NEW RESOURCES

University of Texas at Austin: ‘Information and Elections in the Digital Era’: Knight Center and UNESCO launch self-directed online course in four languages. “A multilingual course in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish that looks at the impact of the digital era on global elections is now available to take at any time, from anywhere around the world.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: This Tool Can Boot Multiple OSes From a USB Drive. “Booting a PC into a Windows installer, Linux distribution, or other CD/USB image usually requires wiping a USB drive and overwriting it with one image at a time. That means using several USB drives if you want to keep around install/recovery images for multiple operating systems. Ventoy solves this problem with a multi-boot setup — once it is installed on a USB drive, you can copy as many ISO images as you want to a single flash drive using any file manager, and then select the one you want at startup.”

MakeUseOf: The Best Sleep Apps for Tracking and Improving Sleep. “If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re desperate for better sleep, too. But can mobile apps really help you sleep better? Under the right circumstances, yes they can. Let’s look at the three types of apps that can help you get better sleep: sleep tracker apps, blue light filter apps, and sleep meditation apps.”

Online Journalism Blog: How to: create a data news diary. “One of the most basic sources of story ideas for a journalist is a news diary listing forthcoming newsworthy events. For the journalist looking for ideas in data, having forthcoming data releases in your diary can be especially useful. Here is a quick guide preparing your own data news diary.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Mashable: An ode to 2022, the last ‘normal’ year on Twitter . “…even though Twitter is ending 2022 in a substantially worse place than it was at the start of the year, there was still a lot to celebrate. For the most part, 2022 was the last ‘normal’ year on Twitter and that entailed a whole lot of incredible memes, massive cultural moments, and just good old-fashioned gags, riffs, and japes. It’s not possible to fit everything into one article, but here are just a few of our favorite Twitter bits from the last year before things got totally out of control.”

Nieman Journalism Lab: TikTok personality journalists continue to rise. “Younger audiences aren’t opening up a physical newspaper or turning on the 7 p.m. news (sorry). They’re scrolling on Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. And after seeing the success of The Washington Post and Planet Money‘s TikToks, other outlets are going to want in. But it won’t just be brand accounts posting these TikToks — it’ll be reporters using their own accounts to explain their reporting.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Reuters: North Korean hackers exploited Seoul Halloween tragedy to distribute malware, Google says. “North Korean government-backed hackers referenced the deadly Halloween crush in Seoul to distribute malware to users in South Korea, Google’s Threat Analysis group said in a report.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Why we need open-source science innovation — not patents and paywalls. “As we prepare to invest money to prevent the next global pandemic and find solutions to many other problems, science funders have a large opportunity to move towards open science and more research collaboration by offering open-source endowed chairs. In these research positions, professors agree to ensure all of their writing is distributed via open access — and they release all of their intellectual property in the public domain or under appropriate open-source licences.”

Esquire: How to Unfriend Your Dead Brother. “As months passed, I attempted to accept Andrew’s death, but his digital self refused to. By all accounts—literally—he lived on. When did technology become the guy who casually brings up traumatic events without noticing he’s crippling you?”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

New York Times: They’re Taking Jigsaws to Infinity and Beyond. “Ms. Rosenkrantz and Mr. Louis-Rosenberg are algorithmic artists who make laser-cut wooden jigsaw puzzles — among other curios — at their design studio, Nervous System, in Palenville, N.Y. Inspired by how shapes and forms emerge in nature, they write custom software to ‘grow’ intertwining puzzle pieces. Their signature puzzle cuts have names like dendrite, amoeba, maze and wave.” Good morning, Internet…

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