NEW RESOURCES

BusinessWire: National Geographic Dives Into the Untold History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade With New Podcast, INTO THE DEPTHS, Launching Jan. 27 (PRESS RELEASE). “Ahead of Black History Month, National Geographic is launching a powerful new podcast, INTO THE DEPTHS, on Jan. 27, 2022, that uncovers the deep history of the transatlantic slave trade as it follows a group of Black divers who are dedicated to finding and helping to document slave shipwrecks.”

Digital Library of Georgia: Historic Materials from the Rylander Theatre, President Jimmy Carter’s Childhood Theatre in Rural Americus, Georgia, Now Available Online. “The items in this collection show the ‘first life’ (1921- c. 1951) of the Rylander Theatre and the various types of entertainment the establishment hosted, including live musicals, vaudeville shows, and movies (both silent and ‘talkies’). In addition, a 1929 school club card and a 1930 theater coupon book show a detailed picture of Depression-era Americus, the popular tastes of this South Georgia town, and details of how local businesses sought to incentivize commerce in their communities during dire times.”

EVENTS

Creative Commons: Join us for ‘Ground Truth in Open Internet’ — the new Creative Commons Open Journalism Webinar Series and Training. “Journalism provides a crucial public service. Access to verifiable information and stories that question the underlying terrain of power is critical to democratic societies. Yet, journalism as we know it faces existential new challenges. Increasingly, journalists face work-halting financial and ethical challenges, as well as threats to their physical and digital safety, when sharing information online.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Google Scholar Blog: Save papers to read later. “Found an interesting paper and don’t have time to read it right now? Today we are adding a reading list to your Scholar Library to help you save papers and read them later. You can also use it to save papers you find off-campus but want to read on-campus where you have access to the full text, or papers you find on your smartphone but want to read on a larger screen.”

British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog: Our digitised collection keeps on growing. “Long-term readers of our blog may know that we periodically publish lists of our digitised manuscripts, the last of which was published in January 2021. With the arrival of the New Year, we are releasing an update to our lists of manuscript hyperlinks. We hope this makes it easier for readers and researchers to explore our amazing digitised treasures online. We also want to share some updates on our digitisation progress over the last year.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: What Is an AI File? How to Open It Without Adobe Illustrator. “The AI file is the most common type of vector image. It’s a proprietary Adobe Illustrator format, so it can be tricky to open AI files if you don’t have Illustrator. How you do it depends on what you want to do with it. Put simply, it’s easy to open an AI file just to view, but it’s less straightforward if you want to edit it. In this article, we’ll take a look at both scenarios.”

ReviewGeek: The 6 Best ‘Wordle’ Alternatives. “As you’d probably expect, you’ve got more than a few copycat options to choose from. However, we recommend diving into some of the more … creative alternatives, as they keep the original game mechanics but offer a few new features and rules as well. We’re sure you’ll find one (or several) new fun alternatives to help you fill the hours in between your daily Wordle puzzle!”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Verge: Google might’ve accidentally approved an ad for a Target gift card scam. “Most of us check our gift card balances online (because who actually keeps those receipts that tell us how much money we have left on them?), making an apparent oversight by Google all the worse. It appears that Google inadvertently approved a prominent ad for a phony Target gift card balance checker that’s meant to steal your funds.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Backdoor for Windows, macOS, and Linux went undetected until now. “The discovery is significant for several reasons. First, fully cross-platform malware is something of a rarity, with most malicious software being written for a specific operating system. The backdoor was also written from scratch and made use of four separate command-and-control servers, an indication that the people who developed and used it were part of an advanced threat actor that invested significant resources. It’s also unusual for previously unseen Linux malware to be found in a real-world attack.”

CNET: Ukrainian government networks infected with malware, Microsoft warns. “Microsoft said late Saturday it had identified dozens of computer networks at Ukrainian government agencies and organizations infected with destructive malware disguised as ransomware. The malware targets multiple organizations in Ukraine, including government agencies that provide critical executive branch or emergency response functions and is designed to make computers inoperable if activated by an attacker, Microsoft said.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Florida: Why we love Wordle, according to science . “Social psychologist Matt Baldwin wakes up thinking about the yellow and green boxes of Wordle, the free, once-a-day word game that has gained millions of fans since its public launch in October. Unlike most players, though, he understands why our brains crave it. Baldwin, a University of Florida professor, points to several psychological concepts that may explain our infatuation with the simple but sharable game.”

Newswise: AI Tool Promises Better Automated Analysis of Datasets with Rare Items, a Key Real-World Limitation. “The MiikeMineStamps dataset of stamps provides a unique window into the workings of a large Japanese corporation, opening unprecedented possibilities for researchers in the humanities and social sciences. But some of the stamps in this archive only appear in a small number of instances. This makes for a ‘long tail’ distribution that poses particular challenges for AI learning, including fields in which AI has experienced serious failures.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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