NEW RESOURCES

Library of Congress: Library Opens New Web Archive Collection, Features Programs for Black History Month. “A new web archive collection from the Library of Congress documents the civil unrest sparked by the police murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. The Protests Against Racism Web Archive contains a selection of websites documenting protests against racism and police brutality against Black people, as well as grass roots movements and activism calling for police reform.”

The Distant Librarian: Jeremy Singer-Vine’s Data Liberation Project. “Not to be confused with Canada’s Data Liberation Initiative, Jeremy Singer-Vine is spending his time on the Data Liberation Project, ‘an initiative to identify, obtain, reformat, clean, document, publish, and disseminate government datasets of public interest.’ There’s not yet a lot to look at there, but there’s plenty in the pipeline.”

University of Southern California: Taj Frazier explores how hip-hop artists are shaping emerging technologies. “Young artists are changing the game by creating unique experiences for audiences in 3D spaces and developing art with innovative decentralized technologies. Associate Professor of Communication Taj Frazier examines this intersection of music, art and technology as host of a new series, Hip-Hop and the Metaverse.”

USEFUL STUFF

Beyond Search: Definitive AI Market Snapshot. “Matt Shumer, the co-founder of Otherside AI, posted on Twitter ‘the definitive market map Twitter thread.’… The format of the information in Twitter is helpful, but I prefer information in tabular form. Here is Mr. Shumer’s ‘map’ presented with the company name and its url.” I think you’re going to be surprised at how long this list is already.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

Platformer: Instagram’s co-founders are mounting a comeback. “Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back. The Instagram co-founders, who departed Facebook in 2018 amid tensions with their parent company, have formed a new venture to explore ideas for next-generation social apps. Their first product is Artifact, a personalized news feed that uses machine learning to understand your interests and will soon let you discuss those articles with friends.”

Daily Beast: Russia’s Google, Yandex, Fixes Results So ‘Bald F*cker’ and ‘Bunker Grandad’ Reportedly Won’t Show Putin. “Russia’s biggest search engine secretly put blocks in its code to stop images of Vladimir Putin showing up in the results of potentially embarrassing searches, according to a report, with Nazi iconography also allegedly scrubbed out of the results of queries for the ‘Z’ symbol signifying support for the war in Ukraine.” Headline censored by me so this has half a chance to get to you.

Engadget: YouTube Music workers strike at Google’s Austin offices. “YouTube Music workers in the Austin, TX area who voted to unionize are striking. The Alphabet Works Union-CWA (AWU-CWA), which represents the contractors, says this is the first time a group of Google-affiliated workers has gone on strike.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Until further notice, think twice before using Google to download software. “Searching Google for downloads of popular software has always come with risks, but over the past few months, it has been downright dangerous, according to researchers and a pseudorandom collection of queries.”

Washington Post: Harvard is shutting down project that studied social media misinformation. “Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government said Thursday that it will shut down a prominent research center that studied online misinformation next year, marking the latest turning point for the study of social media’s impact on American society and politics.”

ABC News (Australia): Adelaide woman wins second defamation case against Google over search results. “An Adelaide woman has won a second defamation case against Google, after a court found the search engine knowingly put derogatory comments about her online despite her winning $100,000 from the company in a similar case in 2015.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

PR Newswire: NASA Awards Millions to Historically Black Colleges, Universities (PRESS RELEASE). “NASA is awarding $11.7 million to eight Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) through the new Data Science Equity, Access, and Priority in Research and Education (DEAP) opportunity. These awards will enable HBCU students and faculty to conduct innovative data science research that contributes to NASA’s missions.”

EurekAlert: Online forums help those with dementia find missing support and companionship. “Online forums for people with dementia provide a much-needed sense of community and hope and fill an important gap in the support they receive after diagnosis, a new study has found. The researchers suggest that clinicians, support workers and organisations could recommend online support forums to people with dementia, in addition to providing their regular in-person care.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

North Carolina Coastal Federation: To move a manatee: Museum catalogs skeletal specimen. “It took a lot of collaboration to get an 800-pound manatee carcass that washed up on a beach in Kill Devil Hills in early December 2021 to Lisa Gatens, the mammalogy collection manager at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. The carcass was delivered in mid-December 2021 and buried in manure to decompose, leaving just the bones. After about a year, the bones were dug up, cleaned, put in a freezer to get rid of any critters, cleaned again and, as of last week, each bone was being entered into the mammalogy collections catalog.” Good morning, Internet…

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