(I snuck in some time to start clearing out my mail and check my RSS feeds, so here’s an issue. Enjoy the 2am ResearchBuzz!)
The US Army Field Artillery School has new online finding aids for its archival collections.
Interesting: Using Facebook to predict and map obesity in the United States: “The higher the percentage of people in a city, town or neighborhood with Facebook interests suggesting a healthy, active lifestyle, the lower that area’s obesity rate. At the same time, areas with a large percentage of Facebook users with television-related interests tend to have higher rates of obesity. Such are the conclusions of a study by Boston Children’s Hospital researchers comparing geotagged Facebook user data with data from national and New York City-focused health surveys.”
The Arkansas History Commission has launched an online index of Arkansas deaths, 1819-1920. “Designed to supplement Arkansas’s vital records service which began in 1914, In Remembrance provides researchers with the location of death records in early Arkansas. The data have been collected from numerous sources including church publications, cemetery records, mortality censuses, newspaper obituaries, or county and local records from the AHC’s extensive holdings.”
Also Arkansas: Arkansas.gov has announced a redesign.
While going through my (extremely neglected) personal e-mail, I found out about a charming Tumblr from Erik Kwakkel, a Medieval book historian at Leiden University, The Netherlands. One recent post discusses a discovery of 132 notes and small bits of paper which were recycled as book boards. Other entries look at doodles in medieval margins, a chained library, and letters with faces. A great Tumblr.
David Rumsey’s huge, amazing historical map collection will now be available via the Digital Public Library of America — and the DPLA’s API.
Oooh, ScraperWiki is now offering free community accounts! Rarely have I regretted so much the lack of 48 hours in a day. (If you want some background on ScraperWiki, here’s a good article.)
There is a new database available that tracks pending energy-related legislation in all 50 US states. “The database, called the Advanced Energy Legislation Tracker, was co-created by the Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) and the Center for the New Energy Economy (CNEE) at Colorado State University…. The database not only is tracking more than 2,000 bills across the country that could impact how consumers produce, buy and use energy, but it also conducts analysis of policy trends…”
WordPress 3.6 beta 3 is now available.
Mmmkay. Bing is going to add Klingon to its translator. “The Bing service will translate text written in any one of 41 supported languages — including English, French, Hebrew and Urdu — into Klingon. Fear not, native Klingon speakers: words or phrases written in that language can be translated into the more than three dozen available tongues.”
Meanwhile, Google Translate has passed 70 languages with the addition of another five.
More Google: Google has aggregated its storage offerings. Now you get 15GB of space to use between GMail, Drive, and Google Plus Photos. Pardon me if I don’t sound too excited about this; I have 25GB for Gmail as part of my Google Apps account and it’s already 48% full — 15GB feels cramped.
Because I know how much you hate being productive, here’s a story about a Breakout Easter egg hidden inside Google’s image search. Hey Google, do Tempest, that was my favorite back in the day. Good morning, Internet…
Categories: morningbuzz
Glad you’re back! This blog is invaluable.