NEW RESOURCES

Neos Kosmos: Greek survivors voice painful memories of the German occupation. “When contemporary witnesses speak of their experiences during the WW2 German invasion and occupation of Greece between 1941 and 1944, history comes alive. Before an online video archive of their voices could be made by historians of both countries a lot of persuasion work was needed because the resource was co-funded by the German government.”

Philadelphia Business Journal: Visit Philadelphia launches regional database of open tourism and hospitality jobs. “Visit Philadelphia has launched an online platform centralizing open jobs in Greater Philadelphia’s tourism and hospitality industry to help people get back to work as the region navigates its Covid-19 recovery. The resource out of the tourism marketing organization features two databases, one for work opportunities at nearby hotels and the other specifically for restaurants. The page will soon expand to include jobs at museums and tourist attractions, creating a comprehensive guide for those looking for employment in the industry and streamlining the application process.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BetaNews: Microsoft blocks users from upgrading to Windows 10 May 2020 Update because their PC settings aren’t supported. “We’ve already seen Windows 10 May 2020 Update causing a range of problems for users, including login issues, problems with Storage Spaces and issues with OneDrive. But there are also some people for whom even the installation is problematic.”

British Library: Our latest list of digitised manuscripts. “Long-term readers of our Blog may know that we periodically publish lists of our digitised manuscripts, the last of which was published in January 2020. With the arrival of summer, we are releasing a new update to our lists of manuscript hyperlinks.”

USEFUL STUFF

AFP Fact Check: More false claims about ‘Irish slaves’ spread on social media. “A post shared thousands of times on Facebook says ‘the majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white’ and that African slaves ‘were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.’ These claims, and others in the post, are false, according to historians and experts.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

United States Golf Association: Historic Howard Schickler Photo Collection Acquired. “The collection contains more than 1,000 high-quality, historically and artistically important golf images from the 19th and early 20th century. Many photographs feature top American and British golfers, both men and women, from the mid-1800s to the 1970s. The collection was amassed over decades by collector Howard Schickler, sourced from the collections of some of the game’s most influential figures, including the personal collections of Old Tom Morris and F.G. Tait, the Auchterlonie and the Foulis families, the estate of Billy Burke and the collections of Ed Dudley and Bernard Darwin.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Supreme Court strikes debt-collector exception for robocall ban. “The US Supreme Court on Monday struck down an exception in federal law that allowed debt collectors to use robocalls to automatically dial cellphones. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) prohibits robocalls made to cell phones without a user’s consent. But in 2015, Congress added an exception in the law that allowed debt collectors, who were seeking to recover money owed to the US government or debts guaranteed by the government, to use automated dialers or robocallers to make calls in the hopes of recovering some of the money owed.”

Irish Times: Too easy for fraudsters to post scam ads on Facebook and Google, Which? claims . “Facebook and Google lack effective controls to prevent fraudsters from posting scam adverts, according to a Which? investigation. It is possible for bogus adverts devised by bad actors to appear within a matter of hours, the consumer group has warned, after carrying out a test of its own. While both tech giants have improved ad transparency and toughened rules in recent years, Which? said it is still possible for false advertising to slip through the net.”

European Gaming: Popular Gambling App Exposed Millions of Users in Massive Data Leak. “Led by Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, vpnMentor’s research team discovered a data breach on casino gambling app Clubillion. The breach originated in a technical database built on an Elasticsearch engine and was recording the daily activities of millions of Clubillion players around the world. Aside from leaking activity on the app, the breached database also exposed private user information.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

New York Times: A Bird? A Plane? No, It’s a Google Balloon Beaming the Internet. “The balloons, which hover about 12 miles up in the stratosphere — well above commercial airplanes — will initially provide a 4G LTE network connection to a nearly 31,000-square-mile area across central and western Kenya, including the capital, Nairobi. Loon, a unit of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, launched 35 balloons in recent months in preparation for Tuesday’s start. It is collaborating with Telkom Kenya, the East African nation’s third-largest carrier.”

The Conversation: Anger is all the rage on Twitter when it’s cold outside (and on Mondays). “The link between hot weather and aggressive crime is well established. But can the same be said for online aggression, such as angry tweets? And is online anger a predictor of assaults? Our study just published suggests the answer is a clear ‘no’. We found angry tweet counts actually increased in cooler weather. And as daily maximum temperatures rose, angry tweet counts decreased. We also found the incidence of angry tweets is highest on Mondays, and perhaps unsurprisingly, angry Twitter posts are most prevalent after big news events such as a leadership spill.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

A little outside my usual, but I like it; this site reminds me of some of the “expert in a box” systems you’d hear about from Tom Peters. InPark Magazine: New website offers tool for attraction designers based on work of industry legend Harrison ‘Buzz’ Price. “The site is essentially a question and answer session with Buzz Price. First, he asks visitors to the web site a few questions about their potential project, such as desired attendance, seasonality, attraction mix, etc. Then, after sharing calculations on peak month, peak week and design day attendance, people can ask Buzz Price questions…” Good morning, Internet…

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