Monthly archives: August, 2024

How to protect your college laptop: A student’s guide to cybersecurity

PCWorld: “Security is essential for any laptop, whether you’re on a college laptop, a gaming laptop, or especially a business laptop. But college laptops face unique challenges. For example, if you’re a student and you’re connecting your own laptop to your school’s network — perhaps in a dorm — then you should really be using …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, E-Mail, E-Records, Internet, Privacy

Art auction sales

Data is Plural: “Kangsan Lee et al. have compiled a dataset of “34,200 auction sales records, including images, artists’ attributes, and market information, encompassing 590 living contemporary artists spanning 17 years (1996 to 2012) across 23 countries.” It includes the artist’s name, nationality, and birth year; the artwork’s name, year, medium, and dimensions; the auction …

Subjects: Internet, Marketing

Meme – Tim Walz Fixed Your Bicycle

Via Kottke – Tim Walz Fixed Your Bicycle – “Immediately after Tim Walz was announced as Kamala Harris’s VP pick, the memes started. Most zeroed in on Walz’s potent Midwestern dad energy; he’s the kind of guy who would help a neighbor fix a car, pick you up from the airport, or bring you some soup …

Subjects: Internet

You can upgrade your old PC to Windows 11

ZDNET – even if Microsoft says it’s ‘incompatible’ here’s how: “On October 14, 2025, Microsoft will stop delivering security updates to your Windows 10 PC unless you’re willing to pay an exorbitant price to join the Extended Security Updates program.  If you try to upgrade to Windows 11 on a PC over a few years …

Subjects: Internet, Microsoft

Hackers Allegedly Steal Billions of Personal Records From Fla. Security Firm

PC Mag: “A little-known company in Florida allegedly lost records on 2.9 billion individuals to hackers, according to a class-action lawsuit. National Public Data specializes in background checks and fraud prevention. But the data it collects appears to have ended up in the hands of a hacking group called “USDoD.” It began selling access to …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Internet, Legal Research, Privacy

The world’s richest countries in 2024

The Economist [unpaywalled]: “Sorting countries into rich and poor can be difficult. Measures such as GDP are affected by population size (more people generally mean more output). But adjusting for population alone is not enough. Dollar income per person does not account for differences in prices between countries (a Big Mac, for example, will set …

Subjects: Economy, Financial System

A comprehensive list of 2024 tech layoffs

TechCrunch: “The tech layoff wave is still going strong in 2024. Following significant workforce reductions in 2022 and 2023, this year has already seen 60,000 job cuts across 254 companies, according to independent layoffs tracker Layoffs.fyi. Companies like Tesla, Amazon, Google, TikTok, Snap and Microsoft have conducted sizable layoffs in the first months of 2024. …

Subjects: AI, Economy, Internet, Knowledge Management

Scientists are falling victim to deepfake AI video scams here’s how to fight back

Nature: “…But lately the attacks have become more sophisticated, and harder to debunk. “With AI, they can make an image look and speak exactly like me, with my mannerisms,” he says. In one video, he is depicted as saying that people could live to 100 years if they take a certain herbal product. Such videos …

Subjects: AI, Education, Health Care, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Medicine

Railroad Incidents

Data is Plural: “Since last August, the Federal Railroad Administration has been rolling out a new portal for its safety data. Through it, you can find datasets on incidents and accidents involving railroad equipment, incidents at grade crossings, and reported injuries and illnesses, as well as dashboards and reports on related topics. The grade crossing …

Subjects: Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research, Transportation

More than a billion birds could be dying from flying into buildings each year in US

PopSci: “Glass windows are a marvel of human engineering–clear, nearly invisible sheets of sturdy material that let us bring natural light into closed structures. Yet beyond the walls of bright and airy buildings, windows become something else: A threat to wildlife.  Birds don’t understand glass. They haven’t been taught to recognize the structural cues indicating …

Subjects: Climate Change, Environmental Law