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Monthly Archives: December 2022

Mastodon 101: how to follow (and unfollow) other accounts

The Verge – You can follow whoever you want, no matter which Mastodon ‘instance’ they hang out in. “The torrent of former tweeters streaming toward alternative social networks seems to be ongoing, and the social network that is probably gaining the most attention is Mastodon. This open-source network of independent servers (called “instances”) had jumped… Continue Reading

How to Use ChatGPT and Still Be a Good Person

The New York Times: “The past few weeks have felt like a honeymoon phase for our relationship with tools powered by artificial intelligence. Many of us have prodded ChatGPT, a chatbot that can generate responses with startlingly natural language, with tasks like writing stories about our pets, composing business proposals and coding software programs. At… Continue Reading

Brave launches FrodoPIR, a privacy-focused database query system

Via Brave – FrodoPIR: a new privacy-preserving approach for retrieving data. “To read more about our FrodoPIR scheme, you can find details here. The paper has been accepted to the Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETS), Vol. 2023, Issue 1, and will also appear here.” Bleeping Computer: “Brave Software developers have created a new privacy-centric… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 24, 2022

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, December 24, 2022 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly… Continue Reading

Fediscope

“FediScope lets you find fediverse accounts for people in a field using Wikidata. You can then compile a custom CSV and import it into Mastodon. It was made by @[email protected] (code | toggle dark mode).  Privacy: This tool directly interacts with Wikidata from your browser and does not log your queries. Wikidata creates records for… Continue Reading

How Much Lifetime Social Security Benefits Are Americans Leaving on the Table?

How Much Lifetime Social Security Benefits Are Americans Leaving on the Table? David Altig, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Victor Yifan Ye, November 16, 2022: “Americans are notoriously bad savers. Large numbers are reaching old age too poor to finance retirements that could last longer than they worked. This study uses the 2018 American Community Survey to… Continue Reading

FlightAware

“FlightAware provides accurate real-time, historical and predictive flight insights to all segments of the aviation industry”. https://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/ #Flightdelays #Transportation #Airlines #Aviation Continue Reading

The FDA Now Says It Plainly: Morning-After Pills Are Not Abortion Pills

The New York Times: “The Food and Drug Administration on Friday [December 23, 2022] significantly changed the information that will be in every box of the most widely used emergency contraceptive pills to make clear that they do not prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. The agency explained in an accompanying document… Continue Reading

Welcome to Hotel Elsevier: you can check-out any time you like … not

Dr. Eiko Fried: “In December 2021, Robin Kok wrote a series of tweets about his Elsevier data access request. I did the same a few days later. This here is the resulting collaborative blog post, summarizing our journey in trying to understand what data Elsevier collects; what data Elsevier has collected on us two specifically;… Continue Reading

Release of Select Committee Materials – Additional Witness Testimony Transcripts

Dec 22, 2022 – Washington —”Today, the Select Committee made public additional transcripts of witness testimony that was gathered over the course of the Select Committee’s investigation into the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol These records can now be found on the Select Committee’s website: Cassidy Hutchinson, September 14, 2022, September 15, 2022.… Continue Reading

Final Report Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol

FINAL REPORT – Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, December 22, 2022, 117th Congress Second Session, House Report 117-000 [845 pages /PDF]…[NANCY PELOSI – Speaker of the House] When I think back to January 6th, after nearly a year and a half of investigation, I am frightened about… Continue Reading

It’s all too easy to get sick right now. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Vox: “Right now, the US is in the middle of an infectious disease trifecta. The “tripledemic” of the coronavirus, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has led New York City and Los Angeles County, among others, to “strongly recommend” masking indoors. Officials in Oakland and Sacramento may follow suit soon. The CDC, which has barely… Continue Reading