NEW RESOURCES

Conservation Evidence Blog: New non-English language studies database: increasing the availability of conservation evidence. “We are delighted to announce that we have now launched our non-English language database of studies testing conservation actions on our website. This forms part of our freely available Conservation Evidence resource of systematically-gathered evidence designed to help support conservation management or policy decisions.”

New-to-me, from The Conversation: How Chagos Islanders are fighting to keep their culture alive in exile. “At workshops coordinated by Olivier Bancoult and his team in Mauritius and by Sabrina Jean and her team in the UK, elders shared their knowledge of medicinal plants, coconut preparation, coconut handicrafts, coconut-based cuisine, musical instruments and song and dance with the younger generations. We showed the photographs, films and artefacts resulting from these workshops in subsequent exhibitions in Mauritius, Réunion and the UK. Photographs, films and recipes are also accessible on our open-access digital archive.”

IssueWire: Three Stooges Author Announces Website Honoring Former Stooge (PRESS RELEASE). “The new website features nearly 170 high-definition clips, many rare and never before seen until now, from [Joe] Besser’s nearly 350 memorable movie and TV roles, including as the malevolent brat, Stinky, on The Abbott and Costello Show, as a member of the iconic Three Stooges comedy team, as the frustrated and henpecked building superintendent, Jillson, on The Joey Bishop Show, and so much more.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Google Docs update lets you draft emails and send them to Gmail with a click. “Google is rolling out a new feature in its Docs that’s designed to make it easier to use its word processor to draft emails, the company has announced. It’s part of Google’s ‘smart canvas’ initiative, which aims to seamlessly weave together the search giant’s productivity software like Meet, Docs, and Gmail.”

USEFUL STUFF

MakeUseOf: 6 DIY 3D Scanners You Can Build at Home. “The cost of buying a decent 3D scanner ranges from $700 to $10,000 at the highest end. On the other hand, building a DIY 3D scanner can cost less than $200—some even as little as $35. Depending on the resolution of your homemade 3D scanner, you will still have to work to tidy up the 3D model so that it can be used for things like 3D printing, game development, or perhaps design prototyping. But overall, it will still speed up the design process when compared to building a model from scratch.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

PetaPixel: Photographer’s 3,200 Undeveloped Film Rolls Hold History of Rock ‘n’ Roll. “Photographer Charles Daniels has been photographing famous rockers like Rod Stewart, Jimi Hendrix, The Who’s Pete Townshend, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, and others since the late 1960s. However, tens of thousands of his photos have never been seen — they are sitting in roughly 3,200 rolls of undeveloped film in his Boston home.”

Techdirt: Game Jam Winner Spotlight: The Obstruction Method. “Best Deep Cut is probably our favorite of all the six categories, highlighting games that make use of 1926 works that are obscure, unexpected, or just plain unusual. For the second time in these jams, the winner mined a particularly big but easily-ignored source of material: scientific studies. The Obstruction Method is based on a behaviorist experiment by Frances Holden, entitled A Study of the Effect of Starvation upon Behavior by Means of the Obstruction Method, in which 803 albino rats were variously starved and put through an electrified maze. You can probably already see the potential for a game based on this study, but Jason Morningstar got even more creative than you might expect.”

BBC: Not smart but clever? The return of ‘dumbphones’. “Dumbphones are continuing to enjoy a revival. Google searches for them jumped by 89% between 2018 and 2021, according to a report by software firm SEMrush. And while sales figures are hard to come by, one report said that global purchases of dumbphones were due to hit one billion units last year, up from 400 million in 2019. This compares to worldwide sales of 1.4 billion smart phones last year, following a 12.5% decline in 2020.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Courthouse News: Americans want cameras at Supreme Court, but live audio there is on life support. “The Supreme Court has live-streamed audio of its oral arguments for almost two years as a result of Covid-19 policies that limited the gathering of the justices, attorneys and reporters at the high court. Now that Covid-19 policies are receding around the country, some are advocating to make the temporary policy permanent. A new letter from 40 Supreme Court practitioners who have argued a total of 464 cases before the justices ask Chief Justice John Roberts to continue facilitating access to livestreamed audio of oral arguments. ”

The Hill: Sharp rise in online child pornography: study. “The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found a rise across multiple categories of online child pornography in 2021. The organization said there was a 35 percent increase from 2020 to 2021 in suspected child sexual exploitation online.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

CBC: Oblates to open Rome archives next month for residential school records search. “The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) plans to begin a search as soon as next month in the archives of a Roman Catholic order that ran 48 residential schools in Canada, including the institution in Kamloops, B.C., where last year more than 200 unmarked graves were discovered. Raymond Frogner, head of archives for the NCTR, will be visiting the Rome archives of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate to review and digitize residential school-related records. It’s the first time any Canadian researcher has been granted access to the Oblate General Archives.”

Common Dreams: Shuttering EPA’s Online Archive Is a Grave Disservice to the Public. “The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it will be discontinuing its online archive in July 2022. This means the public will lose access to tens of thousands of web resources. These resources convey information about critical environmental issues, and past and present agency activities, policies, and priorities. All of these resources are publicly funded and intended for public consumption, but the public will no longer be able to access them.”

Lancaster Online: Google Maps play havoc with Lancaster County streams [column]. “It was sometime last fall when Manheim Township resident John Friel was chatting with fellow paddler Nick Di Bernardo, of Lancaster…. He was telling Friel about a float where he put in on the Conestoga River near where Friel has a riverfront house and paddled upstream to the confluence with Middle Creek. You mean ‘Cocalico Creek,’ not ‘Middle Creek,’ Friel corrected him. His friend looked dubious. So they went to Google Maps, the source of finding out where you are and where you want to go for billions of people worldwide. Friel was astonished to see Cocalico Creek had indeed disappeared from Lancaster County and was instead labeled Middle Creek which, in reality, flows into Cocalico Creek.” Good morning, Internet…

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