Day archives: March 10th, 2020

Smithsonian Releases 2.8 Million Images Into Public Domain

The launch of a new open access platform ushers in a new era of accessibility for the Institution – “Culture connoisseurs, rejoice: The Smithsonian Institution is inviting the world to engage with its vast repository of resources like never before. For the first time in its 174-year history, the Smithsonian has released 2.8 million high-resolution …

Subjects: Copyright, E-Government, Education, Internet, Knowledge Management

Waters to Wells Fargo CEO: The Bank You Inherited is Essentially a Lawless Organization

News release: “Following the release of a Majority staff report entitled, “The Real Wells Fargo: Board & Management Failures, Consumer Abuses, and Ineffective Regulatory Oversight,” Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, convened a full Committee hearing with Charles W. Scharf, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President of Wells Fargo …

Subjects: Congress, Economy, Financial System, Government Documents, Legal Research

U.S. coronavirus testing threatened by shortage of critical lab materials

Politico: “A looming shortage in lab materials is threatening to delay coronavirus test results and cause officials to undercount the number of Americans with the virus. The slow pace of coronavirus testing has created a major gap in the U.S. public health response. The latest problem involves an inability to prepare samples for testing, creating …

Subjects: Government Documents, Health Care, Knowledge Management

DuckDuckGo does not track you – ready to leave Google?

Via www.bitlog.com Jake Voytko’s personal log of bits – DuckDuckGo is good enough for regular use – “…I don’t personally miss most of Google’s result panels. Especially the panels that highlight information snippets. It’s easy to find these. Searching microsoft word justify text provides me a snippet from Microsoft’s Office’s support page explaining what to …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Microsoft, Privacy, Search Engines

Google Scrubs Coronavirus Misinformation on Search, YouTube

Bloomberg – “Since Covid-19 began to spread, Google has aggressively intervened in some of its most popular online services to limit the spread of misinformation. This is a departure for a company that has relied heavily on software and automation to index and rank information throughout its 22-year existence. Google searches related to the virus …

Subjects: E-Government, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management, Medicine, Search Engines, Social Media

Harvard, MIT among many to tell students not to return from spring break due to coronavirus

MIT Technology Review: “After an outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease Covid-19 was found spreading through Boston’s biomedical community, Harvard University said it will move classes online and is telling students not to return from spring break. This story is part of our ongoing coverage of the coronavirus/Covid-19 outbreak. You can also sign up to our dedicated …

Subjects: Economy, Education, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management

The best advice is – Cancel Everything

The Atlantic – Social distancing is the only way to stop the coronavirus. We must start immediately. “…The coronavirus could spread with frightening rapidity, overburdening our health-care system and claiming lives, until we adopt serious forms of social distancing.  This suggests that anyone in a position of power or authority, instead of downplaying the dangers of …

Subjects: Economy, Health Care, Knowledge Management, Medicine

Why the US Sucks at Building Public Transit

Motherboard – America is worse at building and operating public transit than nearly all of its peers. Why is that? And what can we do to fix it? – “American cities are facing a transportation crisis. There’s terrible traffic. Public transit doesn’t work or go where people need it to. The cities are growing, but newcomers …

Subjects: Transportation