P.T. Barnum, RootsTech 2025, Kai Cenat, More: Monday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, December 9, 2024
NEW RESOURCES
Illinois State University: Milner Library launches P.T. Barnum digital collection. “Milner Library is proud to announce the publication of the P.T. Barnum Letters and Ephemera, a digital collection drawn from Special Collections’ world-class circus holdings. This assemblage of 136 documents relating to Barnum and his many business ventures was originally collected by Walter Scholl, a former balloon ascensionist, parachute jumper, and retired printer from Chicago, who amassed a stellar collection of over 22,000 circus books, pieces of ephemera, and other items from a wide variety of sources.”
EVENTS
Latter-Day Saints: FamilySearch Announces First 4 Keynote Speakers for RootsTech 2025. “RootsTech by FamilySearch has announced four of its keynote speakers for the world’s largest family discovery celebration, which will take place March 6-8, 2025. Author Ndaba Mandela (grandson of Nelson Mandela), prominent artist Dana Tanamachi, and Olympic and Paralympic Gold-medalists Tara Davis-Woodhall and Hunter Woodhall, are the first keynote speakers to be announced.”
TWEAKS AND UPDATES
Engadget: Kai Cenat takes back his Twitch subscriber record during month-long livestream. “The Twitch subscriber crown is back in Kai Cenat’s hands, with the creator ending his month-long subathon at almost 727,700 subscribers, CNBC reports. He more than doubled the record of 326,650 subscribers VTuber Ironmouse set in September, who had, in turn, overtaken Cenat’s number one spot - a competition I am suddenly very invested in.”
AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD
Ars Technica: HowStuffWorks founder Marshall Brain sent final email before sudden death. “The week before Thanksgiving, Marshall Brain sent a final email to his colleagues at North Carolina State University. ‘I have just been through one of the most demoralizing, depressing, humiliating, unjust processes possible with the university,’ wrote the founder of HowStuffWorks.com and director of NC State’s Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. Hours later, campus police found that Brain had died by suicide.”
Taipei Times: YouTuber reveals how CCP buys ‘influencers’ . “Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源) in a video showed how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bribes Taiwanese online influencers in its ‘united front’ efforts to shape Taiwanese opinions. The video was made by YouTuber “Pa Chiung (八炯)” and published online on Friday.”
SECURITY & LEGAL
CNBC: ‘I have no money’: Thousands of Americans see their savings vanish in Synapse fintech crisis. “[Kayla] Morris, like thousands of other customers, was snared in the collapse of a behind-the-scenes fintech firm called Synapse and has been locked out of her account for six months as of November. She held out hope that her money was still secure. Then she learned how much Evolve Bank & Trust, the lender where her funds were supposed to be held, was prepared to return to her.”
RESEARCH & OPINION
Search Engine Journal: Accessibility Champ: Wix, WordPress, Squarespace, Duda, Or…?. “The HTTP Archive published its report on the state of accessibility on the web, based on scores generated with the Lighthouse Accessibility Audit, a feature of Google’s Lighthouse website auditing tool that also measures website performance, best practices, and SEO. The report compared traditional content management systems with website building platforms, with WordPress scoring surprisingly well.”
Tubefilter: 80% of sponsored posts on Instagram last month weren’t disclosed as ads. “Over the last few years, the [FTC] has rolled out more and more specific guidelines for sponcon, letting creators know exactly when they need to tell their audience that they were paid to promote brands, products, and services. But despite these clear guidelines, as many as 80% of sponsored posts put up on Instagram in November were not labeled as ads, according to a study by new marketing analytics platform Ravineo.”
University of Cambridge: New datasets will train AI models to think like scientists. “What can exploding stars teach us about how blood flows through an artery? Or swimming bacteria about how the ocean’s layers mix? A collaboration of researchers, including from the University of Cambridge, has reached a milestone toward training artificial intelligence models to find and use transferable knowledge between fields to drive scientific discovery.”
OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL
PC World: Excel world champion solves ‘Warcraft’ spreadsheet to win crown. “Twelve finalists progressed to the finals, which was predicated upon a familiar, nerdy game: World of Warcraft. (Eve Online, or ‘Excel in Space,’ probably would have an even better choice). The players were asked to essentially ‘manage’ a team of Horde players as they progressed through a simulated game - capping off the adventure with a simulated raid on the Molten Core dungeon.” Good afternoon, Internet…
This newsletter is free but most of the things that go into making it aren’t! Help me afford new socks and fancier bean stew by supporting ResearchBuzz on Patreon. Not interested in commitment? Perhaps you’d buy me an iced tea. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Mastodon Gizmos, WikiTwister, and MegaGladys.
https://researchbuzz.me/2024/12/09/p-t-barnum-rootstech-2025-kai-cenat-more-monday-afternoon-researchbuzz-december-9-2024/
https://researchbuzz.me/?p=64845