NEW RESOURCES

Scoop NZ: NZ Mine Plans database goes online. “The NZ Mine Plans database, which holds approximately 3500 mine plans, is now available online via links on the websites of both government agencies. The number of mine plans available is expected to grow to more than 6000 in the coming months.”

University of Maryland Archives: Black Explosion Now Available!. “Dissatisfied with coverage of issues important to and activities of the African American community at the university, the Black Student Union began publishing an independent newspaper, entitled the Black Explosion, sometime between 1967 and 1970; the actual date is unclear, and the founding date is reported variously on the masthead of the paper itself. The Black Explosion published continuously in hard copy until December 2015/January 2016, and all issues in the Archives’ collection are now online and searchable by keyword and date. Users can also save articles or entire issues by using the clipping tool described on the Using the Database portion of the About page on the website.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: What YouTube could teach Facebook about conspiracies. “Like Facebook, Google is loath to declare any topic off-limits to its user base. And so at South By Southwest, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki unveiled a potential solution: ‘information cues,’ a companion product for conspiracy videos that offers users additional, non-crazy viewpoints about subjects like the Moon landing and chemtrails. It began rolling out within the past two weeks, and the company does not yet have data to share about how it’s working, a YouTube spokeswoman said.”

BuzzFeed News: Facebook Said Alex Jones’ Threatening Rant Against Robert Mueller Doesn’t Violate Its Rules. “With his latest accusations of pedophilia, Alex Jones and Infowars continue to test the limits of Facebook’s rules. And Facebook continues to allow it. On his Monday afternoon show, Jones issued a prolonged rant against special counsel Robert Mueller, accusing him of raping children and overseeing their rape, and then pantomiming shooting the former FBI director. The show was streamed live on Jones’ personal, verified Facebook page, which has nearly 1.7 million likes.”

Gizmodo: Yelp Will Now Show You Restaurant Hygiene Scores. “Yelp announced today that the platform will start featuring hygiene scores of restaurants alongside reviews, photos, and other information. As of today, the feature is available in California, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington, DC, but Yelp says it intends to roll the initiative out in other states soon. Eventually, hundreds of thousands of U.S. restaurants should have their hygiene scores listed publicly on Yelp.”

TechCrunch: Twitch launches a ‘how-to’ site for streamers, Twitch Creator Camp . “Twitch wants more people to stream, so it’s going to begin teaching them how. The video game streaming site today announced the launch of Twitch Creator Camp, a new educational resource that helps newcomers learn the basics of streaming, as well as how to build up a channel, connect with fans, and earn rewards.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How To Search Through (And Delete) Your Old Tweets. “‘The internet never forgets’ is an aphorism that isn’t entirely true, but it’s worth thinking about whenever you post to social media. If you think your Twitter profile needs a bit of a scrub, here’s how to search and delete those old tweets.” Three methods covered here.

The Next Web: GitHub’s Learning Lab launches free courses on open source collaboration and HTML. “Earlier this year, GitHub announced Learning Lab — a portion of the site where users can learn the fundamentals of GitHub, and get advice on how to migrate to the service from other platforms. This was a smart move from GitHub. Learning Lab is growing rapidly, both in terms of users and content, and the company yesterday launched four new courses on the platform.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Guardian: Academic writes 270 Wikipedia pages in a year to get female scientists noticed. “Jess Wade is a scientist on a mission. She wants every woman who has achieved something impressive in science to get the prominence and recognition they deserve – starting with a Wikipedia entry. ‘I’ve done about 270 in the past year,’ says Wade, a postdoctoral researcher in the field of plastic electronics at Imperial College London’s Blackett Laboratory. ‘I had a target for doing one a day, but sometimes I get too excited and do three.'”

Mashable: U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch kindly reminds Google that he’s still alive. “Just a friendly reminder that Utah Senator Orrin Hatch is very much alive and not at all dead, despite what your search engine may have recently suggested.”

Library of Congress: A Summer of Mid-1940s Melodies: Processing Master Recordings from the Decca Label. “In 2011, Universal Music Group (UMG) donated more than 200,000 master recordings to the Library of Congress’ Recorded Sound Section, which maintains approximately 3.6 million sound recordings at the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia. Within the collection’s 5,000 linear feet of material are historic recordings by artists such as Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, the Andrews Sisters, Billie Holiday, Guy Lombardo and Les Paul. Many of these tracks were recorded onto thousands of 16-inch lacquer discs. Those created during the mid-1940s on UMG’s subsidiary label Decca serve as the focus of my project this summer. My goal for the 10 weeks that I am in Culpeper is to process as many of the discs as possible, which may seem like monotonous work, but has proven to be quite the opposite.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Harvard Business Review: We Need Transparency in Algorithms, But Too Much Can Backfire . “Companies and governments increasingly rely upon algorithms to make decisions that affect people’s lives and livelihoods – from loan approvals, to recruiting, legal sentencing, and college admissions. Less vital decisions, too, are being delegated to machines, from internet search results to product recommendations, dating matches, and what content goes up on our social media feeds. In response, many experts have called for rules and regulations that would make the inner workings of these algorithms transparent. But as Nass’s experience makes clear, transparency can backfire if not implemented carefully. Fortunately, there is a smart way forward.” Good morning, Internet…

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