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Daily Archives: January 10, 2019

Now on Craigslist, Facebook: Household items from furloughed workers trying to make ends meet

Washington Post – “…As hundreds of thousands of federal workers brace for their first missed paychecks of the government shutdown this week, some have become immersed in the frantic financial calculus of choosing what they can live without. In the United States, living paycheck to paycheck is disturbingly common, regardless of profession or location. A recent report from the Federal Reserve revealed how little cushion most Americans have in their budgets: Four in 10 adults say they couldn’t produce $400 in an emergency without sliding into debt or selling something, according to the figures that surveyed households in 2017, a relatively prosperous year for the American economy…Anna Cory, a librarian in Morrisville, N.C., who works as a contractor for the Environmental Protection Agency, is running a “Government shutdown online yard sale” on Facebook, where she’s selling rare books from the 1800s. She held the worn leather volumes in her hands to photograph them, splaying the most beautiful pages to show off sheet music and ornate portraits…”

David Whelan, Law Librarian and Twin Brother of Paul Whelan – speaks out about his detention in Russia

WTOP – Target USA — Episode 151: David Whelan speaks out about his brother’s arrest on espionage charges in Russia – Law Librarian David Whelan discusses the arrest and detention of his twin brother, “Paul Whelan, 48, a former Marine from Michigan who was arrested in Moscow after authorities there say he was caught in… Continue Reading

So You Automated Your Coworkers Out of a Job

Gizmodo: “…Inside many companies, automation doesn’t simply unfold as a top-down imperative. It can stem from random efficiency experiments or pilot programs initiated by employees who don’t always intend for their ideas to cascade into large-scale job loss. In some cases, management will ask a junior staff to spearhead an automation initiative (perhaps, some speculate,… Continue Reading

Fakespot determines the trustworthiness of reviews using artificial intelligence

“Growing suspicious of online reviews? So were we. Fakespot provides consumers with a new way of filtering product reviews to find out what real users are saying about the products you want to buy. Our proprietary technology analyzes millions of product reviews, looking for suspicious patterns and incentivized reviews. We then weed out the reviews… Continue Reading

New digital archive enables community use of terrestrial and subsurface ecosystem data sets

Earth and Space News: “Over the past decade, data from Earth and environmental research have dramatically increased in volume, complexity, and diversity, but in many cases, efforts to make these data usable and accessible have not kept pace. This data proliferation has created an urgent need for data preservation, curation, quality checks, and standards for… Continue Reading

The Furloughed Federal Employee’s Guide to the 2019 Shutdown in D.C.

Washington City Paper – Apply for unemployment, apply for utility assistance, exercise, clean your closets, volunteer, shout your anger into a phone. “City Paper launched this as a guide for furloughed federal employees, but it has become a resource for many more people—especially the thousands who earn their living in government-adjacent careers, like taxi and… Continue Reading

Excessive social media use is comparable to drug addiction

Michigan State University: “Bad decision-making is a trait oftentimes associated with drug addicts and pathological gamblers, but what about people who excessively use social media? New research from Michigan State University shows a connection between social media use and impaired risky decision-making, which is commonly deficient in substance addiction. “Around one-third of humans on the… Continue Reading

Global Economic Prospects Darkening Skies

The World Bank: “Global economic growth is projected to soften from a downwardly revised 3 percent in 2018 to 2.9 percent in 2019 amid rising downside risks to the outlook, the World Bank said on Tuesday. International trade and manufacturing activity have softened, trade tensions remain elevated, and some large emerging markets have experienced substantial… Continue Reading