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Daily Archives: December 29, 2019

How I fully quit Google

The Next Web – and you can, too…”Over the past six months, I have gone on a surprisingly tough, time-intensive, and enlightening quest — to quit using, entirely, the products of just one company — Google. What should be a simple task was, in reality, many hours of research and testing. But I did it. Today, I am Google-free, part of the western world’s ultimate digital minority, someone who does not use products from the world’s two most valuable technology companies (yes, I don’t use Facebook either).

I made this guide to show you how I quit the Googleverse, and the alternatives I choose based on my own research and personal needs. I’m not a technologist or a coder, but my work as a journalist requires me to be aware of security and privacy issues…”

Converging Paths: A Librarian’s Journey to Becoming a Privacy Professional

Via LLRX – Converging Paths: A Librarian’s Journey to Becoming a Privacy Professional – After receiving her MLIS Stephanie Davis worked in the field of knowledge management (KM) where she sourced, documented, categorized, and shared information about her consulting firm’s people and project experiences. Davis designed webpages, delivered training programs on information access and disclosure,… Continue Reading

2019 Data Breach Hall of Shame

Cnet – These were the biggest data breaches of the year – We never want to hear the words “unsecured database” ever again: “The words “unsecured database” seemed to run on repeat through security journalism in 2019. Every month, another company was asking its customers to change their passwords and report any damage. Cloud-based storage… Continue Reading

Large-Capacity Magazine Bans Linked with Fewer Mass Shootings

Jennifer Abbasi, Large-Capacity Magazine Bans Linked with Fewer Mass Shootings, Deaths, JAMA Medical News & Perspectives (Dec. 18, 2019), https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2758008 (commenting on Louis Klarevas et al., The Effect of Large-Capacity Magazine Bans on High-Fatality Mass Shootings, 1990–2017, Am. J. Pub. Health (Dec. 2019), https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305311 [via Mary Whisner] Continue Reading

Will America ever get its local news back?

Washington Post – Ghost papers and news deserts – “First they started showing up thinner than before. Then they were printed on smaller paper, with local columns replaced by more out-of-town news. Then in some places, especially rural and down-on-their-luck parts, newspapers stopped showing up altogether. Since the Internet arrived in earnest 25 years ago,… Continue Reading

Emojis Have Unsettled Grammar Rules

…and Why Lawyers Should Care – Eric Goldman – “A new article by three Dutch researchers sheds some fascinating light on the grammar of emojis, or more precisely, the lack thereof. Their abstract concludes: “while emoji may follow tendencies in their interactions with grammatical structure in multimodal text-emoji productions, they lack grammatical structure on their… Continue Reading