NEW RESOURCES

Phys .org: New online resource can help users ‘bee’ friendly when it comes to planting for pollinators. “An online database developed at the University of Sussex which documents pollinator-plant interactions, could help the public understand how to plant for pollinators and support biodiversity.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Decrypt: Mailchimp Resumes Crackdown on Crypto Newsletters Including Messari, Edge. “The email marketing platform Mailchimp has been suspending the accounts of crypto-related content creators and media outlets this week. The list of affected customers includes self-custody crypto wallet Edge, crypto intelligence firm Messari, and Decrypt, which had been using Mailchimp for its newsletter for more than four years.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: How to Create Synthetic AI Art With Midjourney. “AI-based image generators like DALL-E 2 have boomed in popularity. People love to enter bizarre prompts and see what gets spit out. Midjourney is one of the more advanced tools for this, and you can try it now.”

Consumer Reports: Best Music Streaming Services. “Music streaming is one of the rare corners of the tech industry where multiple companies have a decent shot at attracting the same customers. That forces the streaming giants into a constant race to add features, match competitors’ perks, and keep prices low to hold on to subscribers. Listeners get to enjoy the benefits of services that just keep getting better.” I use Tidal and can definitely tell the difference in sound quality, even through my basic desktop speakers.

Social Media Examiner: How to Create and Promote Idea Pins on Pinterest. “Pinterest launched idea pins in May 2021, giving businesses and creators a brand-new option to build multi-page video content. Idea pins can include up to 20 pages of videos, images, or a combination of the two.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CNN: How a tiny nonprofit with no full-time employees became the foremost tracker of gun violence in America. “Yet for all its influence in providing that data, the Gun Violence Archive is remarkably small-scale. The organization is funded almost entirely by a single octogenarian donor, has no office space or any full-time employees, and is led by a bushy-bearded Kentucky gun owner who sold several of his firearms to help launch the group. That this bare-bones organization informs the highest levels of power underscores the startling lack of timely, standardized data on American gun violence.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Mother Jones: “It’s Potentially Illegal”: As Crypto Crashed, Coinbase Stopped Some Notifications. “Coinbase’s decision to stop email notifications in the middle of a dramatic cryptocurrency crash has not been previously reported. But academics who spoke to Mother Jones note that Coinbase’s decision likely contributed to losses for retail crypto investors who may otherwise have sold their holdings ahead of further devaluation. The change to price updates could run afoul of federal or state consumer protection laws, they said, particularly if it hurt the wallets of any of the relatively inexperienced traders who flocked to crypto in droves during the pandemic.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Motherboard: Widely Mocked Anti-Piracy Ads Made People Pirate More, Study Finds. “An infamous anti-piracy ad from 2004 tried to convince us all that downloading a pirated movie is no different than stealing a car. We’ve all seen it, but according to a new study published in The Information Society, we were not convinced. In fact, the study found that by hugely overstating the negative impact of piracy, the ad may have caused people to pirate even more.”

The Conversation: Don’t be too quick to blame social media for America’s polarization – cable news has a bigger effect, study finds. “…when scientists investigated social media echo chambers, they found surprisingly little evidence of them on a large scale – or at least none on a scale large enough to warrant the growing concerns. And yet, selective exposure to news does increase polarization. This suggested that these studies missed part of the picture of Americans’ news consumption patterns. Crucially, they did not factor in a major component of the average American’s experience of news: television.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

PSU Vanguard: The monks behind the books. “If you’ve ever walked the stacks of Portland State’s Branford Price Miller Library, you’ve likely noticed the distinctive hard-cloth bindings on a number of books on the shelves. From academic journals to dissertations, many of the library’s specialty bookbinding needs are performed by a community of Trappist monks from the Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey in Carlton, Oregon.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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