NEW RESOURCES

Birmingham Watch: Recorded State Government Meetings Available Through New League of Women Voters Channel . “The League of Women Voters has established a channel on which citizens can watch videos of the state Senate, House of Representatives and legislative committee meetings, searchable by keywords and phrases. The Alabama Channel is a new project of the League of Women Voters of Alabama Education Fund.”

UC Riverside: Historic Chicano student newspaper made available online. “For decades, Nuestra Cosa provided a platform for UC Riverside’s Chicano students to share their stories, poetry, and art with the campus. After the newspaper stopped publishing in 2012, much of that history became harder to find, with back issues tattered or fading away. A new project has made those voices available once again in a digital collection where readers can browse through the 40-year span of the newspaper.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Android Police: Google smartens up Search with dynamically themed knowledge panels. “Back in September at the Search On conference, Google talked about plans to make Search’s knowledge panel more contemporary, while remaining equally informative, and now we’re finally starting to see that enhanced interface arrive.”

Bloomberg: Hong Kong to ‘Use All Means’ Against Google Over National Anthem. “Hong Kong has strongly criticized Alphabet Inc.’s Google for failing to ensure the city’s correct national anthem features prominently on its search page. Typing in Hong Kong national anthem into the search box brings up articles and videos about Glory to Hong Kong, the unofficial anthem of the mass protests that rocked the financial hub in 2019, instead of China’s March of the Volunteers.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

CBS News: “Iron Man,” “The Little Mermaid,” “When Harry Met Sally” among movies named to National Film Registry. “The latest additions also include John Waters’ camp musical-comedy ‘Hairspray’ (1988); ‘Carrie,’ Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation of the Stephen King thriller, starring Sissy Spacek as a teenager gifted with telekinesis; and ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ (1950), for which José Ferrer became the first Hispanic actor to win a best actor Oscar.”

Charity Today: Historic Disability Rights Movement to be archived, thanks to lottery grant. “The four-year project will record and digitise these unique social history and heritage stories. These will be used to create an accessible and interactive website that is dedicated to the story of the Disability Rights Movement in the UK.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Rolling Stone: Russian Trolls Made Fake Kid Rock Fan Accounts — and Fooled Donald Trump Jr.. “Researchers found Russian-linked fake accounts posing as authentic American conservatives cross-posting content to personas on Truth Social, Gab, and Gettr. While right-wing social platforms like Gab and Parler have previously played host to Russian influence operations, the report marks the first documented case of Russian meddling on Truth Social, the social media app founded by Trump.”

CoinDesk: Canadian Securities Regulators to Strengthen Crypto Oversight After FTX Collapse. “The body, which consists of securities regulators from each of the 10 provinces and three territories in Canada, said it would be expanding its existing requirements for platforms that are currently operating in the country.”

CNBC: Sen. Warren presses Defense Secretary about ex-Google CEO Schmidt’s potential conflicts when he advised Pentagon on AI. “Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday pressed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin about his agency’s enforcement of conflict-of-interest rules for federal advisory boards, zeroing in on former Google CEO Eric Schmidt after CNBC reported on his past involvement on influential panels in an industry where he was an investor.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Slate: The Internet Is Having Its Midlife Crisis. “Many of us who have grown up along with the web are now reaching middle age, and we have enough experience with the internet to know what it does well and does poorly. And as with any midlife crisis, the internet can spiral into the abyss, continuing its own self-destructive pathway, or we can seize the moment to build a better internet founded on the essential principle that the internet belongs to all of us.”

WIRED: ChatGPT’s Fluent BS Is Compelling Because Everything Is Fluent BS. “The discourse around ChatGPT has flagged the damaging effect it might have on society, everything from the model encouraging torture and perpetuating sexism to enabling kids to cheat on their homework…. But to be honest, old-fashioned human-generated fluent bullshit—weaponized by social media—has already been pretty disastrous.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Penn State: Model shows how intelligent-like behavior can emerge from non-living agents. “A new model by a team of researchers led by Penn State and inspired by [Michael] Crichton’s novel describes how biological or technical systems form complex structures equipped with signal-processing capabilities that allow the systems to respond to stimulus and perform functional tasks without external guidance.” Good morning, Internet…

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