NEW RESOURCES

There is now an open access archive for the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (at the Thorvaldsen Museum, natch.) “Apart from letters and workshop accounts, the site also includes poems, articles on Thorvaldsen, lists of artworks, notes, travel permits, recommendations, dedications in books, memos, and many other types of written sources on the sculptor’s life and art.”

Google has launched Chrome Music Lab, a showcase for musical experiments. Note: I could not get this site to load until I disabled uBlock Origin. “Chrome Music Lab is a collection of experiments that let anyone, at any age, explore how music works. They’re collaborations between musicians and coders, all built with the freely available Web Audio API. These experiments are just a start. Check out each experiment to find open-source code you can use to build your own.”

Wow! I am really looking forward to this digitizing of Cash Box magazine! “The Swem Library at the College of William & Mary in Virginia has received a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to digitize its entire run of Cash Box, a music trade magazine published from 1942 to 1996. Swem Library is partnering with the Internet Archive, to scan all 190,000 pages of the 163-volume collection and create an online portal for reading and downloading the digital images.” The project was started last month and will be finished by the end of the year.

If you’re one of those people who likes political news, Dave Winer has set up a politics flow on his Newsriver service. It’s a bunch of RSS feeds aggregated into one big “river” of news. Doesn’t seem to slant too much one way or the other. If you’re not interested in politics but you are interested in news, check out the other Newsriver offerings.

TWEAKS & UPDATES

Flickr has updated its tag pages. “We’ve got a new tags page that will show in real time what tags are trending, a window into what tags our community are using at this moment. Popular subjects, world events and celebrations, themes – the zeitgeist of what you are communicating through your images is right here. The main page shows a slice of what is trending today and this week, as well as the top tags used on Flickr overall.” There’s more updates too, but I found that one the most compelling.

You can now create a Yahoo account without having to create a Yahoo e-mail address. This is a welcome change, and probably years too late. It doesn’t look like you can use this new account on all Yahoo properties yet: “We want to make it as delightful as possible for users to sign up, sign in, and stay signed in because this lets us deliver the best possible experience. Starting with Yahoo Fantasy Sports, like Tourney Pick’em, we’ve upped the ante with this new registration experience and will roll this into other Yahoo products soon.”

It looks like Google might be taking a harder line against Bloggers who review products given to them for free but don’t disclose that fact. “Google has published on their webmaster blog a notice that bloggers who receive free or gifted products from brands or manufacturers should make sure to follow some ‘best practices’ to ensure they do not get penalized by Google.” Guideline #3 is: “Create compelling, unique content so that it adds value beyond what is out on the web. Google said you should ‘provide exclusive content that only you can create due to your unique expertise or resources.'” The first thing I thought when I saw that was, “I wonder how Google scraping content from Hell to breakfast and putting it in an Answer Box counts as exclusive content?” Then I went and took an aspirin.

USEFUL STUFF

Need a little boost to get off Facebook and back to work? Here’s a Chrome extension for you. Warning, bad words, which I am bleeping. “Go *ing Work turns every new tab page into a reminder that, well, you should really get back to work. By blanking out your whole tab—aside from a message in huge text that you should ‘Work you *ing failure,’ or ‘*ing Work. Now.,’ consider the add-on a cruel taskmaster that’ll make sure you’re appropriately shamed into doing whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.” Obviously this is tough love, or perhaps tough *ing love…

Hongkiat has a really big roundup of URL-shortening services. (This is an old post but Hongkiat has recently updated it.)

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

South Korea’s Go Association thinks Google’s AlphaGo Go-playing AI is divine. That’s not a compliment, that’s a rank. “Google’s artificial intelligence program AlphaGo has been awarded the highest go grandmaster rank, reserved for those whose ability at the ancient board game borders on ‘divinity,’ South Korea’s Go Association said Tuesday.”

Are you using AdBlock Plus? Are you seeing error messages when you try to use YouTube? You’re not alone. “In our tests, the problem would only occur on Chrome with Adblock Plus, while Firefox with the extension installed would work just fine. Others have reported that the problem occurs in every browser. The issue appears to also only affect certain Google accounts, so some users have simply changed accounts to avoid the error.” I get that error occasionally, even using YouTube Red with no ad blocker, so…

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Dan Russell with a great piece: Why research skills matter more than ever. Yes! Everybody read this! Good morning, Internet…

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