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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici

Airlines are not making flights more expensive by tracking your search habits

Gizmodo: “Why So Many People Think They Can Get Cheaper Flights Using Incognito Mode…Economists from Berkeley, Yale, and the University of Chicago recently studied the pricing algorithms of an unnamed large US airline. The study found that the overall bookings for any given flight will affect the price, but your personal interest has no impact… Continue Reading

America splintering into more than a dozen news bubbles

Axios: “Shards of glass: Inside media’s 12 splintering realities – You can’t understand November’s election — or America itself — without reckoning with how our media attention has shattered into a bunch of misshapen pieces. Think of it as the shards of glass phenomenon. Not long ago, we all saw news and information through a… Continue Reading

New evidence suggests dogs may ‘picture’ objects in their minds, similarly to people

PopSci: “When a dog follows a command or fetches a ball, it’s hard to know what’s really going on inside its canine cranium. Do dogs understand and respond to tone of voice, the syllables of words, accompanying hand motions and body language, or just the situational context? Behavioral studies have offered some clues, but new… Continue Reading

Supreme Court Ideology and the Press

Andersen Jones, RonNell and West, Sonja, Supreme Court Ideology and the Press (March 15, 2024). University of Georgia School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2024-3, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4760952 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4760952 “Among the elected branches and the broader public, positivity toward the press skews deeply ideological. The data make clear that most liberals… Continue Reading

Asking GPT for the Ordinary Meaning of Statutory Terms

Engel, Christoph and McAdams, Richard H., Asking GPT for the Ordinary Meaning of Statutory Terms (February 6, 2024). MPI Collective Goods Discussion Paper, No. 2024/5, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4718347 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4718347 “We report on our test of the Large Language Model (LLM) ChatGPT (GPT) as a tool for generating evidence of the ordinary meaning of… Continue Reading

WHO The state of the climate in 2023

WHO Climate Report – Climate change indicators reached record levels in 2023. The state of the climate in 2023 gave ominous new significance to the phrase “off the charts.” Key messages: State of Global Climate report confirms 2023 as hottest year on record by clear margin Records broken for ocean heat, sea level rise, Antarctic… Continue Reading

Climate change is shifting the zones where plants grow

Via LLRX – Climate change is shifting the zones where plants grow – With the arrival of spring in North America, many people are gravitating to the gardening and landscaping section of home improvement stores, where displays are overstocked with eye-catching seed packs and benches are filled with potted annuals and perennials. But some plants that… Continue Reading

Review – Law Democratized: A Blueprint For Solving The Justice Crisis

Via LLRX – Review – Law Democratized: A Blueprint For Solving The Justice Crisis – Jerry Lawson rhetorically asks Is anyone in the country better qualified than Renee Knake Jefferson to write about access to justice? Professor of Law at the University of Houston, co-reporter for the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services,… Continue Reading

Financial Times tests an AI chatbot trained on decades of its own articles

The Verge: “Subscribers can use Ask FT to answer questions about recent events or broader topics covered by the Financial Times. The Financial Times has a new generative AI chatbot called Ask FT that can answer questions its subscribers ask. Similar to generalized AI bots (like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini), users can expect a curated… Continue Reading