NEW RESOURCES

Cabel Sasser: DAK and the Golden Age of Gadget Catalogs. “Thanks to the help of my friend Kay Savetz, I now present to you over 55 (!) fully-scanned, 600 DPI DAK catalogs, stored safely on the Internet Archive for you to enjoy. Best of all, there’s no charge for these downloads. Plus, as a special added bonus, I’ve also included 9 very-rare Products That Think / JS&A catalogs, never before available on the internet.”

The Oregonian: New economic data dashboard sheds light on Black Oregonians, businesses . “The Black Business Association of Oregon this week launched a new tool to access data on the socioeconomic status of Black Oregonians. The Black Economic Prosperity Dashboard… draws on existing federal, public and proprietary data. It includes data across five topics: population, health, education, economic well-being and business ownership.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Fast Company: Elon Musk isn’t the only one who lost a ton of money on X this year. “By my math, which is based on the value that Fidelity places on the X shares owned by its mutual funds, the massive mess Musk has made of Twitter has cost him $17 billion, a number that hasn’t gotten anything like the attention it deserves. But rather than going over the now-familiar ground of how Musk messed up, which I’ve covered several times, I’d like to show you something else: how even the smartest investors can hurt themselves by falling in love with the idea of investing alongside a mega-rich, mega-famous business rock star.”

USEFUL STUFF

CogDogBlog: Mastodon Link Play . “One of the Mastodon new user bumps is getting your head around the extra layer of your name or handle being doubled with the place you call home, both a positive for appreciating federation but maybe a complexity in unraveling names and links…. Here are a few things I’ve worked through or are trying to for a focus on fedispaces, over the single letter algebra variable one 😉”

AROUND THE INTERNET WORLD

New York Times: On Social Media, People Face Pressure to Speak Out About the War. “People who work across industries — from famous online influencers to those with far less prominent online profiles, including a yoga teacher, an interior designer, and tech and real estate workers — said in interviews that they faced an expectation to share their opinions about the war. The pressure is conveyed either explicitly or subtly from friends and followers. Silence is viewed by many as its own statement.”

ComicBook: Studio Ghibli Plans to Delete Its X (Twitter) Account ASAP. “In the aftermath of Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform, things are on edge for X. With ad revenue down more than 50% and monthly users in a slump, X is bleeding love. Now, Studio Ghibli has confirmed its plans to leave the site, and the company plans to shutter its page ASAP.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Bloomberg: Google Play’s ‘Bribe and Block’ Ploy Hurt Rivals, Epic Says. “Alphabet Inc. used a ‘bribe and block’ strategy to thwart competition against its Google Play app marketplace, hurting developers and raising prices for consumers, Epic Games Inc. said as it began its courtroom battle with the technology giant.”

Syracuse University: Smart Speakers, Smarter Protection. “Whether you’re looking to try a new recipe, dimming the lights in your living room, or curious about the species of bacteria living inside your mouth, Amazon Alexa has got you covered. With a simple voice command, Alexa’s ability to perform various tasks or answer questions has made it widely popular, with over 40 million users in the United States alone. Despite the convenience smart speakers like Alexa offer, these devices have also raised some privacy concerns.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

WIRED: First-Gen Social Media Users Have Nowhere to Go. “If the early promise of social media was to bring society closer to a virtual ideal, the most recent shift in how platforms are used has lost the plot. Along with Twitter, the erosion of the user experience on Facebook and Instagram—with tiered subscriptions, a proliferation of hate speech and misinformation, privacy being sold as a luxury, and the threat of generative AI—marks a sharp turning point in the value of the social web.”

Route Fifty: ‘Tripledemic’ dashboards set health agencies up for flu season. “COVID, influenza and RSV—oh my! Fall and winter bring an increase in respiratory illnesses, so state health departments are revamping their COVID dashboards for enhanced insights into their communities’ health.” Good afternoon, Internet…

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