NEW RESOURCES

ABA Journal: New database tracks gender-based violence sentencing decisions in the Pacific. “Among the data compiled for each country, the TrackGBV Dashboard highlights contentious factors in gender-based violence cases that could discriminate against survivors when used in mitigation by the court. These include gender stereotyping; customary practices, such as forgiveness ceremonies; and other factors, such as a perpetrator’s religious activities.” The database currently contains information about Samoa, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea. Other Pacific nations will be added in the future.

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Reddit’s 2021 recap covers Bernie’s mittens and stock market chaos. “The video packs in plenty of popular images from the site, set to a song with lyrics asking, ‘Is it going to get any weirder?’ In the video, you can catch Bernie Sanders and his famed inauguration mittens; references to the supply chain, the stock market and NFTs; and photos from AMAs with folks like Nick Offerman and Carole Baskin. And of course, plenty of strange images like a guy melting into a playground slide and an opossum spinning on a bike wheel.”

Mashable: In Google Cinematic Photos, the camera now moves around you thanks to AI. “Thanks to the wonders of machine learning, Google’s algorithms can now fill in parts of the background that would normally be obscured behind the subject, so the virtual camera can move freely around the subject. Google says this is ‘sort of like a movie director for your photos,’ which may be taking it a bit far, but the effect is very interesting nevertheless.”

Tubefilter: YouTube’s Latest Test Feature Attempts To Organize The Subscriptions Feed. “The in-development feature (being tested with an unspecified number of randomly selected users) lets users create categories and sort channels into them. Categories they’ve created will then be listed in the Subscriptions tab. So, for example, a user who regularly watches both gaming and cooking content can make a gaming collection and a cooking collection.” I subscribe to over 600 YouTube channels and you have no idea how much I need this.

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 6 Useful Things You Can Create With Your Old Floppy Disks. “Of course, there are tons of other creative uses for floppy disks, from lunch boxes to earrings. A quick search on Pinterest or Google for ‘recycled floppy disk’ will throw up more results than you can shake a stick at. But the six examples shown here provide a range of awesome projects from quick and easy, to challenging but worth it!”

The Register: What if we said you could turn any disk into a multi-boot OS installer for free without touching a single config file?. “All you need is a spare USB key with enough space for a few ISOs; eight gigs will work and 16 is plenty. Download either the Linux or Windows version, whichever’s more convenient – it’s only 18 meg, about a quarter of the size of BalenaEtcher, for instance – and run it.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

New York Times: Millions of Followers? For Book Sales, ‘It’s Unreliable.’. “Social-media fandom can help authors score book deals and bigger advances, but does it translate to how a new title will sell? Publishers are increasingly skeptical.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Politico: National Archives: Meadows may not have stored all Trump-era records ‘properly’. “Mark Meadows and the National Archives are in talks over potential records he did ‘not properly’ turn over from his personal phone and email account, the presidential record-keeping agency confirmed Thursday.”

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Security Plugin Exposes +1 Million Websites. “The WPS Hide Login WordPress plugin recently patched a vulnerability that exposes users secret login page. The vulnerability allows a malicious hacker to defeat the purpose of the plugin (of hiding the login page), which can exposes the site to an attack for unlocking the password and login. Essentially, the vulnerability completely defeats the intended purpose of the plugin itself, which is to hide the WordPress login page.”

Techdirt: Book Publishers Sue Maryland Over Law That Would Require Them To Offer ‘Reasonable’ Prices On Ebooks To Libraries. “In an ideal world, Congress would get its act together and fix copyright law and properly add first sale rights for digital goods like ebooks. But, without that, some states are trying to step in and fix things, including Maryland, which earlier this year passed a law that would require publishers to sell ebooks to libraries at ‘reasonable’ rates.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

CNET: See how a giant T. rex gets fitted for a festive Christmas sweater. “As researchers explore important questions about Tyrannosaurus Rex, like how many roamed Earth and how powerful their bites were, we just got the answer to another big one: how to dress one up in a festive Christmas sweater.”

PC World: Top Excel experts will battle it out in an esports-like competition this weekend. “No, this isn’t a joke. The Financial Modeling World Cup will be held this weekend entirely in Microsoft Excel. And the finals (the quarterfinals, semifinals, and the final match) will all be broadcast live as they happen at 9 AM PT. Everyone’s playing for a total prize of $10,000 — funded by Microsoft, of course.” Good morning, Internet…

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