National Law Review: “On July 28, 2021, President Biden signed a National Security Memorandum entitled “Improving Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure Control Systems” (the “Memorandum”). The Memorandum formally establishes an Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity Initiative and directs the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: July 2021
World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021
BioScience: World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021 – Published 28 July 2021 “In 2019, Ripple and colleagues (2020) warned of untold suffering and declared a climate emergency together with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from 153 countries. They presented graphs of planetary vital signs indicating very troubling trends, along with little progress by… Continue Reading
Transformative agreements: Six myths, busted
College and Research Libraries News: Ashley Farley, Allison Langham-Putrow, Elisabeth Shook, Leila Belle Sterman, and Megan Wacha. Transformative agreements: Six myths, busted – Lessons Learned “Transformative agreement (TA) is an umbrella term used to describe contracts between institutions and publishers intended to transform the current, primarily subscription-based, journal publishing model to a fully open access… Continue Reading
The Chatbot Problem
The New Yorker: “As we teach computers to use natural language, we are bumping into the inescapable biases of human communication…Artificial intelligence is an ethical quagmire. Its power can be more than a little nauseating. But there’s a kind of unique horror to the capabilities of natural language processing. In 2016, a Microsoft chatbot called… Continue Reading
Android shortcuts will change how you use your phone
Fast Company: “Time-savers are some of tech’s sweetest treasures. Few things are as geekily satisfying as finding faster ways to get stuff done—and few places are as rich with step-slashing shortcuts as Google’s Android platform. Google loves sneaking shortcuts into its software, and Android might be the greatest example of all. The operating system and… Continue Reading
Explaining Fluctuations in the Thrift Savings Fund Daily Balance at U.S. Treasury
Skidmore, Mark / Alvayay Torrejón, Camila / Pare, David – CESifo, Munich, 2021, CESifo Working Paper No. 9084“In this paper we document and examine unusual fluctuations in the G-Fund, which is one of five funds available in a voluntary federal government employee retirement savings vehicle called the Thrift Savings Plan. The G-Fund is managed as… Continue Reading
COVID-19 Reported Patient Impact and Hospital Capacity by Facility
HealthData.gov: “The following dataset provides facility-level data for hospital utilization aggregated on a weekly basis (Friday to Thursday). These are derived from reports with facility-level granularity across two main sources: (1) HHS TeleTracking, and (2) reporting provided directly to HHS Protect by state/territorial health departments on behalf of their healthcare facilities. The hospital population includes… Continue Reading
Biden plans to require federal workers to be vaccinated
Washington Post: “President Biden will announce Thursday that all federal employees will be required to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or face repeated testing mandates, a White House official said, a dramatic escalation of the administration’s effort to combat the spread of the delta variant. The new rules will closely align with policies recently put… Continue Reading
Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People
CDC Updates as of July 27, 2021: Updated information for fully vaccinated people given new evidence on the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant currently circulating in the United States. Added a recommendation for fully vaccinated people to wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission. Added information that fully vaccinated people… Continue Reading
The Best Places to Find Library Jobs
I preface this BookRiot article with my recommendation for the very best way to find Library Jobs in all sectors – INALJ The nexus of information professionals and information potential / Library and LIS jobs [Many thanks to the indefatigable Naomi House] BookRiot: Ashlie Swicker Jul 27, 2021 – “The search for library jobs is… Continue Reading
Office workers to bosses: I’ll quit if I have to go full-time back to the office
Fortune: “Offices are opening back up and employers are nudging their workers to return into offices. This is the case for Hannah, a designer who has spent the last year working from a small island in Spain and is now being asked to return to London to spend time in her Mayfair office. “If they… Continue Reading
Bodycam footage of a gentle stroll around a quiet English forest
BoinbBoing: “I enjoyed this 15-minute 4K wander around an English forest from the Just Walking YouTube channel. Perhaps you would prefer to be accompanied by a dog? Here is a walk with a dog…” Continue Reading
