Variety – Archives Pulled Offline: “More than two decades’ worth of content published on MTVNews.com is no longer available after MTV appears to have fully pulled down the site and its related content. Content on its sister site, CMT.com, seems to have met a similiar fate. In 2023, MTV News was shuttered amid the financial… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: June 2024
Explain That Stuff
“Want to know why giant ships can float, how your earbuds make music, what graphene is, or how windows can clean themselves? You’ve come to the right place! Here you’ll find simple explanations you can really understand—hurrah! Hard stuff… made simple! Explain that Stuff is an online book written by science writer Chris Woodford (author… Continue Reading
11 steps to keep Meta from stealing your data to train AI
Deborah Copaken: “You only have until June 26, 2024 to say no to Meta taking your personal photos and words and using them to train their generative AI. Here are step-by-step directions for opting out…Facebook has led to all sorts of horrors, including an orange-haired, coup-instigating felon in the White House; Russian interference in our… Continue Reading
How do we know how many people died of Covid-19?
YouTube: “After four years and dozens of studies, we know everything we’re going to know about the death toll of the Covid pandemic. After four years and dozens of studies, we know everything we’re going to know about the death toll of the Covid pandemic. WELCOME TO HOWTOWN! Our small but mighty team of two… Continue Reading
Open Source LibreChat Offers More Than Just Extra LLMs
The New Stack: “With an interface inspired by ChatGPT, LibreChat offers an “enhanced” ChatGPT clone, an open source alternative with AI model selection as a main feature — while also providing additional features and customization options (including plugins for things like Retrieval-Augmented Generation). On the Practical AI podcast, LibreChat creator Danny Avila said he’s especially… Continue Reading
Visualizing Americans’ Preferred Payment Methods
Visual Capitalist – Charted: America’s Shift to a Cashless Society: “A cashless society is one in which financial transactions are conducted primarily through digital means rather than physical cash, relying on technologies like credit cards and mobile payments. While no country today has fully reached this concept, there are some (like China and South Korea)… Continue Reading
South Carolina poised to impose draconian censorship regime on school libraries
Popular Information: “On Tuesday, the South Carolina State Board of Education will impose a centralized and expansive censorship regime on every K-12 school library in the state. The new regulations could result in the banning of most classic works of literature from South Carolina schools — from The Canterbury Tales to Romeo and Juliet to… Continue Reading
Screenshots of Everything
The New York Times [unpaywalled]: “Should we trust them? What to Know About A.I. Phones and Computers Apple, Microsoft and Google need more access to our data as they promote new devices that are powered by A.I…In this new paradigm, your Windows computer will take a screenshot of everything you do every few seconds. An… Continue Reading
15 things you may not know your iPhone can do
Wire Cutter: “Looking for some life hacks? These features that Wirecutter staffers rely on all the time can help.” Continue Reading
Global warming and heat extremes to enhance inflationary pressures
Kotz, M., Kuik, F., Lis, E. et al. Global warming and heat extremes to enhance inflationary pressures. Commun Earth Environ 5, 116 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-01173-x – “Climate impacts on economic productivity indicate that climate change may threaten price stability. Here we apply fixed-effects regressions to over 27,000 observations of monthly consumer price indices worldwide to quantify the… Continue Reading
List of Free Adobe Software Alternatives
MakeUseOf: Free Alternative to Illustrator: Inkscape (Free, Open-Source) Free Alternative to Photoshop: GIMP (Free, Open-Source) Free Alternative to Lightroom: RawTherapee (Free, Open-Source) Free Alternative to After Effects: Linearity (Freemium) Free Alternative to Premiere Pro: DaVinci Resolve (Freemium) Free Alternative to InDesign: Scribus (Free, Open-Source) Free Alternative to Adobe Express: Canva (Freemium) Free Alternative to Acrobat:… Continue Reading
First 2 years of Russia’s War on Ukraine Increased Climate Pollution by 175 Million Tonnes
EcoWatch: “In addition to the devastating death toll and widespread destruction of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the ongoing conflict has brought extensive climate damage to the planet. New research reveals that the first 24 months of the Ukraine war had a climate cost greater than the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 175 individual countries, adding… Continue Reading
