Gizmodo: “Generative artificial intelligence is everywhere you look these days, including on the web: advanced predictive text bots such as ChatGPT can now spew out endless reams of text on every topic imaginable and make all this written content natural enough that it could plausibly have been written by a human being. So, how can… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: December 2023
How to set up legacy contacts for your online accounts
Washington Post [read free]: “If you’ve got a few days this holiday season to help your family with tech chores, embrace an awkward but necessary task: Assign someone to take over a loved one’s online accounts after they die. “Legacy contacts” are trusted individuals who can manage an online account after the owner dies. Maybe… Continue Reading
The worst tech of 2023 (an anti-gift guide)
Los Angeles Times: “It’s the holidays, and you know what that means: an endless stream of wishlists, gift guides, and splashy sales of products competing for our cash. Since this is the 21st century, so many of those are tech products — wearables, AI-infused gadgets, smart birdhouses, a firepit you control with an app, you… Continue Reading
Read it yourself: All 673 books removed from Orange classrooms
Orlando Sentinel: “These books are among the 673 rejected by Orange County Public Schools this year [read free] for fear they violate a new Florida law that prohibits “sexual conduct” in books available to students. The books were in teachers’ classroom libraries. The books will get another review by OCPS staff, and could be returned… Continue Reading
How to Make Your Phone Last Longer: 6 Simple Tips
WSJ via Mint [read free] – Save your phone’s life: Easy to follow tips to keep it going….apple offers software updates for five years and security updates for longer. This year’s Google Pixel will get updates through 2030. Samsung promises security updates for four years minimum.” Continue Reading
Accessibility update: arXiv now offers papers in HTML format
“arXiv’s goal is equitable access to scientific research for all – and to achieve this, we have been working to make research papers more accessible for arXiv users with disabilities. We are happy to announce that as of Monday, December 18th, arXiv is now generating an HTML formatted version of all papers submitted in TeX/LaTeX… Continue Reading
Using Maps of Historical Locations to Understand Historic Events
This post is by Tyron Bey, the 2023-2024 Library of Congress Teacher in Residence. “In the November/December issue of Social Education, the journal of the National Council for the Social Studies, our “Sources and Strategies” article features a map titled “Important farmlands map, Clarendon County, South Carolina.” Created by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service in… Continue Reading
Call For Justice Clarence Thomas’ Recusal In Trump Immunity Case
December 20, 2023 Letter to John G. Roberts, Jr. Chief Justice, Supreme Court of the United States from Senator Richard Blumenthal: [snipped] “The Supreme Court is currently weighing whether to decide a critical question in United States v. Trump, a criminal case arising from former President Trump’s role in the January 6 th insurrection. Last… Continue Reading
2023 in social media: the case for the fediverse
The Verge: “There’s this picture from more than a decade ago that still goes viral on the web every once in a while. You’ve probably seen it: it was created by the venture capitalist Andrew Parker, and it compares a few dozen startups with subsections of Craigslist. Back then, Craigslist was all things to all… Continue Reading
Why people still fall for fake news about climate change
Grist: “In 1995, a leading group of scientists convened by the United Nations declared that they had detected a “human influence” on global temperatures with “effectively irreversible” consequences. In the coming decades, 99.9 percent of scientists would come to agree that burning fossil fuels had disrupted the Earth’s climate. Yet almost 30 years after that… Continue Reading
The lives upended by Florida’s school book wars
Washington Post (read free): “…The battle over what children should be allowed to read in school has riven Florida’s Escambia County School District. It’s part of a national battle, as school book objections surge to historic highs across the country. In Escambia County, the controversy kicked off in 2022, when a high school language arts… Continue Reading
Lawrence school district using AI to look for ‘concerning behavior’ in students’ activity
LJworld.com (read free): “The Lawrence [Kansas] school district has purchased a new system that uses artificial intelligence to look for warning signs of “concerning behavior” in the things students type, send and search for on their district-issued computers and other such devices. The purchase of the software system, called Gaggle, comes at a time when… Continue Reading
