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Monthly Archives: November 2024

Want to donate to charity? Here are 10 guidelines for giving effectively

Vox: “Giving to charity is great, not just for the recipients but for the givers, too. But it can be intimidating to know how to pick the best charity when there are thousands of worthy causes to choose from, and especially when so many are suffering around the world. Yet that suffering makes it all… Continue Reading

How to Add Extra Security Layers to Your Phone or Tablet

The New York Times [no paywall]: “Losing a smartphone or tablet stuffed with your life’s details can be a nightmare, but your privacy may also be at risk in less obvious situations — like if you leave your unlocked phone unattended or if the children know your tablet’s passcode. While apps for financial or medical… Continue Reading

Oculi Mundi

Oculi Mundi is a digital heritage destination: the home of The Sunderland Collection of world maps, celestial maps, atlases, globes and books of knowledge. The project now includes a podcast, What’s your map, which starts with William Dalrymple’s exploration of an 18th century Jain cosmological map. Continue Reading

Z-Library Helps Students to Overcome Academic Poverty, Study Finds

Torrent Freak: “Z-Library is one of the largest shadow libraries on the Internet, hosting millions of books and academic articles that can be downloaded for free. The site defied all odds over the past two years. It continued to operate despite a full-fledged criminal prosecution by the United States, which resulted in the arrest of… Continue Reading

The 25 Most Important Recipes of the Past 100 Years

Slate – “When we initially reached out to scores of chefs, recipe writers, historians, and food luminaries for nominations for their most important American recipes of the past 100 years—Which written recipes were the most influential, pivotal, or transformative for American home cooking between 1924 and 2024?—we expected strong opinions, but we didn’t anticipate the… Continue Reading

Judicial Remedies To Restore Competition in the Market for General Search

Yale Tobin Center for Public Policy. Judicial Remedies To Restore Lost Competition in the Market for General Search. September 4, 2024 (Working Draft). by Fiona Scott Morton, David Dinielli, Alissa Cooper, Gene Kimmelman, Margaret O’Grady. “The Trial – Last month, a United States federal judge found Google (today known as “Alphabet”) liable for illegal monopolization… Continue Reading

How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world

The Guardian – Carole Cadwalladr – In the wake of Trump’s unnerving appointees, the investigative journalist and veteran of the libel court offers [20] pointers on coping in an age of surveillance… Journalists are first, but everyone else is next. Trump has announced multibillion-dollar lawsuits against “the enemy camp”: newspapers and publishers. His proposed FBI… Continue Reading

What should journalists do when the facts don’t matter?

Via LLRX – What should journalists do when the facts don’t matter? – Most people agree that actual facts matter – in such activities as debate, discussion and reporting. Once facts are gathered, verified and distributed, informed decision-making can proceed in such important exercises as voting. But what happens when important, verified facts are published and… Continue Reading

How Google Spent 15 Years Creating a Culture of Concealment

The New York Times [free article] – “Trying to avoid antitrust suits, Google systematically told employees to destroy messages, avoid certain words and copy the lawyers as often as possible…How Google developed this distrustful culture was pieced together from hundreds of documents and exhibits, as well as witness testimony, in three antitrust trials against the… Continue Reading

Appointment and Confirmation of Executive Branch Leadership: An Overview

Professor Bert Chapman, Govt. Information & Political Science Librarian, Purdue University: March 2021 CRS prepared this report on appointing and confirming executive branch leadership. With confirmation hearings upcoming, this should be a good resource for our users and I imagine CRS will produce a new version in the near future. Continue Reading

Artificial Intelligence and Constitutional Interpretation

Coan, Andrew and Surden, Harry, Artificial Intelligence and Constitutional Interpretation (November 12, 2024). Arizona Legal Studies Discussion Paper No. 24-30, U of Colorado Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 24-39, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5018779 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5018779 This Article examines the potential use of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT in constitutional interpretation. LLMs are extremely… Continue Reading