NEW RESOURCES

New from the UCLA Film & Television Archive: https://newsreels.net/. The Web site does not use an encryption certificate and I could not find any announcements anywhere but Facebook and Twitter, so I was not hopeful. Sounds like a great collection, though. From the front page: “In 1981, the Hearst Corporation donated its newsreel collection to the University of California. In cooperation with the UCLA Film & Television Archive, the Packard Humanities Institute is developing this website as part of a joint project to make the Hearst newsreel collection more easily accessible to the public.” Newsreels cover 1929-1967. I just watched Elizabeth Arden talk about the return of the natural waistline in 1930. Ma’am, mine never went anywhere.

USGS: New Online Maps for Exploring Groundwater Levels in Arizona. “New interactive maps that can address different questions about groundwater availability in Arizona were released today by the U.S. Geological Survey. Called the Arizona Groundwater Explorer, or AGEx, the maps provide water managers, decision-makers, and the public, information on historical, current, and change in groundwater levels in Arizona to help sustainably manage this shared resource.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

9to5 Google: New Google Docs Calendar template lets you collaborate on invites. “Following Gmail last year, Google Docs is adding a new Calendar event template that lets you ‘collaborate with others to draft calendar invites.'”

Search Engine Land: Google defines which languages translated search results will show up in Google Search. “As you may know, Google Search may translate the title link and snippet of a search result snippet for results that aren’t in the language of the search query. Google has now updated its help document it initially added a year and a half ago to include which languages this works for.”

ZDNet: Deleted Twitter messages are reappearing for some users. “Say you deleted some Twitter messages. Perhaps, you just wanted to get rid of some blunders. Maybe, you tweeted some things you regretted, or you needed to erase some tweets that would land you in a lot of trouble with your boss. Well, you’d better check your Twitter feed. Those messages you thought were long gone may have reappeared.”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

University of Florida: Sharing Underground Railroad’s oral histories. “Under the guidance of the National Park Service and the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, UF staff and students in the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program will record the oral and family traditions of Underground Railroad descendants and representatives.”

Bloomberg: Google to Phase Out Cookies for 1% of Chrome Users in Early 2024. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google will phase out third-party cookies for 1% of the users of its Chrome browser in the first quarter of 2024, a key step in a plan that will upend how advertisements are targeted on websites.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

WIRED: This is catfishing on an industrial scale. “Liam is one of hundreds of freelancers employed all over the world to animate fake profiles and chat with people who have signed up for dating and hookup sites…. Often recruited into ‘customer support’ or content moderation roles, they found themselves playing roles in sophisticated operations set up to tease subscription money from lonely hearts looking for connections online.”

New York Times: Extremism Finds Fertile Ground in Chat Rooms for Gamers. “A report, released on Thursday by the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, underscored how deeply rooted misogyny, racism and other extreme ideologies have become in some video game chat rooms, and offered insight into why people playing video games or socializing online seem to be particularly susceptible to such viewpoints.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Caltech: Reviving the Past with Artificial Intelligence. “While studying John Singer Sargent’s paintings of wealthy women in 19th-century society, Jessica Helfand, a former Caltech artist in residence, had an idea: to search census records to find the identities of those women’s servants. ‘I thought, “What happens if I paint these women in the style of John Singer Sargent?”‘… To recreate a style from history, she turned to technology that, increasingly, is driving the future.”

Statistics Netherlands: CBS develops experimental database of supply chains in the Dutch economy. “Production chains play a major role in the Dutch economy, but they are vulnerable to disruptions. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) is developing a database to understand the production chains for Dutch companies. The database is still in the experimental phase, but some initial analyses have recently been published.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Boing Boing: Uncle Apple educates kids through rap songs that slap. “When Georgia-based singer/songwriter Kyle Lucas isn’t making his own music, he’s making catchy rap songs for kids under the moniker ‘Uncle Apple.’ Inspired by his niece (who gave him the nickname) and two nephews, Kyle started creating these fun and educational songs to teach kids important stuff like washing hands, learning colors, and getting outside.” Good morning, Internet…

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