NEW RESOURCES

Global Times: Bibliothèque nationale de France donates digital versions of Dunhuang manuscripts to National Digital Library of China. “More than 5,300 digital copies of historical documents and more than 13,000 pictures related to the ancient grottoes in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, are now available on the website of the National Digital Library of China. After signing up, visitors can search and go through all these sources by simply clicking on the ancient books button.”

Little Black Book: Free The Bid Australia Debuts Women Directors Database. “Advocating on behalf of women directors for equal opportunities to bid on jobs in the film, advertising, and TV industries, Free The Bid Australia has launched its Women Directors Database in tandem with the global Free The Bid initiative and has unearthed one of the industry’s largest resources to connect with female directors working in Australian broadcast media.”

CBC News: B.C. government announces database for unlicensed daycare providers. “The B.C. government has introduced a bill that would give parents access to more information about who is caring for their kids. The proposed changes would make inspection reports and complaints about unlicensed daycare providers, accessible online for a minimum of five years. That information is already available for licensed spaces.” This was confusing for me initially because I equated “unlicensed” with “illegal,” but that is not the case in Canada. This discussion thread from WhatToExpect.com helped me fill in the blanks.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Next Web, and I apologize for censoring the heck out of this headline: Dictionary.com now explains slang like basic b*tch, cuck, and f*ckboy to normies. “Buckle up for the news of the century fam: Dictionary.com is upping its street cred with a bunch of new, funky-fresh slang definitions… This means you no longer have to sit around like a chump when the cool kids start dropping modern terminology at parties, nam sayin’. Instead, you can whip out your phone and and consult Dictonary.com for some turnt words you can use to show you’re truly part of the gang.” My favorite recently-learned slang is caping. It just means to defend someone/something, often mindlessly.

NPR: 21 Tech Companies Band Together Against Wildlife Trafficking. “The Global Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online, organized by Google and the World Wildlife Fund, was announced Wednesday morning. It includes companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, eBay, Facebook, Instagram and Microsoft, and they’re pledging to ‘work together to collectively reduce wildlife trafficking across platforms by 80% by 2020.'”

Reuters: Google Maps lets businesses promote themselves as women-led. ” Businesses can now describe themselves in Google Maps listings as being owned, led or founded by women, the Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) unit announced Wednesday.”

USEFUL STUFF

Popular Science: How to save all the cool posts you find on social media. “Once in a while, during your constant cycling through your social media feeds, you encounter a memorable tweet, Facebook post, or Instagram photo that you know you’ll want to revisit later. Maybe it speaks a profound truth or perhaps it makes you laugh until you cry—either way, you don’t want it to disappear into the stream of constant updates. That’s why you need the ability to bookmark posts.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Washington Post: User-Friendly Or Error-Ridden? Debate Swirls Around Website Comparing Nursing Homes . “Earlier this year, the state Department of Public Health launched a new website, Cal Health Find, intended to help people compare the quality of nursing homes and other health care facilities. Now, California nursing home advocates are calling on the state to take it down, saying the new site is incomplete, inaccurate and ‘a huge step in the wrong direction.'”

The Guardian: Sri Lanka blocks social media as deadly violence continues. “At least two people have been killed and eight others injured in anti-Muslim riots in a popular tourist district in central Sri Lanka as the government blocked Facebook and other social media services in an effort to quell the violence.”

The Hill: Russians collected Americans’ personal data through social media. “Facebook records viewed by the Journal confirm that Russian agents posed as organizations promoting African-American businesses in order to gain personal information from black business owners through social media conversations, building registries containing personal information of Americans across the country.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ZDNet: New documents reveal FBI paid Geek Squad repair staff as informants. “The relationship between the FBI and employees of Best Buy’s computer and device repair unit Geek Squad is more complex than first thought, according to newly released documents. Records posted Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation following a freedom of information lawsuit filed last year reveal that federal agents would pay Geek Squad managers who pass on information about illegal materials on devices sent in by customers for repairs.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Unredacted: FOIA: A Colossus Under Assault . “Far from being crippled and ineffective, as some have claimed, FOIA remains a colossus. It continues to give citizens a fighting chance to force their government to release documents that it would rather hide. But we would be lying if we did not admit that the Freedom of Information Act has been chipped away at and weakened –often by the very people and agencies supposedly charged with enforcing it– for decades. Some fixes to this will be relatively easy; others are needed, but will not likely be made in the foreseeable future.” Good morning, Internet…

Do you like ResearchBuzz? Does it help you out? Please consider supporting it on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I love your comments, I love your site suggestions, and I love you. Feel free to comment on the blog, or @ResearchBuzz on Twitter. Thanks!