NEW RESOURCES

Anash: New Website Hosts Hundreds Of “Raw” Videos Of The Rebbe. This concerns Menachem Mendel Schneerson. “A new website offers chassidim the opportunity to watch many hundreds of hours of the Rebbe’s farbrengens, sichos, distribution of dollars, and events with the Rebbe throughout the decades. Unique about the site is the fact that it offers full, unedited videos, with no paywall or hidden videos, allowing any chossid to choose any farbrengen or video of the Rebbe, and truly experience living with the Rebbe.”

U.S. Copyright Office: Copyright Office Launches New Copyright Claims Board Website. “Today, April 7, 2022, the U.S. Copyright Office launched ccb.gov, a website serving as a gateway to the first copyright small-claims tribunal in the United States, the Copyright Claims Board (CCB)…. The website is the new online home of the CCB and is focused on helping everyone understand the mission and the processes of the CCB. Once the CCB starts hearing claims later this spring, ccb.gov will become the primary location for information about filing and responding to claims, opting out of a proceeding, accessing the CCB’s Handbook, and contacting the CCB with questions.”

Foodtank: ReFED Relaunches Digital Database to Combat Food Waste. “The nonprofit ReFED, in collaboration with the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC), recently updated and relaunched the Food Waste Policy Finder. This online tool provides a comprehensive database of legislative and regulatory policy at the federal, state, and local levels pertaining to food waste prevention, recovery, and recycling.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Genealogy’s Star: 1950 U.S. Census Project Moving Rapidly Forward. “If you go to the FamilySearch 1950 U.S. Census Project page… you will see that four states have been completed and that only two more are open right now (as of the date of this post). Checking handwriting recognition from Ancestry.com is a different experience from indexing. The accuracy is significant, and it is apparent that the entire project will likely be completed in a matter of months and perhaps weeks.”

The Verge: Twitter reverts change that left blank spaces in place of deleted embedded tweets. “Twitter has confirmed it reversed a change that altered the appearance of deleted tweets embedded on websites outside of Twitter (thanks to @RuinDig on Twitter for pointing this out). Instead of leaving a blank gap in place of the deleted tweets, the site will go back to displaying the tweet’s original text.”

Associated Press: Elon Musk no longer joining Twitter’s board of directors. “Tesla CEO Elon Musk won’t be joining Twitter’s board of directors as previously announced. The tempestuous billionaire remains Twitter’s largest shareholder. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted the news, which followed a weekend of Musk tweets suggesting possible changes to Twitter, including making the site ad-free. Nearly 90% of Twitter’s 2021 revenue came from ads.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Outlook Traveller: The Lost Heer Project is an Instagram collective that aims to understand Punjab’s colonial history through the eyes of its women . “In 2014, Harleen Singh, a Delhi-born Toronto-based engineer, spent four months in India interviewing witnesses of the 1947 partition. Over the next three years of collection of these testimonies, Singh, who belongs to a family of Partition refugees, realised the lack of female perspective in our mainstream narratives. This was the starting point for The Lost Heer Project (TLHP), an Instagram collective that aims to understand Punjab’s history through the eyes of women.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Techdirt: State Legislators Are Demanding Websites Moderate Less AND Moderate More; Federal Law Prohibits Both. “Local politicians across the political spectrum are trying to force websites to moderate their content in a manner the politicians want. Some (mainly Democrats) are trying to push for companies to remove more content. Some (mainly Republicans) are pushing companies to stop removing certain kinds of content. In both cases, trying to force specific editorial stances — either hands on or hands off — raises serious Constitutional issues.”

Reuters: Exclusive-Senior EU Officials Were Targeted With Israeli Spyware-Sources . “Senior officials at the European Commission were targeted last year with spy software designed by an Israeli surveillance firm, according to two EU officials and documentation reviewed by Reuters.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Financial Times: The Franciscan monk helping the Vatican take on — and tame — AI. “Over the past three years, [Paolo] Benanti has become the AI whisperer to the highest echelon of the Holy See. The monk, who completed part of his PhD in the ethics of human enhancement technologies at Georgetown University in the US, briefs the 85-year-old Pope and senior counsellors on the potential applications of AI, which he describes as a general-purpose technology ‘like steel or electrical power’, and how it will change the way in which we all live. He also plays the role of matchmaker between what Stephen Jay Gould famously described as the non-overlapping magisteria, leaders of faith on the one hand and technology on the other.”

Wall Street Journal: Cities Take the Lead in Setting Rules Around How AI Is Used. “AI, at its worst, can disadvantage already marginalized groups, adding to human-driven bias in hiring, policing and other areas. And its decisions can often be opaque—making it difficult to tell how to fix that bias, as well as other problems. Cities are looking at a number of solutions to these problems. Some require disclosure when an AI model is used in decisions, while others mandate audits of algorithms, track where AI causes harm or seek public input before putting new AI systems in place.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Hack A Day: LoRa-powered Birdhouses Enable Wireless Networking When The Internet’s Down. “…with tech giants occupying increasingly large parts of the global internet, an outage at one of them might still cause major disruption. In addition, a large-scale power interruption can disable large parts of the network if multiple nodes are connected to the same grid. Enter the LoRa Birdhouse project by the Wellesley Amateur Radio Society that solves those two problems, although admittedly at a very small scale.” Good morning, Internet…

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