NEW RESOURCES

Discovered via a convoluted route it would take entirely too long to tell you about: the Flex Index. From the front page: “The world’s most robust source for full time, hybrid, and remote work requirements. 4,000 companies representing 100M employees.”

Utrecht University: The Middle Ages continue to surprise, this digital exhibition shows. “Knights in love, preaching foxes and fighting snails: medieval culture may seem familiar or odd in modern eyes, but it is always surprising. In the digital exhibition ‘The Surprising Middle Ages’ (‘De verrassende middeleeuwen’), over fifty researchers from the Netherlands and abroad show what surprises the period between about 500 and 1500 still offers today.” The exhibit is in Dutch but translated okay when I put the URL in Google Translate.

Pulse Kenya: Google launches online archive on Maasai Heritage. “Curated by the National Museums of Kenya, the online archive features over 430 high-resolution images and 55 exhibits that showcase different aspects of Maasai life, including their language, mythology, jewellery, and rituals. The exhibition is an immersive experience that offers visitors a chance to learn more about the Maasai through audio-narrated stories and to speak and count in Maa.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

How-To Geek: Microsoft Edge Just Got a Big PDF Upgrade. “PDFs can be opened on almost any device these days, but it was, first and foremost, an Adobe-developed standard, and Acrobat is still a tremendously powerful tool for viewing PDFs. Microsoft is now working with Adobe to improve PDF viewing and editing in the Edge web browser.”

Search Engine Land: New updates to Google’s gambling and games policy. “If you or your clients are involved in sports betting, or your brand is in this field, will soon have the opportunity to advertise on Google and target users in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.”

USEFUL STUFF

Lifehacker: You Can Add Face ID Lock to iPhone Apps That Don’t Support It. “Face ID is great for locking and unlocking your iPhone, but it’s even better for authenticating apps that contain sensitive data. While many apps now support Face ID log in, there are still plenty that don’t—but there’s a hack that can lock any app behind Face ID, thanks to an interesting quirk of iOS.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

How-To Geek: Mozilla Is Rebuilding Thunderbird “From the Ground Up”. “Mozilla released Thunderbird 102 back in June 2022, marking the first phase of a multi-year revamp of the popular mail client. It had a few much-needed setup improvements and bug fixes, as well as some design tweaks. There’s also a more significant update planned for later in 2023, named ‘Supernova,’ which was already teased as a major redesign. However, it’s not just a redesign — the app is being rebuilt ‘from the ground up.'”

Library of Congress: Library Acquires Archives of Garth Fagan Dance Company. “The Library of Congress has acquired the papers of choreographer Garth Fagan and Garth Fagan Dance, the company founded by Fagan in 1970. Garth Fagan Dance is distinguished by the artistic imagination and polyrhythmic movement of Jamaican-born Fagan, layered with the discipline and strength of ballet training. The company has performed in more than 660 cities in 24 countries on six continents.”

Kotaku: As More Games Disappear Forever, John Carmack Has Some Great Advice About Preservation. “Doom co-creator John Carmack, legendary game designer, rocket guy and VR enthusiast, left Meta/Facebook late last year after a decade working on the company’s virtual reality efforts. Just because he’s gone, though, doesn’t mean the company’s decisions are out of his thoughts.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: Pentagon Employees Are Too Horny to Follow National Security Protocols. “The list of what DoD employees are downloading in spite of bans includes dating apps, Chinese drone apps, third-party virtual private networks, cryptocurrency apps, games, and apps related to multi-level marketing schemes.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

TidBITS: Mastodon Clients Could Do So Much More. “If developers can break free from thinking of Twitter as the apex of microblogging, we could see tools that would radically change and improve our ways of interacting. Here are a few ideas that have occurred to me; share yours in the comments below and on Mastodon, where we can hope they’ll catch the eye of developers.”

Ars Technica: AI-powered Bing Chat spills its secrets via prompt injection attack. “On Tuesday, Microsoft revealed a ‘New Bing’ search engine and conversational bot powered by ChatGPT-like technology from OpenAI. On Wednesday, a Stanford University student named Kevin Liu used a prompt injection attack to discover Bing Chat’s initial prompt, which is a list of statements that governs how it interacts with people who use the service.” Good morning, Internet…

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