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Daily Archives: January 27, 2020

Use DuckDuckGo ‘Lite’ for Absurdly Fast Search Results

lifehacker – “Most folks probably think of DuckDuckGo as the more privacy-focused alternative to Google, but one of the lesser-discussed benefits ditching all that data tracking is increased search speed. The normal DuckDuckGo search eats up less data and requires fewer requests than Google, but there’s also a “Lite” version of the DuckDuckGo page that loads results much faster…”

U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided

Deep partisan divisions exist in the news sources Americans trust, distrust and rely on: “As the U.S. enters a heated 2020 presidential election year, a new Pew Research Center report finds that Republicans and Democrats place their trust in two nearly inverse news media environments.  Overall, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents view many heavily relied on… Continue Reading

Coalition of states sue over rules that could allow 3D-printed gun blueprints to be posted on internet

AP via ABC7NY: “Attorneys general in 20 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging a federal regulation that could allow blueprints for making guns on 3D printers to be posted on the internet. New York Attorney General Tish James, who helped lead the coalition of state attorneys general, argued that posting… Continue Reading

Independent bookstores mount inclusive access lawsuit

Inside Higher Ed – Big textbook publishers and retailers are accused of squashing competition from independent college bookstores – “Inclusive access programs, where students are automatically billed for their course materials, are increasingly big business for leading textbook publishers and college bookstores. But for independent, off-campus bookstores, inclusive access programs could spell a death knell.… Continue Reading

The environmental cost of keeping mail and files online keeps rising

Bloomberg via Japan Times / no paywall: “Everyone has seen warnings at the end of email saying, “Please consider the environment before printing.” But for those who care about global warming, you might want to consider not writing so many emails in the first place. More and more, people rely on their electronic mailbox as… Continue Reading

Leaked Documents Expose the Secretive Market for Your Web Browsing Data

Motherboard – An Avast antivirus subsidiary sells ‘Every search. Every click. Every buy. On every site.’ Its clients have included Home Depot, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, and McKinsey. “An antivirus program used by hundreds of millions of people around the world is selling highly sensitive web browsing data to many of the world’s biggest companies, a… Continue Reading

10 US Cities You Need To Visit If You Love Books

BuzzFeedNews: “After sifting through cities with a population above 50,000 and “at least one retail bookstore, used or rare bookseller, public library or institutional library,” Apartment Guide released a list of the best cities in America for book lovers based on “the ratio of book-related establishments per 100,000 residents in each.” Here’s what they found… Continue Reading

Public Disability History

Presenting Disability Histories | Disability Histories for the Present – “Public Disability History is a blog journal and a forum for exchange between the diverse actors involved and invested in issues regarding disability. It’s a website to gather and provide resources for the history of disabilities. Furthermore, it offers a “fast track” publication mode for… Continue Reading