Brainyacts – Reasoning Engines, Not Search Engines – “For most people, it is still too easy to fall into the trap of viewing Large Language Models (LLMs) or GenAI tools as merely advanced search engines. After all, these models will produce answers to almost any question at the drop of a hat, making them seem… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: August 2024
The Economist US election forecast model
The Economist’s model of America’s presidential election estimates each major candidate’s chances of winning each state and the overall electoral college. Developed with a team of scholars at Columbia University, the forecast combines national and state-level polls with fundamental data about the state of the economy, historical voting patterns and the demographics of each state… Continue Reading
Please register to vote and then vote
Register to vote in your state | Vote.gov Register to vote or update your registration – Once you register, you can vote in national, state, and local elections. Select your state or territory to begin Continue Reading
U.S. Congress Legislative Status Steps Image added to Congress.gov
In Custodia Legis: “July was a great month for Congress.gov. Robert shared news of our first release of the month and I blogged about the second. Andrew Reiter detailed how we modernized treaty documents. Cassidy Charles discussed all of the appropriations information on Congress.gov and highlighted the new appropriations resources video. With today’s release there is… Continue Reading
FBI Releases Motor Vehicle Theft, 2019—2023
“On August 12, 2024, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program released Motor Vehicle Theft, 2019-2023, on the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer at https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov. This special report provides information concerning motor vehicle theft and trends on carjacking. Incidents of motor vehicle theft included in this report are from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Participation in… Continue Reading
Yale Library – Objects from 200-plus collections are new online
“April 1 through June 30 of this year, more than 8,500 new object landing pages were created. These pages contain 30,000-plus images of individual items, including handwritten letters, manuscripts, photographs, maps, and more. The Lewis Walpole Library alone added digital images for more than 2,000 items, including objects from the British Theatrical and Literary Prints… Continue Reading
The Red Hand Files
Kottke: “The musician Nick Cave was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert earlier this week (full interview) and he read a letter from his Red Hand Files, an AMA project where fans write in with questions and he answers them. The question was: Following the last few years I’m feeling empty and more cynical… Continue Reading
An interactive ecological time machine takes you to New York City in 1609
BoingBoing: “Eric W. Sanderson is a landscape ecologist, and Vice President for Urban Conservation Strategy at the New York Botanical Garden, who has embarked on a project to digitally recreate all of New York City as it existed in 1609, the year Henry Hudson sailed into New York harbor. He has already successfully completed the… Continue Reading
Exploring Goodreads Data: An Analysis of 10 Million Books
Ammar Alyousfi’s Blog: “Goodreads is one of the largest book websites on the internet. It has data about millions and millions of books from different genres and in many languages. It’s hard not to find a book on Goodreads whether it’s published hundreds of years ago or just a few days ago. Today, I present… Continue Reading
NationalPublicData.com Hack Exposes a Nation’s Data
Krebs on Security: “A great many readers this month reported receiving alerts that their Social Security Number, name, address and other personal information were exposed in a breach at a little-known but aptly-named consumer data broker called NationalPublicData.com. This post examines what we know about a breach that has exposed hundreds of millions of consumer… Continue Reading
Etsy for Guns?
Court Watch: A 3D Etsy print shop sells ghost gun parts. “When we think about products typically sold on Etsy, it conjures up images of lovely espresso martini scented candles or maybe even drink coasters you can customize as mini vinyl records with your favorite album covers. After all, Etsy describes itself as “the global… Continue Reading
Google quietly opens Imagen 3 access to all U.S. users
VentureBeat: “Google has quietly made its latest text-to-image AI model, Imagen 3, available to all U.S. users through its ImageFX platform and published a research paper detailing the technology. This dual release marks a significant expansion of access to the AI tool, which was initially announced in May at Google I/O and limited to select… Continue Reading
