What The Fran: 121 Blaugust posts. “I visited the Blaugust participants and these are my favourite blog posts from the second half of the month, following up from 132 Blaugust posts. A bunch of them are end of August wrap-up types because I’m always interested. Sadly I only read English so for the blogs in other languages I’ve tried to link something cool. Otherwise they, and other blogs that 404ed or didn’t have new posts, etc, are at the end of this list.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Land: The big winners and losers in U.S. website traffic over the past year. “Google Analytics 4 (GA4) became mandatory on July 1, 2023, when standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing new data. Less than a year later, on May 14, 2024, Google began rolling out AI Overviews to U.S. users. The timing matters: The industry lost a clean, comparable measurement baseline just as search traffic patterns started to shift. So, over the past 12 months, who gained website traffic in the U.S., and who lost it?”

The Register: The search company that plants trees just launched a Linux browser to help Europe battle big tech. “Berlin-based eco-conscious search outfit Ecosia is expanding its range of European-focused web browsers to include a Linux version, citing the growing number of users in the EU looking for open alternatives to the clutches of American tech giants.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

PetaPixel: Vimeo Can Decide To Change Your Plan and Force You to Pay 5x More. “This new Studio subscription came to PetaPixel‘s attention because of a discussion on Threads, the origin of which has since been deleted for factual inaccuracies, about a huge Vimeo price hike. While some details weren’t quite correct, the basic complaint was: Vimeo determined the user was no longer eligible for an individual plan and needed to be moved to the new, much pricier Studio tier.”

NPR: Elon Musk threatens to sue over Gibney documentary’s “space lasers” claim. “Elon Musk has in recent days been targeting his ire at filmmaker Alex Gibney, whose forthcoming documentary, Musk, offers a scathing look at the tech mogul’s rise. Now, a lawyer for Musk is threatening to file a defamation lawsuit ahead of the film’s release next month.”

Axios: Scoop: TikTok rejects Meta ads amid settlement pressure campaign. “TikTok has rejected ads from Meta that call on TikTok and other tech platforms to join Meta in settling with U.S. state attorneys general in a landmark children’s safety lawsuit, sources told Axios…. Part of Meta’s historic multibillion-dollar settlement is contingent on its peers also agreeing to settle. Other tech firms have yet to publicly comment on their plans.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: Man Arrested After Showing Up at Police Station With a Truck Full of Flock Cameras. “A New Mexico man, 44-year-old Jevon Martinez, took down 10 Flock camera systems himself on Wednesday, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO). Martinez livestreamed himself taking down at least one of the cameras, which he called ‘tyranny trees.’ In the stream, he also showed the back of his pickup truck filled with several other cameras.”

Ars Technica: LinkedIn beats “BrowserGate” lawsuits over scanning users’ Chrome extensions. “LinkedIn beat two lawsuits over its practice of scanning users’ browser extensions, with a judge granting the Microsoft subsidiary’s motion to dismiss the cases. The users who sued LinkedIn failed to adequately allege that they have standing to sue because neither asserted that they ‘had browser extensions installed that conveyed private information to LinkedIn,’ ruled Judge Vince Chhabria in US District Court for the Northern District of California.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Northeastern University: The secret knitting society designing blankets and clothing with data. “Deep within the underbellies of online forums and social media sites, a global network of passionate knitters, crocheters, sewists and stitchers are quietly pioneering a bespoke form of data visualization, conveying complex statistical ideas through artistic handmade crafts.”

The Observer: Heritage and Research Center begins archival work. “The Heritage and Research Center has completed renovations along the Avenue and has begun receiving archival collections from 10 congregations — focusing on Catholic religious women. The center, which began as an idea discussed among congregations in 2018, is now transitioning from construction into the process of preserving, organizing and making the collections available to students, researchers and the public.” 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. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

NEW RESOURCES

New York Times: Voters Are Asking A.I. About Elections. The Answers Can Vary by User.. “Now the M.I.T. researchers are comparing how nearly a dozen large language models responded to a fixed group of questions about prominent midterm candidates and political issues. The team is also evaluating how the responses vary based on who claims to be asking (calibrating for gender, race, location or political leaning). For nearly a month so far, the researchers have regularly run automated sweeps of all the possible combinations of prompts and identities — 19,000 separate queries each time. They designed a public dashboard called the LLM Election Observatory for tracking how the A.I. models are responding.”

Discovered on LinkedIn: the Indigenous Collections Care Guide. “The Indigenous Collections Care Guide provides a framework to respect and recenter collections stewardship practices around the needs and knowledge of Native American and Indigenous community members.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Engadget: You can now plan IRL events on Snapchat . “Snapchat is getting a very old-school social media feature: event planning. Called ‘Snapchat Plans’ the app is trying to foster IRL gatherings of its users with new tools to organize meetups of up to 200 people directly in the app.”

TechSpot: Google appears to be done with tablets, again. “It seems that Google has decided to call it a day when it comes to making tablets. Just three years after it was introduced, the Pixel Tablet, Google’s only remaining tablet model, has been removed from its store. The tech giant has erased its entire Tablets section from the storefront, so it appears we won’t see another Pixel Tablet from Google for a long time, if ever.”

USEFUL STUFF

How-To Geek: What is JSONC and is it any better than JSON?. “JSON has become a near-ubiquitous data format, used in API responses, save game files, and configuration. But many people feel it can be better, and various attempts have been made to expand or improve it. JSONC is one of those attempts.” Trailing commas in JSON have gotten me more than once.

MakeUseOf: I ditched online file converters for a Docker container with 1,000+ formats. “For the longest time, I’d relied on online file converters for all those quick conversion needs. As someone working with various types of media, I found an additional tab in my web browser convenient. However, I wouldn’t rely on these sketchy file-conversion websites nowadays, knowing the serious privacy concerns they pose. At the same time, I like the idea of opening a new tab to convert a file. A Docker container I came across recently, namely ConvertX, solved this problem for good!”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Dazed: We’re living through an explainer epidemic. “These days, there’s an explainer video for every topic you can imagine, and swarms of thinkfluencers – often armed with tiny mics – popping up left, right and centre. Some have a niche…. Others post their hottest takes in front of a green screen or sell DIY business strategies on Substack. Like everything on the internet, much of it is highly researched, and much of it is not – such is the nature of algorithmic culture, which rewards volume.”

Politico: Putin’s bot army is targeting German and French elections, Sweden warns. “Russia poses a threat to upcoming elections in Europe’s biggest democracies and social media platforms must ‘step up’ the fight against Moscow’s networks of bots, Sweden’s disinformation defense chief has warned.”

Playboy: People Are Buying Facebook Beef to Avoid “Mystery Meat”. “As a Chicagoan, ‘local beef’ usually refers to a fight with a neighbor over a parking spot, sports team, or hot dog condiments. Now, with food recalls happening seemingly every other day, reported government-sanctioned sales of wild horses to slaughterhouses, and President Donald Trump’s recent effort to lower beef prices, the term has taken on a more nutritious meaning. I never thought I would consider driving over an hour to buy ground beef on Facebook Marketplace, but in 2026, it sounds like a safer gamble than buying it on Amazon for $1.99 a pound.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Associated Press: Nearly a decade after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, New Mexico alone is taking Facebook to trial. “Attorneys representing the state of New Mexico told jurors that targeted political ads, attempting to lower Democratic turnout during the 2016 election, used Facebook data sold to a political consulting firm, during opening statements in a trial over the platform’s data protections.”

Ohio Capital Journal: Kentucky courts filing system part of ‘cybersecurity incident,’ judicial branch officials say. “The Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts said the system used for files for the Kentucky Supreme Court and Court of Appeals ‘experienced a cybersecurity incident.’ AOC said it was notified by the company Thomson Reuters Court Management Solutions about the incident within the company’s C-Track system files. The company said an unauthorized third party accessed and obtained court data from multiple states, including Kentucky Appellate Court data.”

Reuters: Texas judge rules TikTok misled users on child safety feature. “A Texas judge ruled on Thursday that TikTok violated the state’s consumer protection law by misleading users ​about how it filtered content for minors and ‌whether its ‘Restricted Mode’ feature shielded children from inappropriate material.” Good morning, 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. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

BFBS Forces News: Forgotten no more: Search the stories of 12,500 Coastal Command heroes lost in WW2. “The Coastal Command Losses Database was officially launched at the International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC) in Lincoln this week, bringing together what is believed to be the first truly comprehensive record of Coastal Command losses…. Described as the Royal Air Force’s ‘Cinderella Service’, it was often overlooked in favour of the better-known Bomber and Fighter Commands. Yet its work was fundamental to the Allied war effort, protecting vital sea lanes, hunting German U-boats, escorting Allied convoys and attacking enemy shipping.”

WZZM: Michigan State Police opens new database for 200 cold cases. “Michigan State Police (MSP) is launching a website highlighting unsolved crimes that have gone cold. September is National Cold Case Month and state police are hoping to bring attention to unresolved homicides, missing and unidentified persons and serial offenses.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

MediaPost: Google Search Introduces Live NFL Game Feed. “Google added a live National Football League game feed to search on Wednesday, allowing fans and spectators to follow along with game developments as they unfold on the field.”

Mashable: TikTok is bringing voice notes to the comment section. “TikTok’s comment section is about to get a lot more chaotic. The platform is rolling out a slate of new ways to interact beneath videos, including voice comments, polls, photo carousels, and Live Photos. The four new features expand what users can post beyond text and single image replies, giving TikTok’s famously active comment sections even more ways to become part of the content itself.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Wrap: Creatorverse: NFL Is Doubling Down on Creators as the US Open Struggles. “The NFL’s creator strategy has become a central part of its audience expansion efforts in recent years, especially as the NFL has made moves to expand its female and non-American audiences. Last year’s Creator of the Week program led to more than 86 million views across all YouTube and NFL channels. And this year creators are especially important as the NFL will have nine international games throughout the 2026-2027 season — the most in the league’s history.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Fightful: Ric Flair Suing FAM Networks, Claims He Was Duped By Influencer Talent Agency. “Ric Flair is suing FAM Networks, an influencer talent agency that Flair claims duped him into signing away the rights to his own image and likeness while promising him a six-figure monthly revenue stream that allegedly never materialized.”

Reuters: Macron urges EU ban on social media for under-15s in letter to Von der Leyen. “French President Emmanuel Macron has urged the European Commission to back a European Union-wide ban on social media ​for children under 15 after France failed to enact its own legislation, his ‌office said on Tuesday.”

BBC: Australians will be able to switch off social media algorithms under planned legislation. “Australians would be able to switch off social media algorithms under draft legislation to be proposed this week. Communications Minister Anika Wells, who last year helmed the government’s world-first social media ban for under-16s, said the digital duty of care laws would ensure ‘some basic safety protections on an industry that hasn’t had to observe it’.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

The Conversation: Receipts, memes and supermarket shelves: how Iranians are documenting the economic cost of war online. “On Iranian social media, everyday items are being used to illustrate rampant inflation. Videos juxtapose the purchasing power of the same amount of money from one or two years ago with its current value. People capture supermarket shelves, photograph receipts, and make jokes about products that have become unaffordable for their households. These posts are more than just complaints about rising prices. Collectively, they are forming an unofficial cost-of-living diary of a nation under significant economic strain.”

University of Central Florida: UCF Researchers Receive NEH Grant to Preserve Noah Webster’s Dictionaries Online. “Researchers in UCF’s Department of English and Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR) are slated to receive nearly $350,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to create searchable digital editions of Webster’s historic dictionaries, giving scholars, educators and the public unprecedented access to foundational texts that helped shape American English.” 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. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

NBC News: As Trump pushes for data centers, voters in key midterm races say they don’t want them. “Dawn Vogel, a Republican county supervisor in rural Buchanan County, Iowa, doesn’t have a lot in common with the leading democratic socialists in Congress. But on this bit of policy they agree: Data centers are proliferating across the American landscape too fast.”

AFP: Robots protest rampant AI in Poland. “Around 30 robots marched through Warsaw on Monday, waving flags and ‘chanting’ slogans as part of an unusual protest calling for greater regulation of artificial intelligence and protections for workers threatened by automation.”

DATA CENTERS

Reuters: Malaysia’s data centres guzzling more power as temperatures soar, officials say. “Malaysia’s data centres are consuming more power as temperatures rise, leaving a ​9 gigawatt gas-fired capacity gap for the government to fill by 2032, ‌officials said on Tuesday. The share of data centres in overall power consumption surged to a record 9.3% in the second week of August, compared with an average of 7% this year, Energy Commission ​CEO Siti Safinah Salleh said.”
AI MODELS

Spectrum Local News: Texas lawmakers attempt to track data centers’ water usage as state faces shortage. “Saving water is paramount as Texas could face a fresh water shortage due to rapid population and industry growth. Many Texans are concerned about the amount of water data centers use for cooling and power generation as lawmakers try to track how much water the centers across the state use.”

Chicago Reader: Chicago has abundant water. Data center developers want a taste. “Waterways in Chicago and northern Illinois have supported industrial activity for more than a century, and now those same bodies of water are drawing an influx of proposed data centers that would tap into the region’s plentiful resources. These proposals have drawn considerable scrutiny, with experts and advocates concerned about the lack of transparency and public input in processes that govern the use of a public resource.”

AI IN FINANCE

The Atlantic: The 24-Year-Old Who Lost Billions. “In the fall of 2007, as the American housing market began to buckle, a Morgan Stanley bond trader named Howie Hubler lost $9 billion. The bellicose former linebacker believed that he had structured his subprime-mortgage deals in a way that would outsmart the market. Instead, Hubler’s folly amounted to the largest trading loss in history. Until this summer, that is, when Leopold Aschenbrenner managed to lose nearly four times as much. At age 24.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Politico: The House Democrat who’s making AI regulation her No. 1 priority. “Rep. Lori Trahan’s decision last week to forgo a leadership bid to instead focus on developing artificial intelligence policy surprised some of her colleagues. It also left some of them wondering whether her thwarted attempt to work across the aisle on the subject was what doomed her prospects.”

Montana Free Press: Top employees for data center company eyeing Yellowstone County made matching political donations before announcing plans. “Two top executives from an out-of-state data center company made matching financial contributions to nine state political candidates in Montana the year before announcing plans to build in Yellowstone County.”

AI LEGISLATION

North Dakota Monitor: Data center nondisclosure bill dies in North Dakota Senate vote. “North Dakota legislators on Thursday rejected a push to ban the use of nondisclosure agreements between government entities and developers of data centers and other industrial projects. Bill sponsor Sen. Tim Mathern, D-Fargo, tried to persuade lawmakers that the bill was needed to preserve trust in government in the face of multi-billion dollar data center development projects that are popping up around the state.”

TechCrunch: Massachusetts hits data centers with new clean power rules. “Massachusetts became the latest state to force data centers to bring their own power, but this time there’s a twist. A new state mandate would require developers building data centers larger than 25 megawatts to provide clean power or pay into a ratepayer protection fund. Gov. Maura Healey’s executive order is the latest example of states turning against data centers.”

Nevada Current: Lawmakers propose oversight for state, local agencies using AI. “Concerned that Nevada agencies have relied on artificial intelligence without much oversight, state lawmakers are proposing legislation to establish basic standards on how the technology is used by state and local government entities. Proposed legislation that would require transparency around AI and prevent bias in automated decision making was among the nine bill draft requests approved at the Aug. 27 the interim Government Affairs Committee meeting.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

South China Morning Post: DeepSeek embarks on ‘unprecedented’ hiring spree as it overhauls back end systems. “Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek is embarking on what it calls an ‘unprecedented’ hiring spree to overhaul back end systems severely strained by booming user demand and compute-heavy AI agents.”

Mashable: Nvidia’s Hugging Face purchase confirmed at $13 billion. “It’s official: Nvidia has acquired the open-source AI platform Hugging Face for $13 billion. Or, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the acquisition was for $12,930,300,000, to be exact.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

RFI: AI deepfakes and fake fighters reshape Mali’s information war. “Mali’s warring sides are increasingly using artificial intelligence to fight an information war alongside their battle on the ground, a study published Wednesday has found. Jihadists are experimenting with relatively basic AI propaganda, separatist networks are creating fake online characters and Russia’s Africa Corps is using the technology on a far more sophisticated scale.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Cal Matters: Fact check: Is Sam Altman right that almonds use more water than ChatGPT queries?. “On the Sources Podcast with Alex Heath released Tuesday, Altman said that it takes 38,000 ChatGPT queries to use as much water as producing a single almond in California. ‘If you look at a modern very large data center, it uses the equivalent amount of water as an office building in terms of, you know, people like running the sinks and the toilets and whatever,’ Altman told Heath. The problem, experts say, is that it’s impossible to verify those numbers given what’s public about the secretive industry.” 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. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

WYPR: Maryland Governor launches AI-assisted community development tool. “The Maryland Community Compass – formerly the Maryland Community Business Compass – was expanded in partnership with AI research company Anthropic. Developers can now browse a database of 2,600 public and private funding programs, and they can look up a single parcel and understand what can be built there as the AI tool draws on place-based incentives, millions of property records and statewide zoning codes.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

USGS: USGS Cooperative National Geologic Map Now Covers 50 States, U.S. Territories. “This version is the first digital map to provide standardized geologic data for all 50 states and most territories. Through the innovative map interface developed by the USGS National Geologic Map Database, anyone can view and interact with the map data to learn more about the Nation’s geologic framework, resources, and hazards.”

Data Rescue Project: Tracking Censorship in National Parks: An Update from the Save Our Signs team. “As censorship of NPS materials continues, the Save Our Signs team has released new resources and a key update to the existing infrastructure to make it easier to understand what has changed.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

TechCrunch: Automattic’s board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence. “Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automattic, best known as the parent company of WordPress.com, has been put on a leave of absence by his board against his will, according to a Slack message seen by TechCrunch.”

New York Times: 60 Posts in 10 Hours: How Trump’s Social Media Reflects His Version of Reality. “The rat-a-tat of ever wilder, ever more outrageous posts each weekend has become a fixture of the president’s second term, seen more and more as a barometer of his mental state. Mr. Trump’s critics, who never considered him a model of stability in the first place, now point to these frenetic bursts of fantasy and vanity as proof that the 80-year-old president is deteriorating further with age.”

Ars Technica: GOG brings back “big box” PC games, one printable template at a time. “Those who remember PC gaming in the days before Steam may have fond memories of the ‘big box’ packaging that made those games stand out as shelf eye candy and sought-after in-home collectibles. Today, PC gaming platform GOG is hoping to reignite some of the nostalgia for those days by adding downloadable 3D models and printable, foldable high-res packaging scans for a handful of PC games on the platform.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Cybernews: Are 200 million LG TVs listening in – even when switched off?. “LG smart TVs can listen in on voice commands, gather data that reveals your location, and scan your home for other connected devices, according to a major new investigation into the company’s webOS platform.”

MediaPost: Meta Fails To Remove Sex Abuse Ads Featuring Real Children. “Last month, an investigation led by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) found that Meta had been running dozens of paid ads including explicit AI-generated CSAM material targeting users living in the U.S. and Europe. Some of the ads invited users to link to AI-powered undressing apps. According to Meta’s ad library, the CSAM ads were running across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Threads.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Minnesota: What does it look like to create an ethical visual archive that’s truly accountable to the community it documents?. “Ethical documentary work cannot begin with cameras or interview questions; it begins with listening, trust, and understanding a community’s priorities. I learned this lesson while interning with Soomaal House of Art, a Minnesota-based Somali artists collective, when the direction of the project I worked on this summer changed because Kaamil Haider, co-director and co-founder of Soomaal House of Art, and I listened to the collective’s needs, not only my initial expectations, to guide our work.”

People: Trump Officials Remove Military Language Critical of the Confederacy from Memorial Site. “The Trump administration has removed language from Arlington National Cemetery that was critical of a Confederate memorial that was taken down in 2023. The changes were made to both a marker at the memorial’s former location and a Department of Defense (DoD) website that provided historical context about the monument.”

Reuters: Health officials turn to mobile-phone data to track Ebola spread in Congo. “Health officials battling the Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are using anonymised mobile-phone data to map population movements and identify areas where the virus could ​spread next, according to the World Health Organisation and researchers working with it. The approach, which has not been used before in an Ebola response, comes as authorities struggle ‌to contain what the WHO has described as the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

PetaPixel: The Majesty of Birds Celebrated in the 2026 Audubon Photography Awards. “The National Audubon Society has unveiled the winners of the 2026 Audubon Photography Awards, a competition that captures the beauty of birds and the challenges they face. The competition, now in its seventeenth year, is split into two geographic areas: Chile and Colombia, as well as the United States and Canada. This is to highlight ‘how birds connect people across geographies and ecosystems.'” Good morning, 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. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Mogura VR: The oldest theater in the Kinki region, “Izushi Eirakukan,” has been digitally archived using 3D scanning, making it accessible via VRChat and other virtual reality platforms.. “The oldest theater in the Kinki region, ‘Izushi Eirakukan,’ has been digitally archived using 3D scanning, making it accessible via VRChat and other virtual reality platforms.”

New York Times: After 9/11, Documents Suggest, New Yorkers Were Misled About Air Quality. “The Mamdani administration released more than 170,000 pages of documents related to the air quality around the World Trade Center site in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.”

Source NM: New Mexico immigrant advocates launch platform for training, job opportunities amid federal threats. “Somos Un Pueblo Unido, a New Mexico immigrant advocacy organization, on Thursday launched an online platform seeking to connect foreign-born residents with a variety of state workforce development programs aimed at connecting workers with industries that need them.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Reuters: Tate brothers lose bid for release from US jail pending extradition. “Social media influencers Andrew ​and Tristan Tate lost their bid for release from a Miami jail on Wednesday as they contest extradition to Britain, where ‌they are wanted on rape charges. In denying bail for the Tate brothers, Miami-based U.S. Magistrate Judge Lauren Louis said the brothers’ wealth and frequent international travel made them ‘quintessential flight risks.'”

Engadget: Audacity’s new look is finally here, along with its largest feature update in years . “Audacity released its Version 4.0 update today, bringing a fresh coat of paint and a number of new features for the popular free and open-source audio editor. This is the biggest update since Version 3.0 caused a ruckus over five years ago, and users have been waiting to see how radically the software would change with this latest release.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

A Shroud of Thoughts: The 15th Anniversary of TCMParty. “Today TCMParty turns 15 years old. For those of you who do not know what TCMParty is, it is a collective live posting of movies on Turner Classic Movies using the hashtag #TCMParty. It originated on Twitter and has since largely moved to Bluesky, although the hashtag is used on other social media services as well. Originally, TCMParties were scheduled and had hosts who posted trivia about the specific movie then airing. The hosts essentially curated the live posting. While scheduled TCMParties with a host still take place, TCMParty has evolved to where it takes place 24 hours a day.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: FCC plans robocall scorecard to grade phone companies on spam call blocking. “The Federal Communications Commission today said it will create a robocall mitigation scorecard to rate phone companies on how effectively they block illegal spam calls.”

The Guardian: Grindr pays £26m to settle UK lawsuit over allegedly sharing users’ HIV status. “Grindr will pay £26m to settle a lawsuit brought by thousands of users in the UK who allege that the US dating app shared highly sensitive personal information, including in some cases their HIV status, with advertising companies.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Medievalists.net: Medieval Manuscripts Reveal DNA of a Deadly Livestock Disease. “Medieval manuscripts have preserved much more than the words written on their pages. Scientists examining the animal skins used to make books such as the 1,000-year-old York Gospels have discovered DNA from sheeppox, revealing that the devastating livestock disease was circulating across medieval Europe.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

Spotted in my RSS feeds: Defrag98, a Windows 98 defrag simulation. I would be very concerned if my hard drive had ever sounded like this simulation, but I like the defrag part. Good evening, 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. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Centre For Economic Policy Research: Tariff confusion. “We construct the new US Tariff Announcement Database (USTAD), which tracks US tariff announcements during 2025. We use USTAD to compute monthly US statutory tariffs and novel measures of tariff confusion by origin country and product: the number of relevant announcements, the number of possible tariff calculations arising, and bounds on possible tariff miscalculation. We find that confusion about the current state of US tariff policy led to significant declines in US imports during 2025. Strikingly, we estimate that the fall in US imports due to tariff confusion was similar in size to the reduction caused by tariff increases alone, meaning that confusion doubled the negative impact of tariffs.”

Spotted on Bluesky: the BET.com Article Explorer. From the About page: “In September 2026, BET removed its news archive from bet.com — more than two decades of reporting on Black culture, politics, music and public life, gone from the live web. The articles themselves survived, because the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine had been capturing them all along. This site makes those captures searchable again.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Register: Nitter lives to proxy another day after taking legal advice. “The Nitter project will continue ‘following legal advice,’ meaning XCancel, a public service built on its open source code, is back online.”

BBC: Charity buys archive of Third Eye centre and CCA. “The charity that manages Glasgow’s museum and library collections has bought the archive of two organisations that played a key role in the city’s contemporary art scene. The collections of the Third Eye Centre and the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), containing material gathered over more than 50 years, are now owned by Glasgow Life.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

American Libraries: Dismantling Disinformation. “Library workers are well aware of the effects of book bans and censorship. Propaganda and disinformation are the flipside of the same coin. Understanding the complex relationships among these interrelated processes is more critical than ever, especially as libraries explore possible solutions and responses. The following books show how disinformation can lead to censorship and how censorship can, in turn, allow disinformation to thrive.”

People: Social Media Dog Tucker Budzyn Dies Days After Owner Announced the Golden Retriever’s Cancer Diagnosis. “Tucker Budzyn, the beloved viral golden retriever, has died following complications from cancer. He was 8 years old. His owner, influencer Courtney Budzyn, announced the news in a tearful video on Saturday, Sept. 5, sharing that Tucker died on Wednesday, Sept. 2 — less than a week after she revealed his lymphoma diagnosis.” When I was looking after my Granny during Covid, I would find YouTube videos I thought she’d like and bring them over for her to watch. She loved dogs and Tucker was a big favorite. Granny died December 17 of last year and now Tucker is gone.

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Why this month’s Microsoft patch release is a doozy. “Microsoft’s patch for September is a doozy, with a record number of roughly 972 vulnerabilities fixed and 112 of them meeting the high critical-severity threshold. It was only two months ago that Microsoft patched a then-record 570 vulnerabilities. Then, last month, Microsoft patched some 620 of them. Google and other companies have also published record numbers of vulnerabilities in recent months.”

UA.news: YouTube has blocked the channels of Kirkorov, Povaliy, and other propagandists. “The list includes channels belonging to Philip Kirkorov, Grigory Leps, Sergey Lazarev, Valeria, Larisa Dolina, Irina Allegrova, and the band ‘Pelageya.’ Access has also been restricted to the channels of Denis Maidanov and Yulia Chicherina, who support Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.”

Colorado Sun: New evidence shows Boulder climate lab was dismantled in act of political reprisal, lawsuit alleges. “New evidence shows overt political retaliation against Colorado is behind the Trump administration’s dismantling of the National Center for Atmospheric Research lab in Boulder, according to new filings in a lawsuit by the lab’s university consortium managers.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Business Insider Africa: Decades after colonial-era mapping, Africa’s mineral powerhouse launches $180 million drive with US, France, others to control mineral data. “The push comes decades after Belgian authorities and mining companies conducted extensive geological surveys across the territory during the colonial era. Much of that information remains outside the DRC, including millions of pages of maps, field notes and geological records stored at Belgium’s AfricaMuseum in Tervuren…. The historical data has taken on new importance as the DRC sits at the centre of the global race for critical minerals, particularly copper and cobalt.”

Dartmouth College: New Guidelines Created for Publishing Indigenous Data. “To ensure that Indigenous peoples’ rights and knowledge are recognized in scientific data and scholarly publishing, a team of Indigenous scholars led by Lydia Jennings, an assistant professor of environmental studies, has established Guidelines for the Governance of Indigenous Peoples’ Data in Scholarly Publishing.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

PetaPixel: This New Open-Source Camera Has Swappable Sensors and Lens Mounts. “CHC5 modules start at under $200 for backers, and the camera base itself, with a sensor and mount of choice, is around $680. The system is entirely open-source, rendering it easy to customize for even niche applications. With interchangeable sensors mounted on uniform boards, swappable lens mounts, and open-source software, the potential imaging applications are expansive.” 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. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Internet Archive Blog: National Summit on Local News Preservation Report. “On June 17, 2026, the Internet Archive hosted the National Summit on Local News Preservation in National Harbor, Maryland. Organized through our Today’s News for Tomorrow (TNT) program with partners the Poynter Institute and Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), and with support from Press Forward and the Society of American Archivists Foundation, the Summit brought journalists, librarians, archivists, and researchers into the same room…. The TNT Project Team has released a report documenting the proceedings of the Summit and offering recommendations. The report also provides an analysis of breakout group discussions and identifies areas for future action.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Kotaku: White House Removes Awful Tetris Clone From Website After The Tetris Company Posted It Takes ‘Copyright Infringement Very Seriously’. “The White House has quietly removed a racist and not-very-well-made Tetris clone from its awful ‘arcade’ website. The move comes shortly after The Tetris Company publicly criticize the clone while reminding everyone that it has a history of going after clones and knock-offs in court.”

Ars Technica: Google complies with EU rules for travel searches, says the new results stink. “As the world’s largest search engine, Google is often a target of Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which seeks to rein in Big Tech. The European Commission hit Google with a hefty 460 million euro ($543 million) fine in July for preferring its own services in searches for travel and shopping. Google has now made changes in accordance with the European Union’s wishes, but it claims the result is a massive reduction in search quality.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Wall Street Journal: Can Evan Spiegel Sell the World on $2,195 Smart Glasses?. “Snap CEO Evan Spiegel bet big on developing new smartglasses and was ready to show them to the world. But as Spiegel prepared for a CNBC interview in June ahead of the fall product launch, at least one person internally advised him not to wear the glasses for the entire segment and instead focus on talking about them, according to people familiar with the matter. Spiegel wore them anyway.”

PetaPixel: Fujifilm and Google Launch New Google Photos Print Store. “Fujifilm has announced “Fujifilm for Google Photos Print Store,” a new print storefront that brings physical photo printing to Google Photos users. Fujifilm says it ‘will assume leadership and responsibility for the photo printing functionality of the popular Google Photos platforms,’ and plans to release new features and products to improve the overall Google Photos user experience.”

New York Times: Fake Version of Republican Midterm Convention Website Redirects to Epstein Files. “Republicans eager to find out more about the party’s first-of-its-kind midterm convention in Dallas next week got a surprise this week: a website that initially purported to be the Republican National Committee’s official convention page but then redirected to the Justice Department’s library of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Local10: YouTuber Jack Doherty arrested on domestic battery charge in Fort Lauderdale. “Fort Lauderdale police said they arrested the 22-year-old after a ‘domestic dispute’ late Friday morning in the city’s Riverside Park neighborhood. Authorities said officers responded to the 1400 block of Southwest Fifth Court just before noon and determined that Doherty ‘and a female victim got into a physical dispute inside a residence.'”

Associated Press: Party’s over for crypto scammers who went on a spending spree after a $240 million bitcoin theft. “The scammers — a network of young men in their late teens or early 20s — celebrated the August 2024 heist by embarking on a wild spending spree. They purchased fleets of sports cars, flew on private jets, hired security guards and rented mansions in Miami and the Hamptons. An alleged ringleader, 22-year-old Malone Lam, spent over $569,000 in one evening at a Los Angeles night club. Their bender lasted a month before FBI agents arrested Lam on charges that he organized a ‘social engineering’ attack on the Washington, D.C., resident. ”

RESEARCH & OPINION

NBC News: Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch is leaving amid tensions with Trump. “While the Smithsonian has traditionally operated independently of the party in power, the Trump administration has repeatedly criticized how the institution portrays America’s past. Last week, the Interior Department threatened to cut off support, alleging that Smithsonian facilities present a ‘radical ideology’ that weakens ‘shared American identity.'”

Duke Chronicle: ‘Insane data’: Duke professor Dan Ariely accused of additional research fraud . “Dan Ariely, professor of business administration in the Fuqua School of Business, is once again under scrutiny after an article released Monday found evidence that he likely tampered with or fabricated data in an influential 2002 research paper on procrastination.” Good evening, 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. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

Los Altos History Museum: How America’s Story is Told: History Museum Reveals Curatorial Process. “Los Altos History Museum invites the public to go behind the scenes and learn how the Museum approaches this work—from developing exhibitions to determining which stories to tell, which artifacts to display, and why. In ‘Curating America’s 250th,’ Museum Curator and Director of Exhibitions Dr. Amy Ellison will offer a look at the creation of The Spirit of ’76: Reflecting on America’s 250th. The program will be held on Wednesday, September 16, from 5:30 – 7:00 pm, both in person at the Museum and via Zoom.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Search Engine Roundtable: Google: Verifying Your Request To Continue To Search Results. “In early August, Google was testing requiring searchers to sign in to verify they are humans to continue to see search results. Now, Google is testing a similar feature without requiring you to sign in, but instead, Google is asking you to click a ‘Continue’ button after a few seconds, after Google verifies your request.”

Mashable: TikTok makes a big play for NFL fans. “Days before the 2026 NFL season begins, TikTok and the NFL announced a new multiyear partnership that will bring more highlights, archival footage, player-focused videos, and other official content to the platform. The agreement will also introduce NFL hubs where fans can find scores and schedules, then follow links to tune into game broadcasts.”

USEFUL STUFF

New York Times: Get to Know Your Phone’s Built-In Emergency Kit. This link goes to a gift article. “Simple voice calls have long been useful for getting help in a crisis, but today’s smartphones can do so much more. Many can even automatically contact emergency services if you’re incapacitated. Your phone can give warnings for dangerous situations like storms, floods, wildfires and earthquakes. And if you’re stranded out of network range, many newer devices can connect to a satellite for requesting assistance. Here’s an overview.”

AROUND THE SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Ohio Capital Journal: As Ohio grapples with fake comments on clean energy, some want crackdown. “A troubling trend has shown up in some communities around the U.S.: Public officials are being inundated with seemingly fake public feedback that aims to block renewable energy and promote fossil fuels. In Ohio, one of the states grappling with this issue, regulators have done little to crack down on the problem, sparking concern among advocates for clean energy and good government that agencies will continue to get public comments from people who didn’t authorize them or simply don’t exist.”

The Guardian: Oasis recordings up for auction despite band’s objections. “An archive of more than 100 hours of Oasis recordings, including concerts, rehearsals and candid conversations between Noel and Liam Gallagher, is to be auctioned for up to £1.6m despite objections from the band. The collection was amassed by the band’s sound engineer Huw Richards, who worked with Oasis from the release of their 1994 debut album, Definitely Maybe, until 2001. It comprises 209 DAT tapes, 73 analogue cassettes and three MiniDiscs, and is being sold by Richards’s son, Owain.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

CNN: Romanian prosecutors indict Andrew Tate for trafficking minors, money laundering. “Romanian prosecutors officially indicted social media influencer Andrew Tate on Friday for trafficking minors, money laundering, sex with a minor and witness tampering and his brother Tristan for complicity, years after they began investigating them.”

Tubefilter: A rumored FTC complaint would accuse YouTube of misrepresenting its content moderation policies. “Do YouTube users have a clear understanding of the platform’s policies when they sign up? Or are the rules being applied differently from how they read? Those questions could be up for debate if a rumored lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) moves forward.”

Irish Times: X faces Irish investigation over concerns children not protected from pornography and violence. “The commission’s investigation, announced on Tuesday, is the first under its online safety code. Any social media platform found to be in violation of the code faces fines of up to the higher of 10 per cent of relevant annual turnover or €20 million. Under the regulator’s online safety code, X, which is owned by Elon Musk, is required to carry out age assurance to make sure children do not see videos depicting pornography or extreme/gross and gratuitous violence or acts of cruelty on the platform.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Reuters: Trump administration threatens to cut federal agencies’ support for Smithsonian. “President Donald Trump’s administration has threatened to cut federal agencies’ ‌support for the Smithsonian, marking its latest escalation against the institution.”

Drexel University: Preserving the Academy of Natural Sciences’ Legacy and Collections for the Future. “As part of this broader effort and following careful consideration, grounded in deep respect for the Academy’s extraordinary legacy, Academy and Drexel leadership have made the difficult decision to close the Academy’s museum as of September 30. While the museum will close, the Academy remains committed to public engagement and education, and work will continue to identify new and financially sustainable opportunities for the public display of elements from its collections and engagement with the natural sciences.”

OTHER THINGS I THINK ARE COOL

American Libraries: 2026 Library Design Showcase. “Welcome to American Libraries’ 2026 Library Design Showcase, our annual celebration of new and renovated libraries across the US and Canada. The word welcome appeared in many of this year’s submissions, reflecting a growing understanding that in anxious times, the library is a place that should feel good: safe, comfortable, well-lit, plugged in, and deeply connected to its surroundings.” Good evening, 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. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.

The Register: AI-assisted mushroom hunting is a recipe for a bad trip. “Armed with a dataset of Danish mushrooms and additional information about safe and deadly species in Poland and abroad, [Piotr Migdał] tested everything from ChatGPT to Qwen to see which gave the most reliable advice. It likely won’t surprise you to learn that none of them are worth trusting with your life.”

ANTI-AI SENTIMENT

Northeast Times: Silicon Valley Pours Millions Into Ads to Counter Rising Data Center Opposition . “An advocacy group backed by prominent AI investors is running a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign across three swing states, as Bloomberg reported, after polling found that nearly two-thirds of Americans now oppose new data centers in their communities. The group, Build American AI, is funded through a super PAC called Leading the Future. Its backers include venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, along with OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman.”

DATA CENTERS

Texas Tribune: Find data centers near you in Texas with our search tools. “You can see if you are living near an existing or planned data center by entering your address below. This list is not comprehensive, in part because some data centers aren’t being reported on and new ones are popping up rapidly. Because we rely on multiple data sources, our list may contain duplicates.”

INDY: In Durham County, Debate Around Data Centers Focuses on the Research Economy. “Durham County is one of the latest local governments in the Triangle to wrestle with the question of how to manage the proliferation of data centers, but unlike neighboring municipalities, Durham is home to one of the largest technology hubs in the country—Research Triangle Park (RTP)—which hosts nearly 400 companies that heavily rely on data processing.”

AI IN EDUCATION

Source NM: Lawmakers voice concerns over use of Amira AI in public schools. “New Mexico lawmakers recently voiced concerns over transparency and data safety with the use of AI in public schools as 18 local districts and charter schools opt out of the program. A bipartisan group of 35 state lawmakers sent a letter to Public Education Department Secretary Mariana Padilla last week raising concerns with the use of the AI program Amira ISIP in public schools to test and track K-2 students’ literacy skills and screen for early reading difficulties.”

AI IN GOVERNANCE

Gizmodo: Federal ‘Bureal’ of Investigation: Kash Patel Posts Embarrassing Slop Video About How Much the FBI Loves AI. “FBI Director Kash Patel is not known as the most competent guy around. And a video he posted to X on Thursday isn’t going to help that reputation.”

Birmingham Watch: Jones digs in on data center moratorium, presses Tuberville on financial ties. “Campaigning in Birmingham Tuesday morning, Doug Jones reiterated his commitment to press pause on data center development proposed across the state and attacked his opponent, Tommy Tuberville, for his financial ties to data center interests.”

AI IN WORK

Futurism: Journalist Accuses Ohio’s Main Newspaper of Slapping Her Name on an AI “Express Desk” Article Without Her Knowledge, While She Was on Honeymoon. “In an X post on September 7, Cleveland.com government reporter Kaitlin Durbin said that she’d been away on her honeymoon when her employer published the AI article under her name. The article — a local news story informing readers that the law director of Ohio’s Cuyahoga County was stepping down — had nothing to do with her reporting, Durbin said, and she ‘did not write or review a word of it’ before it was published.”

Hollywood Reporter: AI Is Bringing Broadcasters Back From the Dead — and Creating New Ones. “This summer, Telemundo sent its World Cup analysts flying through New York City, onto private beaches, and into the center of Dallas Stadium during AI-generated segments in the first major live broadcast partnership for AI startup HeyGen, with support from CAA. On other top telecasts, AI is called in to sharpen slo-mo shots, speed up graphic creation or even help direct viewers’ attention in real time.”

AROUND THE AI WORLD

Lifehacker: Here’s How AI Watermarks Work (and How to Properly Check for One). “Recently, Anthropic announced that its Claude models will soon begin marking its text output with invisible watermarks. At the same time, Google revealed that its own visible Gemini watermark on generated images will now be optional. These are just two contradictory examples of the wildly varied methods of watermarking AI output. So, let’s break down how AI watermarks work, and how you can detect them even when they’re ‘invisible.'”

Axios: Scoop: Anthropic breaks from major tech group over chips. “Anthropic is severing ties with the Information Technology Industry Council, an industry advocacy group, over legislation that would curb foreign access to U.S. chips, Axios has learned.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Gizmodo: While AI Industry Frets Over Safeguards, One Company Is Building a Model That ‘Doesn’t Say No’. “Abliteration, a startup founded last year and based in Palo Alto, is loud and proud in its ambition to build what it describes on its website as AI that ‘doesn’t say no.’ In other words, its models are intentionally trained to handle the sorts of questionable tasks that other AI systems on the market would decline.”

Arkansas Advocate: Judge denies effort to block Arkansas outlets from publishing details about data center agreement. “A federal judge rejected an effort Wednesday to block two Arkansas news outlets from publishing details about an agreement regarding a West Memphis data center, in a case that alarmed free speech groups who say restricting publication would have undermined the First Amendment.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

University of Washington: Video: Curiosity, frustration and antipathy: How kids play with AI toys. “The kids initially were curious, asking introductory questions, such as “What is your name?” and exploring how the toys work. Do they react when a kid tickles their toes? They do not, which proved a disappointment. Some features delighted the kids, like when a toy said its favorite number was seven. But the toys frequently couldn’t respond well to more complex questions. It ‘didn’t listen to me like 26 million times,’ one participant said. So they turned to antagonizing the toys, calling them ‘ugly’ and ‘evil’ and joking about throwing them in the ocean.”

PsyPost: Heavy ChatGPT use linked to intellectual laziness and social isolation. “A recent small study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology suggests that leaning heavily on ChatGPT can reduce critical thinking, diminish memory, and lead to social isolation. However, users who engage with the software intentionally can also harness it to boost their creativity and reasoning skills.” Good evening, 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. Don’t have any money but still want to support? I know how that feels. Share this newsletter or tell a friend about it. I live at Calishat. See my other nonsense at SearchTweaks, RSS Gizmos, Local Search America, WikiTwister, and MiniGladys.