NEW RESOURCES

Daily Times: After Zamindar, PUCIT launches digital archives of Urdu paper Inqilab. “The Punjab University College of Information Technology (PUCIT) has launched digital archives of Inqilab, a famous Lahore-based Urdu newspaper started in 1922…. The college had also launched the digital archives of Zamindar earlier this year as part of a larger effort to make a digital library of historical documents and make it available to public at large free of cost.”

The Hindu: This archival project wants you to talk to your grandparents. “Mumbai-based Malvika Bhatia is putting together a public archive of India’s history as told by its oldest citizens. I catch Malvika Bhatia on a busy day. She has just been granted access to the photo archive of politician Vijaylakshmi Pandit’s nephew, the scholar Gokul Pandit. As the project head at Citizens Archive of India (CAI), Bhatia pieces together scraps of history and memorabilia to present a compelling portrait of India before independence.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: Rediscover Your Favorite Childhood Books on This Website. “What’s the name of that book, again? You know the one. From when we were kids. It was a children’s chapter book about a family that moves into an old schoolhouse? Still can’t remember? That’s where Stump the Bookseller comes in. Offered by Loganberry Books in Cleveland, Ohio, this service is dedicated to helping you remember the titles of old favorites you’ve long since forgotten.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Miami Herald: Oral Navajo history, culture preserved on reel-to-reel tape . “About five decades have passed since Etsitty Bedonie talked about the ‘Beginning of the Enemies.’ His account about the enemies of the Navajo, as he heard it from his grandfather, was recorded with a reel-to-reel magnetic tape recorder, most likely, at Bedonie’s home in the Crownpoint area around 1969. The interviewer was Tom Ration, a member of the Navajo Cultural Center – a group of Navajos who in the 1960s-1970s traveled around all five regions of the Navajo Nation and interviewed about 450 Navajo men and women and preserved their oral history on audio tape.”

New York Times: Oprah, Is That You? On Social Media, the Answer Is Often No.. “The issue of fake social media accounts masquerading as public figures is acute. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter teem with accounts that mimic ordinary people to spread propaganda or to be sold as followers to those who want to appear more influential. But millions of the phony profiles pose specifically as actors, singers, politicians and other well-known figures to broadcast falsehoods, cheat people out of money — or worse. Last year, Australian authorities charged a 42-year-old man with more than 900 child sex offenses for impersonating Justin Bieber on Facebook and other sites to solicit nude photos from minors.”

Wired: The Complexity Of Simply Searching For Medical Advice. “IN THE FIRST few hours of a newborn’s life, doctors administer a vitamin K shot. This is because infants are born without enough of the vitamin, and the baby needs a boost to prevent any potential bleeding. This is a routine practice—ask your pediatrician, your obstetrician, or the CDC…. But new parents who turn to search engines to understand the practice will find an aberrant—and dangerous—strain of thinking.”

Genealogy’s Star: Using Voice Recognition in Genealogy: Names and dates and places. “Over the years, I have used voice recognition software off and on, always hoping that it would become the solution to quickly entering information so that I could avoid typing. Most recently, voice recognition software has become ubiquitous with smartphones and apps such as Siri and Google Assistant or one of the many other such programs. For example, when I get a phone message on my iPhone, the message is automatically transcribed into text.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Washington Post: California’s net neutrality bill is back and as tough as ever. “California lawmakers will be moving forward with tough provisions in a legislative proposal that could turn into one of the most ambitious net neutrality laws in the country.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Pete Warden: What Image Classifiers Can Do About Unknown Objects. “A few days ago I received a question from Plant Village, a team I’m collaborating with about a problem that’s emerged with a mobile app they’re developing. It detects plant diseases, and is delivering good results when it’s pointed at leaves, but if you point it at a computer keyboard it thinks it’s a damaged crop. This isn’t a surprising result to computer vision researchers, but it is a shock to most other people, so I want to explain why it’s happening, and what we can do about it.”

The Next Web: This blank Google doc restored our faith in humanity. “This week, one of our writers wrote about how he trolled a spammy person by jumping into their bad PR pitch which was unfortunately sent in a public Google doc. We turned their blockchain pitch into a truly Avante Garde and crowd-sourced art project. We were inspired by the results and immediately began to think of other ways we could use crowdsourcing to avoid doing work.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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