My Mother Got on a Bike. It Changed Her Life.

The New York Times [no paywall]: “When my mother was 62 years old, she dusted off a clunky Cannondale with Mary Poppins handles and joined a bicycling group. She was recovering from heartbreak and had just moved to a new town. She had no background as an outdoor activity enthusiast: She did not camp or …

Subjects: Health Care

Émigrés Are Creating an Alternative China, One Bookstore at a Time

The New York Times [no paywall]: “From Tokyo and Chiang Mai, Thailand, to Amsterdam and New York, members of the Chinese diaspora are building public lives that are forbidden in China and training themselves to be civic-minded citizens — the type of Chinese the Communist Party doesn’t want them to be. They are opening Chinese …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Libraries

Instagram’s Uneasy Rise as a News Site

The New York Times [read free]: “In this year’s presidential election, more people are turning to Instagram for news, even as the platform tries de-emphasizing “political content.”…Mosheh Oinounou of Mo News is part of a crop of personalities who have figured out how to package information and deliver it on Instagram, increasingly turning the social …

Subjects: Internet, Knowledge Management, Social Media

Survey Finds Workers are Putting Businesses at Risk by Oversharing with GenAI Tools

InsideBigData: “Our friends over at Veritas just released a new survey revealing that workers are oversharing with generative AI tools, putting businesses at risk. Nearly a third (31%) of global office workers admitted to inputting potentially sensitive information into generative AI tools, such as customer details or employee financials. Other key findings include: 61% of global …

Subjects: AI, E-Records, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

Tools for Thinking About Censorship

ReactorMag – “One price of free speech is eternal humility, recognizing that none of us is immune to becoming a tool of censorship if we fail to recognize its manipulative tactics. Was it a government action, or did they do it themselves because of pressure?” This is inevitably among our first questions when news breaks …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Libraries

Why car insurance rates are so high

Vox: “If you pay for car insurance, you’ve probably noticed that rates are really high lately. You’re not alone. Last week’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report — the government’s method for tracking what people are paying for goods and services and how that’s changing over time — noted that the price of car insurance was …

Subjects: E-Records, Economy, Government Documents, Health Care, Transportation

DOJ funding pipeline subsidizes questionable big data surveillance technologies

Via LLRX – DOJ funding pipeline subsidizes questionable big data surveillance technologies – Professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson discusses how predictive policing has been shown to be an ineffective and biased policing tool. Yet, the Department of Justice has been funding the crime surveillance and analysis technology for years and continues to do so despite criticism from researchers, privacy …

Subjects: Congress, E-Records, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

ARCCI submits first report regarding Hamas October 7 attack to the UN

Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI): “The report clearly demonstrates that this is not a “malfunction” or isolated incident but a clear operational strategy involving systematic, targeted sexual abuse. The report focuses on sexual and gender-based violence during the massacre of October 7, 2023, and the war that ensued, serving as a primary …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Government Documents, Legal Research

National Customer Rage Study

“CCMC’s [Customer Care Measurement and Consulting] Customer Rage Study is an independent analysis of the state of corporate complaint handling in America. The Customer Rage Study offers a clear comparison of customer satisfaction with corporate customer care efforts across decades. A leader in the customer care movement for nearly 45 years, CCMC principals’ work has …

Subjects: Economy, Libraries

KitchenAid Did It Right 87 Years Ago

The Atlantic [read free] – “My KitchenAid stand mixer is older than I am. My dad bought the white-enameled machine 35 years ago, during a brief first marriage. The bits of batter crusted into its cracks could be from the pasta I made yesterday or from the bread he made then. I learned to make …

Subjects: Food and Nutrition