Author archives

Ditching Twitter? How to get started with Mastodon

ZDNet: “Now that Twitter is under new (and controversial) management, a decentralized open-source alternative has seen surprising growth. Here’s how the Fediverse works and how you can get started…It’s difficult for most consumers to wrap their minds around the concept of the Fediverse, which has a lot of technical jargon and wonkiness associated with it. …

Subjects: E-Mail, Internet, Knowledge Management, Social Media

RSV Is Surging: What We Know about This Common and Surprisingly Dangerous Virus

Scientific American – “Your questions answered about what RSV is, how it spreads, what vaccines are on the way and who is most at risk. As flu season picks up and experts weigh concerns about another possible COVID surge, children’s hospitals are already filling with patients with another viral threat: respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. …

Subjects: Health Care, Medicine

How to know if breathwork is right for you

Mashable: “Breathwork tutorials are popular on social media, but experts say beginners should be cautious. Breathwork seems like one of those self-help techniques that you could easily learn on social media. After all, there are countless tutorials on YouTube and TikTok, along with numerous testimonials on Reddit. And anyway, could it really be that difficult …

Subjects: Education, Health Care, Social Media

Amazon Becomes the First Company Ever to Lose $1 Trillion in Stock Value

Gizmodo: “Amazon, one of the first companies to join the prestigious $1 trillion dollar valuation club, just passed another, admittedly less desirable milestone. This week, Jeff Bezos’ Everything Store became the first publicly traded company to lose $1 tillion in market valuation. The mind boggling figures, first noted by Bloomberg, are the results of a …

Subjects: E-Commerce, Economy, Financial System

Gmail will no longer allow users to revert back to its old design

TechCrunch: “Google announced [November 8, 2022] that it’s making the new Gmail interface the standard experience for users. The company first released the new interface earlier this year but allowed users to revert back to the original view. Starting this month, users will no longer have the option to go back to the old interface. …

Subjects: E-Mail, E-Records, Internet, Knowledge Management, Social Media

DOJ and SEC Investigating FTX Collapse as Entire Crypto Market Plunges

Gizmodo: “The Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating FTX, a crypto platform that halted withdrawals on Tuesday, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. And while the SEC’s investigation has reportedly been going “for months,” the agency’s scrutiny has only expanded this week following the liquidity crisis at …

Subjects: Cryptocurrency, Economy, Financial System, Legal Research, Securities Law

Ernie Lazar, FOIA Expert and Prolific Government Document Researcher, Dies

The New York Times: “Ernie Lazar, an unheralded hero of researchers who mined his vast digital and documentary archive of government records on political extremists to invigorate their books, articles and arguments and to warn against “it can’t happen here” complacency, died on Nov. 1 at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 77…Mr. …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries

How to avoid falling for and spreading misinformation online

Washington Post: “Anyone with an internet connection can watch breaking news unfold in real time, or at least some version of it. Across social media, posts can fly up faster than most fact-checkers and moderators can handle, and they’re often an unpredictable mix of true, fake, out of context and even propaganda. This kind of …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

Mastadon – Democratizing Social Media

“Mastodon’s popularity is soaring, and it’s all due to the chaotic actions of one man. As people explore what else is on offer for social media, Mastodon has emerged as a viable open-source alternative, with no ads. Reuters has an explainer, as does CNN, New York Times, and the Guardian.” [via Metafilter] NOTE: Follow beSpacific …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Search Engines, Social Media

Hate (or Bias) Crime Laws

Simons, Kenneth W., Hate (or Bias) Crime Laws (October 18, 2022). UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper No. 38, 2022, Palgrave Handbook on Applied Ethics and the Criminal Law, Larry Alexander, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, editors, 2019., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4251871 “This chapter reaches the following conclusions about laws that enhance punishment for criminal conduct …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Government Documents, Legal Research

Study assesses quality of AI literary translations by comparing them with human translations

TechXplore: “Recent advancements in the field of machine learning (ML) have greatly improved the quality of automatic translation tools. At present, these tools are primarily used to translate basic sentences, as well as short texts or unofficial documents. Literary texts, such as novels or short stories, are still fully translated by expert human translators, who …

Subjects: AI, E-Records, Education, Knowledge Management, Legal Research