NEW RESOURCES

13 News Now (Virginia): ‘Local Black Histories:’ New virtual project tells untold stories of Greater Williamsburg area. “A new, interactive platform uncovers the rich history of the Black community in the Greater Williamsburg area. The Local Black Histories Project launched Sunday. The project is spearheaded by the Village Initiative for Education Equity, a non-profit focusing on equity in education. The College of William & Mary and Williamsburg-James City County are also partners.”

The Hindu: Digital archive of school books launched. “Azim Premji University on Monday launched an open access digital archive of over 5,600 school books and related material from India and other countries in South Asia. The Schoolbooks Archive, as the platform is called, has material in multiple languages including Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Arabic, and other languages apart from English that span a period of more than 200 years.” Fourteen languages are represented here, but English has the most materials.

University of Maryland Baltimore: Free Video Series Can Help Kids be ‘Unstuck and On Target’ . “The series of free, educational videos are designed to support parents and caregivers tackling common emotional and behavioral topics to help children to stay organized, plan and reach their goals, be flexible thinkers and help regulate their feelings. Behavioral specialists call these skills executive functioning. By following the tips and skills in the videos, parents can help their children be successful, avoid meltdowns and negativity, and develop a shared language and ways of interacting to achieve calmer, more productive days.” There are 17 videos here. Five of them are in Spanish. You can turn on captioning (the videos are on YouTube) and the ones I spot-checked looked accurate.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Register: There’s something to be said for delayed gratification when Windows 11 is this full of bugs . “An update to the Insiders version of Windows 11 includes a massive list of bug fixes, many of them serious, showing the wisdom of holding back on an early upgrade from Windows 10. Windows 11 was released on 5 October but has proved a problematic upgrade due to onerous system requirements and certain user interface decisions, with some features chopped in the Start menu and a confusing new right-click menu in File Explorer.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: 25 of the Best True Crime Podcasts, Rated From ‘Cozy’ to ‘Disturbing’. “The genre is often seen as exploitative—is true crime cathartic, helping us to examine and thus exorcise our own fears and demons? Or is it just a way to wallow in the suffering of others from a discreet distance? That’s a question to ask of any entertainment, really, but it’s also not entirely fair: the true crime genre is broader than it gets credit for, with one of the earliest popular shows (Serial) focusing on the potential failings of the judicial system. Or they can be an education in the worlds of crime, forensics, and society. Across these popular pods, you’ll find examples of all of that and more.” Slideshow.

MakeUseOf: The 6 Best Free Sites for DIY Arts and Crafts. “Sometimes, it’s nice to take a little time away from our devices and do something different. But it’s not always easy to find an activity interesting enough to keep us occupied for long enough. Why not give your creative side a chance? Here, we look at six free websites that offer fun and affordable DIY arts and crafts ideas to keep your mind as well as your hands busy.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona: New online database to aid in learning Chinese. “On 25 November, researchers from the UAB Department of Translation and Interpreting and East Asian Studies will be presenting e·Chinese, an online quadrilingual database created to help users learn Chinese. The presentation will take place at the Confucius Institute Foundation in Barcelona. The main objective of this project, funded by the Confucius Institute Foundation in Barcelona and the UAB Department of Translation and Interpreting and East Asian Studies, is to offer open access to a list of online resources aimed at teaching and learning Chinese.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

The Conversation: Technology-enabled abuse: how ‘safety by design’ can reduce stalking and domestic violence . “Traditional ideas of cybersecurity are focused on ‘stranger threats’. However, to reduce and combat digital domestic and family violence we need an ‘intimate threat’ model. Partners and family can compel others to provide access to devices. They may be linked to online accounts or able to guess passwords, based on their intimate knowledge of the owner. In this context, technologies that enable surveillance and recording can be used to constrain and threaten victims and survivors in alarming ways, in everyday life.”

NiemanLab: The end of “click to subscribe, call to cancel”? One of the news industry’s favorite retention tactics is illegal, FTC says. “A study of 526 news organizations in the United States found that only 41% make it easy for people to cancel subscriptions online, and more than half trained customer service reps in tactics to dissuade customers who call to unsubscribe. The Federal Trade Commission, meanwhile, recently made it clear that it sees the practice as 1) one of several ‘dark patterns that trick or trap consumers into subscriptions’ and 2) straight-up illegal. ”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WION: Social media may lead to demise of apostrophe, suggest researchers. “In recent years, social media has found numerous takers. The situation is such that almost everybody is on social media. Sharing thoughts or commenting on any issue is part of an everyday affair for several people. In these messages, the character limit on the posts at online platforms, such as Twitter, seems to have been playing a dampener as it is leading to the habit of dropping punctuation from the text.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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