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Daily Archives: January 23, 2020

Maps of Every Single Street in Any City

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kottke.org posts about Andrei Kashcha:  “Andrei Kashcha’s City Roads tool will draw you a map of just the roads in any city around the world.” This is Washington, DC – it is beautiful. [Note via NPS – “The plan of the city of Washington was designed in 1791 by Pierre L’Enfant, and mapped the following year; a design which remains largely in place. For nearly a century, the realization of physical changes to the original plan were gradual until the second important benchmark in the development of Washington’s urban plan: the McMillan Commission and its 1901-02 recommendations.”]

Commentary – Google and Amazon make us worse people

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CNET – “Let me show you a magic trick. Make a choice — any choice. You’re already online, so maybe you want to read the news, check your email, surf your newsfeed, buy some food or any other number of things. Now for the trick, I’m going to tell you the companies that facilitated whatever… Continue Reading

The green swan – central banking and financial stability in the age of climate change

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Bank for International Settlement (BIS) – “Climate change poses new challenges to central banks, regulators and supervisors. This book reviews ways of addressing these new risks within central banks’ financial stability mandate. However, integrating climate-related risk analysis into financial stability monitoring is particularly challenging because of the radical uncertainty associated with a physical, social and economic… Continue Reading

PFAS Contamination of Drinking Water Far More Prevalent Than Previously Reported

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Environmental Working Group – New Detections of ‘Forever Chemicals’ in New York, D.C., Other Major Cities – “New laboratory tests commissioned by EWG have for the first time found the toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS in the drinking water of dozens of U.S. cities, including major metropolitan areas. The results confirm that the number… Continue Reading

Google’s ads just look like search results

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The Verge: “Last week, Google began rolling out a new look for its search results on desktop, which blurs the line between organic search results and the ads that sit above them. In what appears to be something of a purposeful dark pattern, the only thing differentiating ads and search results is a small black-and-white… Continue Reading

How to Be a Better Web Searcher: Secrets from Google Scientists

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Scientific American – Researchers who study how we use search engines share common mistakes, misperceptions and advice – “…We Google researchers know this is what many students do—they enter the first query that pops into their heads and run with the answer. Double checking and going deeper are skills that come only with a great… Continue Reading

Can Publishers Use Metadata to Regain the Public’s Trust in Visual Journalism?

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NYT Open – The News Provenance Project has been exploring how news organizations might contribute to the fight against misinformation by adding context…”We launched The News Provenance Project in mid-2019 to address the misinformation crisis through a product and reporting lens. Our goal was to contribute to the work of a growing number of organizations… Continue Reading

How Do People Decide Whether to Trust a Photo on Social Media?

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NYT Open – We asked 34 readers how they judge credibility of news photos. “…At The News Provenance Project, we wanted to find out how publishers can help readers make more informed, confident judgements about the credibility of news photography. To do this, we focused on how we might surface the metadata — such as… Continue Reading