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Monthly Archives: August 2019
Have you ever wondered what these tiny doors at the U.S. Capitol are for?
Please watch this video via the Architect of the Capital – it is a fascinating story about the history of the adorable tiny doors in the Library of Congress. Enjoy. Continue Reading
NYT #1619
The New York Times Magazine – “In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the British colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by… Continue Reading
Instagram Now Fact-Checks, but Who Will Do the Checking?
Wired – Facebook says it will extend its fact-checking program to Instagram. But the system is already overwhelmed and may not be able to handle more information. “Facebook announced on Thursday that it would expand a fact-checking program to its Instagram image-sharing service. Instagram users in the US can now report content they believe is… Continue Reading
Linking Liability
Inside Higher Education – Sci-Hub, a repository for pirated research papers, is widely acknowledged to be illegal. But is sharing a link to the site illegal, too? “There is little dispute that Sci-Hub, the website that provides free access to millions of proprietary academic papers, is illegal. Yet, despite being successfully sued twice by major… Continue Reading
NARA Drives Govt Transition to All-Electronic Records
Secrecy News: “The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is embarking on an ambitious effort to phase out the acquisition of paper records by 2022 and to transition to all-electronic record keeping. The White House Office of Management and Budget has endorsed the initiative and has directed all federal agencies to adopt exclusively electronic formats… Continue Reading
Anti-Piracy Efforts Are Unlikely to Beat Sci-Hub
Follow-up to previous posting with related links – Elsevier sends copyright threat to site for linking to Sci-Hub – see Torrent Freak – “Elsevier and other academic publishers see ‘pirate’ site Sci-Hub as a major threat to their billion-dollar industries. Many researchers, however, can’t function properly without the notorious site. Since anti-piracy efforts are unlikely… Continue Reading
Google’s ‘Assignments’ tool flags plagiarism and missing sources
engadget – Students can proactively use the tool to improve their work. “Google is setting out to make plagiarism harder than ever. The search giant today announced the launch of Assignments, a new grading software for higher education instructors who use G Suite for Education. Formerly known as Coursework, Assignments will allow instructors to create,… Continue Reading
Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping Websites
“Dark patterns are user interface design choices that benefit an online service by coercing, steering, or deceiving users into making unintended and potentially harmful decisions. We conducted a large-scale study, analyzing ~53K product pages from ~11K shopping websites to characterize and quantify the prevalence of dark patterns. We discovered 1,818 instances of dark patterns on… Continue Reading
How to Download a Web Page or Article to Read Offline
PC Mag – “Whether you’re underground between subway stops, caught in a dead zone, or your internet is out, the most reliable way to catch up on your digital reading is to make sure it’s downloaded and accessible offline. Information overload is real. You don’t always have time to read a 5,000-word feature or juicy… Continue Reading
Cutting the Funding of Disinformation: The Ad-Tech Solution
Global Disinformation Index: “Based on our research, we have mapped out how there is an unchecked funding line provided to disinformation domains thanks to online ads automatically placed by ad exchanges on them.” The world wide web turned 30 years old in 2019. Since its invention, how we live our lives online – and off… Continue Reading
Effects of the Flipped Classroom: Evidence from a Randomized Trial
Effects of the Flipped Classroom: Evidence from a Randomized Trial Elizabeth Setren, Kyle Greenberg, Oliver Moore, and Michael Yankovich SEII Discussion Paper #2019.07 August 2019 “In a flipped classroom, an increasingly popular pedagogical model, students view a video lecture at home and work on exercises with the instructor during class time. Advocates of the flipped… Continue Reading
