NEW RESOURCES

Historic Environment Scotland: Newly digitised images tell story of rural Scotland in 1970s. “Two extensive surveys of rural Scotland undertaken during the 1970s are now more accessible to the public after a project by Historic Environment Scotland (HES) to digitise their archives. The Scottish Countryside Commission and the C-listed buildings surveys give an insight into life in Scotland during the 1970s and early 1980s. The surveyors were originally sent out to record architecture, however, the backdrop to their work is life in rural Scotland.”

This is from last month but I missed it and I must include it here because it’s AMAZING. From the Irish Times: Ireland’s darkest, oddest and weirdest secrets uncovered. “A worldwide crowdsourcing movement is currently unearthing Ireland’s deepest fairy secrets and darkest myths. A voluntary collective online is working its way through transcribing 700,000 pages of folklore that were collected throughout Ireland between 1937 and 1939. This mass of previously inaccessible material was gathered by more than 100,000 children who were sent to seek out the oldest person in their community just before second World War to root out the darkest, oddest and weirdest traditional beliefs, secrets and customs, which were then logged into 1,128 volumes, titled the Schools’ Manuscripts Collection.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Fast Company: New BuzzFeed Series Uses Social Media To Retell American History. “BuzzFeed is taking one of the most watershed years in American history and putting it through a mobile and social media lens with its new series Future History: 1968…. It was the year Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, Eartha Kitt was forced into exile after speaking her truth at the White House, and the U.S. and USSR were locked in the Space Race–all of which is chronicled in vertical screen episodes that use Instagram, YouTube, Google Maps, Twitter, and more to add a modern twist to documentary storytelling.”

BetaNews: Twitter bans Kaspersky Lab from buying ads. “Its software is already banned from US government computers, and now Kaspersky Lab’s advertisements have been banned from Twitter. The Russian security firm has been hit with an ad ban for ‘using a business model that inherently conflicts with acceptable Twitter Ads business practices’.” Whoa.

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: How To Survive A Facebook Hack. “Here we go again. Radware’s threat research group recently announced that more than 40,000 Facebook users were duped into downloading a ‘Relieve Stress Paint’ application, via a crafty phishing email, that stole their login credentials and browser cookies while they pretend-painted in the app. Worse, the attack was clever enough to avoid being flagged by a typical antivirus app. So, how can you keep your data safe in these instances? Let’s review…”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Magazine: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’. “Over the last few months, Select All has interviewed more than a dozen prominent technology figures about what has gone wrong with the contemporary internet for a project called ‘The Internet Apologizes.’ We’re now publishing lengthier transcripts of each individual interview. This interview features Dan McComas, the former senior vice-president for product of Reddit and the founder and CEO of Imzy, a community-focused platform.”

Reuters: Facebook’s damage limitation drive hits trouble in Germany. “Facebook’s attempt to limit fallout from a massive data breach hit trouble in Germany on Friday as a privacy watchdog opened a case against the social network and politicians accused its bosses of evasion.” a

The Atlantic: I Sat Through the First Stop on Facebook’s Feel-Good Road Show. “Some time ago, a man named Stephen found himself yearning for his home-state’s famous peaches. He’d grown up in Georgia, but lived in Nashville, Tennessee, where the peaches—desiccated, tasteless things—barely merited the name. Sensing a market, Stephen started selling Georgia peaches out of the back of his truck. The peach truck was a hit, as was Stephen’s subsequent online peach store. In just over a year, he saw his sales double. What was Stephen’s secret? He had bought a bunch of advertisements on Facebook.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

ProPublica: Chicago’s Gang Database Is Full of Errors — And Records We Have Prove It. “During January 1984, the Chicago Police Department labeled more than 700 people as suspected gang members following arrests for various crimes. One was in his early 30s and identified as a member of the Black P Stones. By last fall, nearly 34 years later, that individual was 77 — and still in what police commonly refer to as the department’s ‘gang database.'”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CBR: Facebook and Google “Inspired” $1.5 Trillion Dark Web Entrepreneurs. “Cybercrime revenues now rival the GDP output of major world economies at a colossal $1.5 trillion annually, according to an independent academic study published today. Surrey University’s Mike McGuire spent six months researching cybercrime profit distribution for his ‘Web of Profit’ report; speaking with GCHQ, the FBI, Europol, global financial institutions and covert security workers that have infiltrated the dark web.”

EurekAlert: A research study analyzes the influence of algorithms on online publicity and advertising . “When we look for information on the internet, buy online or use social networks we often see ads relating to our likes or profile. To what extent are these ads chosen by the web’s algorithms? A group of researchers are trying to answer this question under the name of «MyBubble», a science project from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and IMDEA Networks Institute.”

CBC: How a stationary bike, paired with Google Street View, helps seniors with dementia. “Residents at an Oshawa, Ont., retirement home are among the first people in the country to try an innovative therapy for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients called the BikeAround. The device combines a stationary bicycle, a dome-shaped projector and Google Street View technology. Users sit on the bike and are able to pedal through video of meaningful destinations — a childhood home, a vacation destination, the spot they were married — projected onto the screen in front of them.” Good morning, Internet…

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