NEW RESOURCES

r/UnsolvedMysteries: Introducing ‘Mapping The Missing Australia’, an interactive online mapping resource for individuals who are Missing within Australia.. “Mapping the missing is an interactive map database, listing Australia’s long-term missing persons. Using ERSI story maps, this Aussie resource helps draw comparisons and find patterns in cases of those who have been missing or locations unknown within the country. The online map database is a free service and can be run on computers and mobile phones.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNN: Microsoft is bringing back Clippy. “Saturday, Microsoft (MSFT) is announcing plans to replace its standard paperclip emoji with an image of big-eyed, happy helper Clippy. The move is part of a broader refresh of 1,800 emojis across all Microsoft apps and services, which will roll out later this year.”

Engadget: Google rolls out a new Drive desktop app for syncing files and photos. “Drive for desktop will replace the Backup and Sync app (which supplanted the Google Drive desktop app in 2018) as well as Drive File Stream, which is for business users. Given that Google Workspace is now available to everyone, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have separate sync methods.”

USEFUL STUFF

Digital Inspiration: Sort by Random – How to Randomize the Order of Rows in Google Sheets. “There are multiple ways to randomize the data rows in Google Sheet. You can either use the built-in SORT function of Google Sheets or create a menu-based function that lets you randomize data with a click.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Getty: Innovation in Prints and Drawings Is the Focus of New Getty Grants. “Prints and drawings are an unsung area of curatorial innovation and a place for museums to bring new forms of storytelling to their permanent collections. Nineteen new grants totaling over $1.55 million will support exhibitions, publications and digital projects that center the graphic arts as part of the Getty Foundation’s ongoing Paper Project initiative. Launched in 2018, The Paper Project funds professional development and experimental projects for curators around the world who study prints and drawings to make graphic arts collections more accessible and relevant to 21st-century audiences.”

New York Times: Are We in the Metaverse Yet?. “Crypto people say they’re building it. Gamers might already be living in it. The art world is cashing in on it. Web veterans are trying to save it. But what is it?”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: EXCLUSIVE Twitter sees jump in govt demands to remove content of reporters, news outlets. “In its transparency report published on Wednesday, Twitter said verified accounts of 199 journalists and news outlets on its platform faced 361 legal demands from governments to remove content in the second half of 2020, up 26% from the first half of the year.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

USGS: A Fixed Smartphone Network Offers Inexpensive Earthquake Early Warning Potential. “In late 2019, a research team assembled 82 smartphones, strapped them to walls and floors in buildings across Costa Rica and waited six months. After a careful analysis, they discovered that they had created an effective and inexpensive Earthquake Early Warning system that could provide communities with up to tens of seconds of warning that an earthquake occurred and shaking is imminent.”

PsyPost: The “Sci-Hub effect” can almost double the citations of research articles, study suggests. “Scientific articles that get downloaded from the scholarly piracy website Sci-Hub tend to receive more citations, according to a new study published in Scientometrics. The number of times an article was downloaded from Sci-Hub also turned out to be a robust predictor of future citations.”

Southern Poverty Law Center: ‘We Make Mistakes’: Twitter’s Embrace of the Extreme Far Right. “Twitter gave far-right extremists the platform they needed to plan an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, and the website, if it maintains its current approach, will likely enable politically motivated violence again in the future.” Good evening, Internet…

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