The Verge: “Google’s search algorithm is perhaps the most consequential system on the internet, dictating what sites live and die and what content on the web looks like. But how exactly Google ranks websites has long been a mystery, pieced together by journalists, researchers, and people working in search engine optimization. Now, an explosive leak… Continue Reading
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Author Archives: Sabrina I. Pacifici
Saving the American Chestnut
New York Intelligencer [no paywall]: “…In 1904, Herman W. Merkel, a forester at the Bronx Zoo, noticed chestnuts near the park’s perimeter were speckled with a strange orange fungus. Merkel called in William A. Murrill, a mycologist at the New York Botanical Garden, and the two men spent the next year identifying a fungus now… Continue Reading
Obscure federal intelligence bureau that got Vietnam, Iraq, Ukraine right
Vox: “Every American knows what the CIA is. I would guess that maybe 1 in 1,000 have ever heard of INR — the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, American diplomats’ in-house intelligence agency. But if you do know about INR, you probably know two things: It has gotten big stuff right when the… Continue Reading
2023’s Dirtiest Cities in America
“City living has its advantages, but more residents usually means more pollution, more rats, and more trash. The problem is worse in some cities than in others. LawnStarter ranked 2023’s Dirtiest Cities in America following one of the trashiest times of the year, the winter holiday season. We compared over 150 of the biggest U.S.… Continue Reading
Ditch brightly coloured plastic, anti-waste researchers tell firms
The Guardian: “Retailers are being urged to stop making everyday products such as drinks bottles, outdoor furniture and toys out of brightly coloured plastic after researchers found it degrades into microplastics faster than plainer colours. Red, blue and green plastic became “very brittle and fragmented”, while black, white and silver samples were “largely unaffected” over… Continue Reading
RAG and Hallucination-Free Legal Research Tools
Github Blog: “What is retrieval-augmented generation, and what does it do for generative AI? Here’s how retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG, uses a variety of data sources to keep AI models fresh with up-to-date information and organizational knowledge.” Via LinkedIn – An Honest conversation about RAG and Hallucination-Free Legal Research Tools – “…We are smack-dab in… Continue Reading
Dozens of House Democrats urge Alito to recuse himself from Jan. 6 cases
The Hill via MSN: “A group of House Democrats on Tuesday called on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from all future cases related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol or the 2020 presidential election. In a letter addressed to the conservative justice, 45 Democrats pointed to recent New York Times… Continue Reading
Twitter Is Dead, Long Live the Portal
Wired: “The NYC-Dublin portal gives us a peek into the future of online community building in the wake of Twitter’s demise. Twitter is officially dead. Last week, twitter.com became x.com, marking the final step in a rebranding effort that the company’s owner, Elon Musk, announced last year. The change marks a shift for the now… Continue Reading
Google scrambles to manually remove weird AI answers in search
The Verge: “…Google continues to say that its AI Overview product largely outputs “high quality information” to users. “Many of the examples we’ve seen have been uncommon queries, and we’ve also seen examples that were doctored or that we couldn’t reproduce,” Google spokesperson Meghann Farnsworth said in an email to The Verge. Farnsworth also confirmed… Continue Reading
How to Detect and Guard Against Deceptive AI-Generated Election Information
Brennan Center – “Time-tested fact-checking practices will help limit the effectiveness and spread of misleading election information. Generative artificial intelligence is already being deployed to mislead and deceive voters in the 2024 election, making it imperative that voters take steps to identify inauthentic images, audio, video, and other content designed to deceptively influence their political… Continue Reading
Training Program for Dementia Caregivers
The DICE Approach Online Training Program: “Are you are caregiver of a person with dementia? Are you trying to manage behavioral symptoms such as agitation, wandering, aggression, anxiety (and so many others)? Welcome to your one-stop location for evidence-informed training for assessing and managing the behavioral symptoms of dementia! Years of research, hands-on experience and… Continue Reading
New FTC Data Shed Light on Companies Most Frequently Impersonated by Scammers
FTC: “New data from the Federal Trade Commission shows that Best Buy/Geek Squad, Amazon, and PayPal are the companies people report scammers impersonate most often. A newly released data spotlight shows that consumers in 2023 submitted about 52,000 reports about scammers impersonating Best Buy or its Geek Squad tech support brand, followed by about 34,000… Continue Reading
