunch last year had slapped a World of Tanks logo on the hull of its T-80 main battle tank.”

Ars Technica: Roblox facilitates “illegal gambling” for minors, according to new lawsuit. “A new proposed class-action lawsuit (as noticed by Bloomberg Law) accuses user-generated ‘metaverse’ company Roblox of profiting from and helping to power third-party websites that use the platform’s Robux currency for unregulated gambling activities. In doing so, the lawsuit says Roblox is effectively ‘work[ing] with and facilitat[ing] the Gambling Website Defendants… to offer illegal gambling opportunities to minor users.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CityAM: How bots came to rule the world, from Ticketmaster to global elections. “Bots are not only a problem on social media: they shape retailers like Ticketmaster and can influence politics, including global elections. Yet the danger they pose is underestimated, writes Elena Siniscalco.”

Washington Post: Revealing The Smithsonian’s ‘Racial Brain Collection’. “The vast majority of the remains appear to have been gathered without consent from the individuals or their families, by researchers preying on people who were hospitalized, poor, or lacked immediate relatives to identify or bury them. In other cases, collectors, anthropologists and scientists dug up burial grounds and looted graves. The Natural History Museum has lagged in its efforts to return the vast majority of the remains in its possession to descendants or cultural heirs, The Post’s investigation found. Of at least 268 brains collected by the museum, officials have repatriated only four.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

University of York: Digital puzzle games could be good for memory in older adults, study shows . “Older adults who play digital puzzle games have the same memory abilities as people in their 20s, a new study has shown. The study, from the University of York, also found that adults aged 60 and over who play digital puzzle games had a greater ability to ignore irrelevant distractions, but older adults who played strategy games did not show the same improvements in memory or concentration.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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August 22, 2023 at 12:43AM
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2023 National Book Festival, Farmer Funding Opportunities, Reddit, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 21, 2023

2023 National Book Festival, Farmer Funding Opportunities, Reddit, More: Monday ResearchBuzz, August 21, 2023
By ResearchBuzz

If you’re a Mastodon user and you want an easy way to follow Mastodon accounts while Web browsing, check out this bookmarklet I made: https://github.com/ResearchBuzz/Mastodon-Follow-Bookmarklet .

NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: Tens of Thousands Join 2023 Library of Congress National Book Festival. “Tens of thousands of book lovers joined the Library of Congress National Book Festival in person on Aug. 12 at the Washington Convention Center, including capacity crowds on numerous stages. Videos of select stages are now available, and individual presentations will be made available on demand on the festival’s website beginning the week of Aug. 21.”

National Center for Appropriate Technology: Farmer Funding Opportunities Database Launched . “Community Alliance with Family Farmers has launched a new Farmer Funding Opportunities Database, available online in English and Spanish. The database offers listings for grant programs and cost-share opportunities for farmers and local food systems.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: One surviving Reddit app plans to charge based on how much you use it. “The developer Relay for Reddit, of one of the remaining third-party Reddit apps for Android, detailed the potential prices for planned subscriptions for the app in a new post on Thursday. The costs of a subscription will go up based on a user’s daily average number of API calls, essentially meaning that the more things a person does in the app, the more they might have to pay.”

Google Blog: Announcing the new Transparency Center. “Today, we’re launching the Transparency Center — a central hub for you to learn more about our product policies. The Transparency Center collects existing resources and policies, and was designed with you in mind, providing easy access to information on our policies, how we create and enforce them, and much more.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Federal News Network: As free press withers in El Salvador, pro-government social media influencers grow in power. “[Douglas] Guzmán is part of an expanding network of social media personalities acting as a megaphone for the millennial leader. At the same time [Nayib] Bukele has cracked down on the press, his government has embraced those influencers. As the president seeks to hold onto power, he has harnessed that flood of pro-Bukele content slowly turning his Central American nation into an informational echo chamber.”

Public Radio of Armenia: 32 films to be digitized on 100th anniversary of Armenian cinema. “Five full-length feature films, 10 documentaries and 17 animated shorts will be digitized on the 100th anniversary of Armenian cinema and 85th anniversary of Armenian animation, the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport informs.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Hollywood Reporter: AI-Created Art Isn’t Copyrightable, Judge Says in Ruling That Could Give Hollywood Studios Pause. “A federal judge on Friday upheld a finding from the U.S. Copyright Office that a piece of art created by AI is not open to protection. The ruling was delivered in an order turning down Stephen Thaler’s bid challenging the government’s position refusing to register works made by AI.”

WIRED: How an Iowa School District Used ChatGPT to Ban Books. “Using ChatGPT’s guidance, the Mason City Community School District removed 19 titles—including Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Toni Morrison’s Beloved—from its library shelves. But there is another truth: Educators who must comply with vague laws about ‘age-appropriate’ books with ‘descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act’ have only so many options.”

Bleeping Computer: WinRAR flaw lets hackers run programs when you open RAR archives. “A high-severity vulnerability has been fixed in WinRAR, the popular file archiver utility for Windows used by millions, that can execute commands on a computer simply by opening an archive. The flaw is tracked as CVE-2023-40477 and could give remote attackers arbitrary code execution on the target system after a specially crafted RAR file is opened.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PLOS Absolutely Maybe: How Is Science Twitter’s “Mastodon Migration” Panning Out?. “This mid-year activity surge at Mastodon is driven, like surges before it, partly by people joining, and partly by people returning to their dormant accounts. They’re joining, or returning to, a Mastodon that’s changing, and not just because there’s more people and more activity.”

The Conversation: How ChatGPT might be able to help the world’s poorest and the organisations that work with them. “We are associated with Friend in Need India Trust (FIN), a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in an isolated fishing village named Kameswaram in Tamil Nadu state. FIN wages a daily battle against women’s lack of empowerment, pollution and a lack of functioning sanitation. These problems and others act as key obstacles to local economic development. Recently a FIN colleague, Dr Raja Venkataramani, returned from the US keen to discuss ChatGPT. He wondered whether the AI chatbot could help to create awareness, motivation and community engagement towards our sustainability goals in Kameswaram.”

NoCamels: New Web App Gives A Voice To People With Speech Impairment. “Voiceitt 2, developed by Voiceitt, lets people with speech disabilities speak spontaneously and be understood by others. It translates their non-standard speech into standard speech, and enables them to transcribe their conversations. It also integrates with AI assistants like ChatGPT and can even be added to video meetings to provide captioning and real time transcriptions.” Good morning, Internet…

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August 21, 2023 at 05:31PM
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