Freedom House – Marking 50 Years in the Struggle for Democracy – Key Findings Global freedom declined for the 17th consecutive year. Moscow’s war of aggression led to devastating human rights atrocities in Ukraine. New coups and other attempts to undermine representative government destabilized Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Peru, and Brazil. Previous years’ coups and ongoing… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Economy
A growing plastic smog estimated to be over 170 trillion plastic particles afloat in the world’s oceans
Eriksen M, Cowger W, Erdle LM, Coffin S, Villarrubia-Gómez P, Moore CJ, et al. (2023) A growing plastic smog, now estimated to be over 170 trillion plastic particles afloat in the world’s oceans—Urgent solutions required. PLoS ONE 18(3): e0281596. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281596: “As global awareness, science, and policy interventions for plastic escalate, institutions around the world are… Continue Reading
How Barnes & Noble turned a page, expanding for the first time in years
NPR: “The ghost of Barnes & Noble past meets the spirit of Barnes & Noble future in a single shopping center in a suburb of Baltimore. The new store in Pikesville, Md., separated by half a parking lot from its shuttered predecessor, is part of an unlikely plot twist: Barnes & Noble is staging its… Continue Reading
The CEPS EurLex dataset
The CEPS EurLex dataset: “142.036 EU laws from 1952-2019 with full text and 22 variables: The dataset contains 142.036 EU laws – almost the entire corpus of the EU’s digitally available legal acts passed between 1952 – 2019. It encompasses the three types of legally binding acts passed by the EU institutions: 102.304 regulations, 4.070… Continue Reading
The Open Contracting Data Standard
“The Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS), is a free, non-proprietary open data standard for public contracting, implemented by over 30 governments around the world. It is the only international open standard for the publication of information related to the planning, procurement, and implementation of public contracts and has been endorsed by the G20, the G7… Continue Reading
Google’s Plan to Catch ChatGPT Is to Stuff AI Into Everything
Bloomberg: “A new internal directive requires “generative artificial intelligence” to be incorporated into all of its biggest products within months. Artificial intelligence was supposed to be Google’s thing. The company has cultivated a reputation for making long-term bets on all kinds of far-off technologies, and much of the research underpinning the current wave of AI-powered… Continue Reading
Biden-Harris Administration Announces National Cybersecurity Strategy
Read the full strategy here – “Today, the Biden-Harris Administration released the National Cybersecurity Strategy to secure the full benefits of a safe and secure digital ecosystem for all Americans. In this decisive decade, the United States will reimagine cyberspace as a tool to achieve our goals in a way that reflects our values: economic security… Continue Reading
ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker – The global race for future power
“The Critical Technology Tracker is a large project that spans this report and a website. We encourage readers of the report to explore https://techtracker.aspi.org.au/ as the website contains an enormous amount of original data and analysis. We have also created a range of visual snapshots including one that outlines the lead country and technology monopoly… Continue Reading
The Enduring Grip of the Gender Pay Gap
Pew Research Center: “The gender pay gap – the difference between the earnings of men and women – has barely closed in the United States in the past two decades. In 2022, American women typically earned 82 cents for every dollar earned by men. That was about the same as in 2002, when they earned… Continue Reading
Cryptocurrency and Taxes: What You Need to Know
PC Mag: “For the fourth year, federal tax forms ask you about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency activities. The Yes or No question that’s been appearing at the top of Form 1040 has gotten even more specific for the 2022 tax year. It reads, “At any time during 2022, did you: (a) receive (as a reward,… Continue Reading
OpenAI Is Now Everything It Promised Not to Be
Vice – Corporate, Closed-Source, and For-Profit. OpenAI is today unrecognizable, “with multi-billion-dollar deals and corporate partnerships. Will it seek to own its shiny AI future? OpenAI is at the center of a chatbot arms race, with the public release of ChatGPT and a multi-billion-dollar Microsoft partnership spurring Google and Amazon to rush to implement AI… Continue Reading
The End of the English Major
The New Yorker [see also link to archived copy, no paywall] – “Enrollment in the humanities is in free fall at colleges around the country. What happened? By Nathan Heller: …For the decline at Arizona State University [A.S.U.] is not anomalous. According to Robert Townsend, the co-director of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’… Continue Reading
