Society at a Glance 2024: OECD Social Indicators, the tenth edition of the biennial OECD overview of social indicators, addresses the growing demand for quantitative evidence on social well-being and its trends. The report features a special chapter on fertility trends which discusses evidence from recent OECD analysis on the effect of labour market outcomes,… Continue Reading
Bloomberg via Yahho News: “Justice Samuel Alito is the only US Supreme Court member with a stake in more than two dozen individual companies, a distinction that threatens to sideline him from major business cases. Alito or his wife own tens of thousands of dollars of stock in companies including Raytheon Co., ConocoPhillips and a… Continue Reading
MIT Technology Review – “The decision locks libraries into an ecosystem that is not in readers’ interests. Congress must act. I was raised in the 1980s and ’90s, and for my generation and generations before us, the public library was an equalizing force in every town, helping anyone move toward the American dream. In Chantilly,… Continue Reading
“A tool tracking the topics and tactics of 2024 election misinformation Election misinformation poses an existential threat to democracy but can be difficult to analyze and assess through individually debunked falsehoods published by different fact-check organizations. Collecting and cataloguing examples of misinformation reveals valuable insights into the common disinformation tactics and narratives that threaten to… Continue Reading
MakeUseOf: “If you’re like me, nothing beats the thrill of discovering a book that’s a little off the beaten path. Whether it’s a rare edition, an obscure title, or a self-published chef-d’oeuvre, I’ve found that some of the most interesting reads come from places that aren’t your typical big-name bookstores…Sometimes, the best recommendations come straight… Continue Reading
“The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released an online risk analysis tool [and a FAQ] that provides geographic estimates for physical risks from various types of natural disasters as well as nationwide data on housing and the mortgage market. The tool — known as the Mortgage Loan and Natural Disaster Dashboard — is intended to give… Continue Reading
Lifehacker: “Want to check if a particular internet handle you encountered online (or created yourself) is being used on any other social networks or websites? Sherlock is a free command line application that scans around 400 social networks and finds accounts that match whatever username you type in. Using this service couldn’t be simpler: Just… Continue Reading
Cornell Chronicle: ” “It pays to be brief when asking artificial intelligence tools to mine massive datasets for insights, according to Cornell researcher Immanuel Trummer. That’s why Trummer, associate professor of computer science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, has developed a new computational system, called Schemonic, that cuts… Continue Reading
American Academy of Actuaries primer on Discrimination: Considerations for Machine Learning, AI Models, and Underlying Data. This issue brief explores the topic of discrimination in machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, and the underlying data of these models. It will define discrimination (including distinguishing between discrimination, unfair discrimination, and unjust discrimination); present practical… Continue Reading
Wirecutter: “Smartphones are the Swiss Army knives of the digital world, but not all of their tools are obvious. Case in point: Your camera app is clearly designed to snap photos and capture videos, but did you know that it’s also a mobile scanning app? If you’re like me, you may have spent years just… Continue Reading
AP – US commemorates 9/11 attacks with victims in focus and politics in view – “The U.S. is remembering the lives taken and those reshaped by 9/11, marking an anniversary laced with presidential campaign politics as President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris stood together in the plaza where the… Continue Reading
Jeremy Vine – Data is Plural “The Real-Time Crime Index, launched last week by a team of crime-data analysts, presents a “sample of reported crime data from hundreds of law enforcement agencies nationwide which mimics national crime trends with as little lag and the most accuracy possible.” Framed as a supplement to the FBI’s slow-to-update official… Continue Reading