NEW RESOURCES
WRDW: CDC uses new tool to track flu as season picks up ahead of schedule. “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Erica Schwartz says a new tool is helping identify spikes in flu cases as flu season picks up months ahead of schedule and a new mutation is causing a rise in cases. The tool is designed to empower communities and individuals to know how best to protect themselves.”
Library of Congress: Preserving More Than the Web: Building an Archive of Online Resources for Preservation and Conservation. “I am a Preservation Librarian in the Conservation Division. Part of my role is ensuring that conservators and preservation scientists have access to the resources they need for their work, including new scholarly publications. As more of those resources became available only online, I realized we needed to preserve access for the future, which led to creating the Preservation and Conservation Web Archive. I am the Collection Leader, and I’ve researched the field and worked with colleagues across the Conservation Division to identify resources to include in the collection.”
Today I learned about an archivist named Larry R. Paul who has created a big dataset on the history of American hotels. “The Hotel Database is long-term research project that details, when known, the following information for more than 43,000 hotels in the United States, spanning nearly 100 years: Name – Location – Construction, Closure, Conversion, Destruction – Architect/Builder – Owner/Operators – Cost – Architectural Syle/Features/Additions – Floors/Rooms – Notes on China Service – Restaurants/Lounges/Coffee Shops, Ballroom. A primary source of research has been Hotel Red Books – from 1904 through 1969 – and in many ways the database can be thought of as the information from 65 years of HRBs compiled under one cover.”
TWEAKS AND UPDATES
Engadget: Bluesky adds iPad support in latest feature update . “Bluesky rolled out several features in its latest update, notably beta testing support for iPads…. Another update is aimed at self-promotion. Bluesky users can now put links to external platforms at the top of their profiles.”
Ars Technica: Disgraced eMudhra drops out of TLS business after using cert private key of 4. “eMudhra, the certificate authority that issued eight intermediate TLS credentials so weak that anyone could mint certificates for any website or mail server—one had a private encryption key of just 4—said it’s getting out of the business.”
AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD
New York Times: The Epstein Files Produce an Unlikely Weapon for the Houthi Messaging Wars. “The Houthis control much of Yemen. Their communications show a profound awareness of news that their sworn enemies generate. They are willing to deploy the information in many forms — songs, videos, speeches, statements, influencer posts and more — to build support and target foes, including Saudi Arabia, which backs the internationally recognized Yemeni government they are fighting. They portray themselves as defenders of Islam against corrupt foreign influences. Now, the group has stepped up its messaging efforts, after Yemen’s civil war reignited this summer amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.”
Futurism: Hundreds of Protestors Descend on Meta Corporate Office Depicting Zuck as the Devil. “Meta’s corporate offices in São Paulo are the site of ongoing protests against election interference in the crucial national run-off elections in Brazil. Hundreds of protestors rallied at the company’s offices on Tuesday, carrying effigies mocking Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg as the devil incarnate, Venezuelan publication TeleSur reported.”
SECURITY & LEGAL
Reuters: PHP Foundation ‘under-funded’ with one full-time staff member, director says. “The discovery of two serious flaws in PHP this week set off a global scramble to keep websites safe from hackers, showing just how critical the three-decade-old open-source programming language, opens new tab is to the internet. Yet the nonprofit foundation that supports PHP, which may underpin up to 70% of sites globally, operates on a shoestring budget.” Silicon Valley companies have billions and billions in cash reserves but can’t be bothered to support the software they’re built on.
Mashable: Capcom data breach confirmed: More than 11 million accounts impacted. “Do you play video games like Street Fighter, Resident Evil, or Monster Hunter online? If so, you probably have a Capcom ID — and you should know that there has been a major data breach that has affected millions of accounts. Capcom, the developer of the aforementioned titles, posted a notice on Thursday informing users of a major data breach affecting more than 11 million accounts.”
RESEARCH & OPINION
Mother Jones: The EPA Is Quietly Killing its Web Archive. “In a little-noticed webpage update, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a plan to decommission its online web archive at the end of the year, a move that would wipe tens of thousands of publicly available environmental resources from the web. The discreet banner notice comes in stark contrast to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s recent public takedowns of the agency’s power plant pollution standards and federal methane regulatory system.”
PetaPixel: Researchers Pinpoint the Exact Location of First Ever Photo of a Human. “At first glance, Daguerre’s image View of the Boulevard du Temple seems to show a deserted street, but two individuals were captured during the four- to five-minute-long exposure time.. These two people — a shoeshine boy and his client — inadvertently became the first two human subjects to appear in a photograph.”
OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL
Museums Journal: Free-entry museums to benefit from new business rates policy after landmark tribunal ruling. “Free-to-enter museums and galleries across England will benefit from significant reductions in their business rates valuations following a landmark legal case won by London’s Natural History Museum earlier this year. In an update to sector stakeholders, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) confirmed that the Valuation Office (VO) would no longer use a notional receipts approach to value free-to-enter museums for business rates purposes.” Good evening, Internet….
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