TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Library of Congress: National Recording Registry Inducts Music from Madonna, Mariah Carey, Queen Latifah, Daddy Yankee. “Madonna’s cultural ascent with ‘Like a Virgin,’ Mariah Carey’s perennial No. 1 Christmas hit, Queen Latifah’s groundbreaking ‘All Hail the Queen’ and Daddy Yankee’s reggaeton explosion with ‘Gasolina’ are some of the defining sounds of the nation’s history and culture that will now join the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. The 2023 class also includes the first sounds of a video game to join the registry with the Super Mario Bros. theme, powerful voices of women, important inductions of Latin music, and classic sounds of rock and pop from the 1960s to the ‘80s.”

NPR: NPR quits Twitter after being falsely labeled as ‘state-affiliated media’. “NPR will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds, becoming the first major news organization to go silent on the social media platform. In explaining its decision, NPR cited Twitter’s decision to first label the network ‘state-affiliated media,’ the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries.”

Ars Technica: Substack debuts feature that spooked Musk into suppressing Substack tweets. “Today, Substack officially rolled out Notes, the product that creates a feed that allows Substack creators and subscribers to interact. It functions so much like Twitter that it controversially caused Twitter to restrict links to Substack. But Substack doesn’t see Notes as a Twitter rival, telling Ars that Substack has no plans to become the next Twitter.” The way they describe it, it sounds more like RSS.

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

The Salem News: Guanci drops out of mayor’s race after Twitter revelations. “Mayoral candidate Paul Guanci said Tuesday that he is dropping out of the race after revelations surfaced that he liked derogatory Twitter comments regarding race, gender, immigration and election denial. Guanci deleted his Twitter account before he announced his candidacy last week, but screenshots of the account were provided to The Salem News.” They’re also in the Wayback Machine. Yuck.

Ars Technica: The mounting human and environmental costs of generative AI. “Over the past few months, the field of artificial intelligence has seen rapid growth, with wave after wave of new models like Dall-E and GPT-4 emerging one after another. Every week brings the promise of new and exciting models, products, and tools. It’s easy to get swept up in the waves of hype, but these shiny capabilities come at a real cost to society and the planet. Downsides include the environmental toll of mining rare minerals, the human costs of the labor-intensive process of data annotation, and the escalating financial investment required to train AI models as they incorporate more parameters.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bleeping Computer: Kodi discloses data breach after forum database for sale online. “The Kodi Foundation has disclosed a data breach after hackers stole the organization’s MyBB forum database containing user data and private messages and attempted to sell it online. Kodi is a cross-platform open-source media player, organizer, and streaming suite, that supports a vast array of third-party add-ons enabling the users to access content from various sources or customize their experience.”

The Guardian: Twitter forced to remove harmful content aimed at Brittany Higgins and partner. “Australia’s eSafety commissioner deployed tough new cyber abuse powers for the first time to force Twitter to remove severely harmful content targeting Brittany Higgins and her partner, David Sharaz, last year.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Hackaday: Wolverine Gives Your Python Scripts The Ability To Self-Heal. “[BioBootloader] combined Python and a hefty dose of of AI for a fascinating proof of concept: self-healing Python scripts.”

Reuters Institute: Will AI-generated images create a new crisis for fact-checkers? Experts are not so sure. “I spoke to several journalists, experts, and fact-checkers to assess the dangers posed by visual generative AI. When seeing is no longer believing, what are the implications this technology has on misinformation? How will this impact journalists and fact-checkers who debunk hoaxes? Will our information channels be flooded with ‘propaganda and untruth’?”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Washington Post: The Washington Post’s 2023 Peeps diorama contest winners. “After 364 days of antici-Peep-tion, The Washington Post’s annual Peeps diorama contest has returned with a sweet, sugary bang. This year’s participants drove the challenge to previously unimaginable levels, harnessing unmatched creativity and referencing the year’s most iconic moments (Swifties, are you Ready For It?) in the process.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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