NEW RESOURCES

Technical .ly: Check out satellite telecomms company Iridium’s new online museum. “Local institutions such as the National Zoo and the International Spy Museum are juuuuuuust beginning to open back up amid the coronavirus pandemic. But if you’re not comfy being around other people in public yet, Iridium Communications has something neat for you: The McLean, Virginia-based satellite constellation operator has launched an online museum to commemorate its work over the past 20 years.”

BK Reader: New Online Rolodex Spotlights Minority-Owned Small Businesses This Black Business Month. “A new rolodex of Black, Brown and women owned small businesses in New York City is being launched online this National Black Business Month. The Big Black Book NYC, a social media directory collating and promoting minority owned businesses, is launching its new website to celebrate local entrepreneurs, coinciding with the directory’s third anniversary.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

BetaNews: LibreOffice 7 lands with a new look, better compatibility, Vulkan acceleration and more. “LibreOffice has long offered itself up as a free alternative to Microsoft Office, and today a major new version has been released. LibreOffice 7.0 sees a number of key changes and improvements, not least of which is greatly improved compatibility with Microsoft’s suite.”

Motherboard: US Army Reinstates Twitch Commenters It Banned for Asking About War Crimes. “After a pause from streaming, the U.S. Army esports team is returning to Twitch and reinstating accounts it had previously banned. ‘The U.S. Army eSports Team is reinstating access for accounts previously banned for harassing and degrading behavior on its Twitch stream,’ the Army told Motherboard in an email.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Daily Dot: On Patreon, QAnon believers are turning conspiracy into cash. “QAnon followers have found a home on Patreon, one that is more hospitable and profitable than other social media platforms. Patreon is a fundraising platform where donors, or patrons, sign up to give a specific amount every month to access exclusive content. While Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube work to limit the spread, Patreon essentially accepts the conspiracy theorists with open arms. There some are making thousands of dollars every month.”

CBC: L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables manuscript going online. “Starting in 2022, people will be able to read Anne of Green Gables online thanks to a new digital version of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s original manuscript. The hand-written manuscript will be the centrepiece of a digital exhibition involving the Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG) and the University of Prince Edward Island’s L.M. Montgomery Institute and the Robertson Library.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNET: Twenty state AGs press Facebook to do more to combat hate speech. “In a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg on Wednesday, the AGs said they believed the company had ‘fallen short’ on its civil rights record and urged the company to ‘aggressively enforce’ its policies prohibiting hate speech and hate-based organizations. Other steps the AGs’ letter suggested Facebook take include allowing public, third-party audits of hate content and enforcement, as well as expanding its policies on limiting ads that disparage minorities.”

The Verge: Alleged Twitter teen hacker’s hearing got zoombombed big time. “Judge Christopher Nash spent more time rapidly force-ejecting trolls than he did delivering his decision — which, by the way, was to keep Clark’s bail at $725,000, over six times the $117,000 in bitcoin he’s said to have gotten from the Twitter scam. While the judge did have to approve each attendee that joined, there was no way for him to tell from their usernames that they weren’t journalists or well-meaning members of the public, and he explained that Florida is supposed to allow them to attend.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Nature: Migrating big astronomy data to the cloud. “Astronomers typically work by asking observatories for time on a telescope and downloading the resulting data. But as the amount of data that telescopes produce grows, well, astronomically, old methods can’t keep pace. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is geared up to collect 20 terabytes per night as part of its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), once it becomes operational in 2022. That’s as much as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey — which created the most detailed 3D maps of the Universe so far — collected in total between 2000 and 2010.”

Jurist: Libraries Are Not a Crime. “There is nothing wrong with being a landlord, and there is nothing wrong with collecting rent. But there is nothing particularly special or morally compelling about it, either. If copyright owners want to complain about the [National Emergency Library], let them do it as landlords, and let us see their arguments as landlord arguments. After all, unlike real landlords, they aren’t even objecting to the loss of actual income on a property they are maintaining. Literary landlords object to the possibility they might not collect every possible rent on a literary property they created or purchased long ago. Maybe we should feel sorry for them? I will confess, my sympathy is limited.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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