afternoonbuzz

Battle of Guadalcanal, World News, Ken Young, More: Wednesday Afternoon Buzz, February 7, 2018

NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: New VHP Web Feature Marks 75th Anniversary of Guadalcanal Battle. “The Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project (VHP) today launched its new ‘Experiencing War’ website feature, titled ‘Guadalcanal: 75 Years Later,’ recognizing the anniversary of the end of the major World War II campaign known as the Battle of Guadalcanal. The feature highlights 12 digitized collections found in the VHP archive, each of which includes the first-person narrative of a veteran who fought in this epic, six-month offensive in the South Pacific during 1942 and 1943.”

Washington Post: The Washington Post and Berggruen Institute partner to publish The WorldPost. “The Washington Post and the Berggruen Institute have announced a new partnership to publish The WorldPost, with op-eds, videos and features by contributors writing in from around the world.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Canadian Running: Notable running statistician Ken Young dies . “Notable running statistician Ken Young died recently, Japan Running News reports. He was 76. Young co-founded the volunteer-run Association of Road Racing Statisticians, and, according to the website’s bio of Young, maintained the online database…of more than 400,000 runners. The database includes more than 1.2 million performances. The ARRS database is free to access.”

I got this from a Reddit post. “The US National archives have uploaded all of the outtakes from the 1944 documentary: “Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress”. B-17 combat operations over Europe. 34 reels of new WW2 footage.” If you go to the Reddit link you’ll see an embedded playlist of the new videos.

Human Rights Watch: US: Census Bot Tweets Immigrants’ Profiles. “Ongoing debates around US immigration policy should be squarely focused on the people whose rights and families are at stake, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch released an automated Twitter bot, @ImmigrantsAreUS, which is tweeting out profiles of some of the nearly 25 million non-citizens living in the US, both authorized and unauthorized, based on their responses to US Census Bureau surveys.”

USEFUL STUFF

BetaNews: Top 5 free data recovery tools for Windows. “In a sense it can be hard to judge the quality of a data recovery app. To a large degree success rates are determined by the quality of the data that you’re trying to recover. If you’re relying on software to get your data back, you will have to accept that there are some situations that apps simply cannot cope with — such as when data has been overwritten numerous times, or in the case of severe physical damage. You may still be able to get your data back by calling in the experts, but this can be an expensive option. It makes perfect sense to try going down the free route first of all, so here — in no particular order, as different situations require different apps — are five free data recovery tools that might just do the trick…”

Medium: The Comprehensive Guide to Getting Started in Virtual Reality. “This guide started as a personal collection of links, videos, and other resources for people who would ask me how to get started in the VR, whether the intent was to learn, share, or create. As an industry in its infancy undergoing rapid and constant change, the easier it is for new entrants to get caught up to speed, the better it is for all involved.” Minimal annotation but LOTS of links.

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Columbia Journalism Review: How Tom Tryniski digitized nearly 50 million pages of newspapers in his living room. “TOM TRYNISKI DOES NOT LOCK HIS DOORS. He spends most days sitting in his living room in Fulton, New York, 30 miles northwest of Syracuse, in front of two jumbo computer monitors, looking something like a security guard, but friendlier. He appears young for 68—skinny, with a head of white hair and an energetic demeanor. He wears a uniform of jeans and a slim-fitting T-shirt, but no coat in the chilly fall air. When we talk, he is almost always smirking.”

Wired: How Snapchat Is Sending #metoo Down The Memory Hole . “Just a decade ago, email’s technical and social protocols seemed permanent and universal; now, like countless technological institutions before them, their once-assured dominance has been replaced by an unstable messaging universe with none of the permanence and searchability of the email archives of old. Most of it is mobile-only, which prevents its contents from living on PC hard drives for years. What’s more, a growing subset of Snapchat-inspired messaging apps is deliberately ephemeral, with communications self-destructing after 24 hours or even immediately upon receipt.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Boing Boing: Cloudflare terminate Sci-Hub domains, declining to challenge court order. “Cloudflare has terminated service to Sci-Hub, the site that provides paywall-free access to virtually all scholarly work, citing Aaron Swartz as inspiration — Cloudflare previously serviced the sci-hub.la, sci-hub.tv, and sci-hub.tw domains, but in response to an injunction obtained by the American Chemical Society, they will no longer provide that service.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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