NEW RESOURCES

Nation.Cymru: New national archive records experiences of Wales’ trailblazing political women. “The experiences of the women who played a central part in the first decades of devolution in Wales have been recorded and protected in a national archive. The voices and papers of current and former women Members of the Senedd have been captured in Setting the Record Straight – Gwir Gofnod o gyfnod, a project by Women’s Archive Wales and the Senedd. An event to celebrate the culmination of a two year project was held in the Senedd today.” A selection of the interviews are available online.

Google Blog: Explore Brasilia: the designed city. “In the highlands of Brazil sits an architectural and cultural gem: the capital city of Brasília, designed and developed in the 1950s by architects and urban planners Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer. The designed city was part of the plan to move the capital from Rio de Janeiro to a more central location in the country. I am very happy to see the city where I grew up featured on Google Arts & Culture after 60 years of cultivating a unique culture from its designed origins. Google Arts & Culture invites everyone around the world to learn more about the extraordinary architecture, the bustling art and culture scene and the amazing history of Brasilia, a city designed for the future.”

PR Newswire: Free Online Library for Families with Developmentally Delayed and Autistic Children (PRESS RELEASE). “Big Red Truck Learning Systems launched its One Goal Library, a comprehensive and easy-to-use directory of state and local agencies combined with an online database of current research and articles for families looking for autism, developmental and speech/learning disability resources.”

EVENTS

Blavatnik Family Foundation: Blavatnik Archive to host international conference exploring the role of Jewish soldiers and fighters in the Allied armies during World War II. “The Blavatnik Archive, with the support of the Blavatnik Family Foundation, Genesis Philanthropy Group, and David Berg Foundation, will host an international virtual conference this month that honors the nearly 1.5 million Jewish men and women who fought in World War II against Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers. The ‘Jewish Soldiers & Fighters in WWII’ conference is organized in connection to the Archive’s traveling exhibit, ‘Road to Victory: Jewish Soldiers in WWII.’ Nearly 40 historians and leading experts from universities, archives, libraries, and museums in nine countries are participating in the international gathering Nov. 14-15.” The event is free.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Mashable: Discord CEO awkwardly backtracks teased NFT integration after user outcry. “The founder and CEO of group-chatting app Discord wants to make one thing crystal clear: There are no plans to do the exact thing he hinted was already in the works just two days prior. Jason Citron, who co-founded Discord in 2015, found himself furiously backpedalling late Wednesday after a Monday tweet teasing a future in-app NFT integration sparked backlash from users.”

Mozilla Blog: Firefox’s Private Browsing mode upleveled for you. “There are plenty of reasons why you might want to keep something you are doing on the web to yourself. You might be looking for a ring for your soon-to-be fiance, looking up what those mysterious skin rashes could be, or reading a salacious celebrity gossip blog. That’s where Private Browsing mode comes in handy. This year, we upleveled and added new advanced features to our Private Browsing mode. Before we share more about these new features we wanted to share some of the misconceptions about Private Browsing.”

USEFUL STUFF

Make Tech Easier: The Best Tips and Tutorials for Google Classroom. “Google Classroom is a free virtual meeting place for instructors and students. The platform is very easy to learn for anyone with a Google account, as it closely integrates with the Google apps you know and use every day. This Google Classroom guide covers everything you need to know to get started as an online tutor.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

CBC: London, Ont., man creates online archive uncovering little known stories of Canadians in Combined Operations. “Retired elementary school teacher Gord Harrison, 72, was sifting through a filing cabinet of written material left behind by his late father, Doug. Doug had written numerous columns for his hometown’s newspaper, The Norwich Gazette, throughout the 90s. For a time, he had served as president of that area’s legion. Harrison’s hope was to add something pithy for his own community newspaper column dedicated to that year’s Remembrance Day. Instead of a quote, Harrison discovered a brown Manila folder he hadn’t seen before. Inside were 45 pages of handwritten notes detailing Doug’s career as a volunteer reservist for the Canadian Navy during the Second World War.”

New York Times: Why the Internet Is Turning Into QVC. “Yes, America’s internet is turning into QVC. (People under 30: Email me for an explanation of home shopping TV.) This is happening for three reasons: greed, fear and China. And the growing mania for digital shopping options is another example of how our experiences online are shaped just as much by corporations’ interests as by our desires.” I’m a broke dinosaur but at least I can sleep at night.

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Register: Malicious Chrome extensions are bad. But what about nice ones that can be hijacked? This new tool spots them . “Security researchers from Germany’s CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security have developed software to help identify Chrome extensions that are vulnerable to exploitation by malicious webpages and other extensions.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Government Technology: Opinion: Pros and Cons of Google vs. Subscription Databases. “Students’ media literacy is dependent upon their ability to evaluate published sources, which isn’t always easy with search engine results. Google prioritizes its results independent of author biases or factual legitimacy, leaving students to evaluate which sources are best. But research from Stanford University has shown that most students don’t look beyond Google’s top hits on any given topic. This leaves users susceptible to specious information, wrongly believing Google is somehow designed to work in the interest of veracity. Based on a helpful chart from UC Merced, here’s a quick comparison of the three research sources most used by students.”

Stanford Libraries: The Beats within: comparing AI & human adaptations of “Howl” . “‘Howl’ is considered one of the most important poems of American literature and stands as an iconic work of the 1950’s. Can its famous first line be translated into a different context entirely by using fictional texts from another period? What does the GPT-2 model (a large language model originally developed by Open-AI) mark as the identifying features of the first line of ‘Howl’ and what does that tell us about the GPT-2 model’s knowledge of literary texts?” Sweet Valley High! Star Wars! Good morning, Internet…

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