New York Times: Former Uber Security Chief Charged With Concealing Hack. “Uber’s former security chief was charged on Thursday with attempting to conceal from federal investigators a hack that exposed the email addresses and phone numbers of 57 million drivers and passengers.”
CNN: YouTube is banking on tech to clean up controversial content, as moderators stay home. “YouTube said Tuesday that it is increasingly relying on technology to moderate content, resulting in a sharp rise in removed videos, including some that didn’t violate its policies. The Google-owned company said that between April and June it removed more than 11.4 million videos for violating its policies. That’s more than double what it took down in the previous three months.” Oh, why not. Auto-regulating content HAS WORKED SO WELL SO FAR…
MakeUseOf: Spotify Adds Sound Effects to Help You Survive the Summer. “Spotify has launched a new website; an experience it calls Wish You Were Here. At a time when most of us are stuck indoors, you can use the website—in conjunction with a bit of imagination—to take a vacation.”
Cal State Channel Islands: Prominent Black actors to participate in an online read-a-thon produced by CSUCI Performing Arts faculty. “African American actors Phylicia Rashad, Yvette Nicole Brown, and Roy Wood Jr., are among 34 renowned Black actors from stage and screen who will join in an online weekly reading marathon of W.E.B. Du Bois’ ‘Black Reconstruction In America’ beginning on Friday, Aug. 28. ‘The ReadIn Series’ is produced by CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI) Performing Arts/Dance Lecturer MiRi Park with assistance from Associate Professor of Performing Arts/Dance Heather Castillo.”
Washington Post: What the coronavirus can teach us about fighting climate change. “The cartoon flashed across Katharine Hayhoe’s social media timeline in mid-July: Two doctors in lab coats scrutinize a box labeled “covid-19 science” while one says to the other, ‘As long as we just provide the FACTS to the American people.’ Next to them, a pair of climate scientists are clutching their stomachs and laughing themselves to tears. Hayhoe, a climate researcher at Texas Tech University, had to laugh, too. She is all too familiar with the limits of facts when people don’t want to face them.”
Politico: Masks, surgical gowns, testing supplies on FDA shortage list. “Surgical gowns, gloves, masks, certain ventilators and various testing supplies needed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic are on the FDA’s first-ever list of medical devices in shortage. The agency is not disclosing who makes any of the devices on the list, which it released [August 14], because that ‘will adversely affect the public health by increasing the potential for hoarding or other disruptions.’ Instead, the agency has released the product codes of devices in shortage.”
Ars Technica: The Golden Age of computer user groups. “The Homebrew Computer Club where the Apple I got its start is deservedly famous—but it’s far from tech history’s only community gathering centered on CPUs. Throughout the 70s and into the 90s, groups around the world helped hapless users figure out their computer systems, learn about technology trends, and discover the latest whiz-bang applications. And these groups didn’t stick to Slacks, email threads, or forums; the meetings often happened IRL. But to my dismay, many young technically-inclined whippersnappers are completely unaware of computer user groups’ existence and their importance in the personal computer’s development. That’s a damned shame.”
BBC: John Laing workers’ summer holiday photos added to archive. “Pictures of post-war workers heading off on their summer holidays have been added to an online archive. Historic England has spent almost two years digitising 10,000 pictures from the John Laing Photographic Collection for public viewing online. The latest and last to be added are 700 pictures taken by John Laing photographers for the construction firm’s in-house newsletter Team Spirit.”
Penn State: Mining Twitter data may help National Parks staff gather feedback faster. “The National Park system has been referred to as one of America’s national treasures. A team of Penn State researchers in the department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Management and the Social Science Research Institute, report that mining tweets about the park may open up a rich vein of information that could lead to better service for park visitors while still protecting these national treasures and their wildlife.”
CNN: Software company Okta will let most of its 2,600 employees work remotely permanently. “Workplace software company Okta said Thursday it plans to let most of its employees work remotely on a permanent basis, becoming the latest Silicon Valley company to adopt sweeping office policy changes amid the pandemic — and in the face of shifting US immigration policy.”
AP: Politics slows flow of US virus funds to local public health. “Since the pandemic began, Congress has set aside trillions of dollars to ease the crisis. A joint Kaiser Health News and Associated Press investigation finds that many communities with big outbreaks have spent little of that federal money on local public health departments for work such as testing and contact tracing. Others, like in Minnesota, were slow to do so.”
New York Times: Meet the Philosopher Who Is Trying to Explain the Pandemic. “In a society that respects science, expertise confers power. That has good results, but it brings a terrible problem: Illegitimate political power can be disguised as expertise. This was a favorite idea of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, who used it to explain how experts had expanded definitions of criminality and sexual deviancy. One of Italy’s most celebrated thinkers, Giorgio Agamben, has recently applied similar insights to the coronavirus, at the risk of turning himself into a national pariah.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Kemp’s latest order allows local mask mandates for the first time. “After months of opposing local mask mandates, Gov. Brian Kemp signed an executive order on [August 14] that empowers many Georgia cities and counties to impose face covering requirements to combat the coronavirus. More than a dozen governments have already adopted those requirements over Kemp’s objections, and the governor had gone to court to block them.”
The Hill: Trump asks Supreme Court to let him block critics on Twitter. “The Trump administration on [August 20] asked the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court ruling that found President Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking his critics on Twitter. The lawsuit arose in 2017 after Trump’s social media account blocked seven people who had tweeted criticism of the president in comment threads linked to his @realDonaldTrump Twitter handle.”
Phys .org: Productivity could be improved by a permanent shift towards remote working, research shows. “Nine out of ten employees who have worked at home during lockdown would like to continue doing so in some capacity, research suggests. The report, by academics at Cardiff University and the University of Southampton, presents the first analysis of employee survey data focusing on homeworking, which was gathered for the Understanding Society COVID-19 Study.”
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