NEW RESOURCES

EOS: Deep Floats Reveal Complex Ocean Circulation Patterns. “Acoustically tracked floats drift far below the ocean’s surface, providing fresh discoveries about deep-sea currents. A new archive gathers decades’ worth of float data into a central repository.”

The Conversation: How we arrived at a $1 billion annual price tag to save Africa’s lions. “A billion dollars. That’s approximately what it would cost, to save the African lion. That’s a billion dollars each year, every year into the foreseeable future. The startling price tag comes from a calculation we did, starting with a new database we compiled of available funding in protected areas with lions. To our knowledge it’s the most comprehensive and up-to-date database of its kind.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Free Music Archive is shutting down. From the blog post: “We regret to inform you that due to a funding shortage, the FMA will be closing down later this month. The future of the archive is uncertain, but we have done everything we can to ensure that our files will not disappear from the web forever.”

Search Engine Journal: The Most Downloaded Social App Last Month Wasn’t Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. “A new social media giant is emerging as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube were all usurped in app downloads last month. Topping the US app download charts is video sharing app TikTok, according to Apptopia. Those who haven’t heard of TikTok may be familiar with its former name – Musical.ly.”

TechCrunch: Facebook’s election interference problem exponentially worse on eve of midterms, study suggests . “An analysis of political advertisers running extensive campaigns on Facebook targeting users in the United States over the past six months has flagged a raft of fresh concerns about its efforts to tackle election interference — suggesting the social network’s self regulation is offering little more than a sham veneer of accountability. Dig down and all sorts of problems and concerns become apparent, according to new research conducted by Jonathan Albright, of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: Create A Heat Map Of Your Google Location History With This Tool. “I’m a sucker for anything that takes text data and turns it into something visual. This week I came across Location History Visualizer, a tool that creates a heat map using your Google Location History.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Verge: Sen. Mark Warner On Breaking Up Facebook And Congress’s Plan To Regulate Tech. “For the past two years, Silicon Valley has faced a reckoning in Congress, but there’s been no matching push for regulation. While Mark Zuckerberg has been called before Congress and the inner workings of the tech industry have been put under a microscope, no major federal legislation has been passed, leaving some to wonder whether the US government will step in at all. Over the summer, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) put out the most comprehensive plan yet for how Congress might regulate Big Tech: his white paper laid out 20 different suggestions, ranging from labeling bots to implementing broader rules like those in the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It was the most comprehensive effort by any lawmaker, and with it, Warner positioned himself as a key voice in the debate over regulating the tech industry.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Supreme Court declines to hear appeal of Obama-era net neutrality rules. “The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of Obama-era net neutrality regulations that could have gutted the authority of the Federal Communications Commission. On Monday the court rejected an appeal that challenged a 2016 decision by the DC Circuit, which upheld the rules to protect an open internet and validated the FCC’s authority to draft such rules.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CogDogBlog: I have blogged not to bury flickr nor to praise it…. “I cannot imagine any way for the new owners of flickr to surmount Yahoo’s [inexplicable insane colossally stupid] [Note: the words in brackets were “crossed-out” in CogDog’s original article; that option is not available in ASCII — TJC] idea to offer unlimited image hosting to all free accounts. But if flickr wants to not alienate their community, why are they doing it right off the bat? No one who has the photos deleted is going to say nice things about the company. I guess their dice roll is to not worry about the ingrates who were not paying. Or that anyone will be satisfied by the new 1000 photo limit knowing it used to be 200.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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