NEW RESOURCES

GameUp 24: Massive Miiverse archive goes online with 17 TB worth of posts. “Miiverse, Nintendo’s ’empathy network’ that let players share messages and drawings via the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, shut down in November, bringing five years of Nintendo-style social networking to an end. Nintendo fans quickly scrambled to archive that content, and thanks to those preservation efforts, you can revisit Miiverse (unofficially) any time you want.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Genealogy ala carte: Hallelujah! Parliament removes future restrictions on access to Canadian census. “As Leonard Cohen wrote, Hallelujah! Genealogists 95 years from now will have access to ALL of the 2021 Canada census results, thanks to the many genealogists who participated in the email campaign. Hallelujah! Canadian Parliament recently passed legislation to remove any restrictions on access to the census after 92 years for the 2021 Census and beyond. This is great news for future genealogists and researchers.”

Linux Journal: Now What?. “Linux Journal was a print magazine for 17+ years, then a digital one for the next 7+. What shall we be now? That’s the Big Question, and there are many answers, some of which are already settled.”

USEFUL STUFF

Techradar: Here are the best ways to backup photos. “Digital photography has many advantages over traditional film, but unfortunately, security isn’t really one of them. Unlike prints or negatives, digital images can be lost forever in a catastrophic hard drive failure, or even accidentally deleted with a few clicks of the mouse. Here are a few ways for Apple users to make sure those digital memories don’t vanish before their eyes.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Digital Trends: Logan Paul’s graphic YouTube video may have cleared initial human reviewers. “The video immediately drew criticism, but now a Twitter user working as a YouTube trusted flagger claims the video was flagged by users, but that review staff approved the video after a manual review. YouTube confirmed that the video was against the platform’s policies for graphic content but did not comment on whether or not the video passed an initial manual review.”

Engadget: Canada will track suicide risk through social media with AI. “The Canadian government is partnering with AI firm Advanced Symbolics to try to predict rises in regional suicide risk by monitoring social media posts. Advanced Symbolics will analyze posts from 160,000 social media accounts and will look for suicide trends. The company aims to be able to predict which areas of Canada might see an increase in suicidal behavior, which according to the contract document includes ‘ideation (i.e., thoughts), behaviors (i.e., suicide attempts, self-harm, suicide) and communications (i.e., suicidal threats, plans).’ With that knowledge, the Canadian government could make sure more mental health resources are in the right places when needed.”

The Guardian: Stasi files: scanner struggles to stitch together surveillance state scraps. “The world’s biggest jigsaw puzzle may have to be solved by hand, as technology struggles to piece together millions of Stasi files ripped to shreds in the dying days of the East German regime. The government-funded Stasi records agency confirmed this week that it had had to halt an €8m (£7m) project to digitally reassemble the contents of 23 bags stuffed with torn-up documents detailing the activity of the secret police, because the scanning hardware it was using was not advanced enough.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Verge: Microsoft issues emergency Windows update for processor security bugs. “Microsoft is issuing a rare out-of-band security update to supported versions of Windows today. The software update is part of a number of fixes that will protect against a newly-discovered processor bug in Intel, AMD, and ARM chipsets. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company will issue a Windows update that will be automatically applied to Windows 10 machines at 5PM ET / 2PM PT today.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

ACLU: New Documents Underscore Problems of ‘Social Media Vetting’ of Immigrants. “The Trump administration is moving forward with its social media vetting initiatives despite the absence of any evidence that they can be carried out fairly and effectively. In February 2017, the DHS inspector general issued a report raising concerns that pilot programs for monitoring immigrants’ social media lacked criteria for measuring their success. It also highlighted the difficulty of analyzing the massive amounts of data gleaned from social media data dumps. These concerns appear to have been ignored.”

The Times: Children link self-worth to ‘likes’ on social media. “Eleven-year-old children are starting secondary school desperate for validation through social media ‘likes’ and comments, research has found. Children whose parents share pictures or videos of them online are often left embarrassed but feel unable to ask that they are removed. The practice, known as ‘sharenting’, has been found to make younger children self-conscious and worried that images posted by their parents would cause them to be laughed at by peers.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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