Tag Archives: Online

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Food & Drink, Libraries, Web & Technology

A Database of 5,000 Historical Cookbooks–Covering 1,000 Years of Food History–Is Now Online | Open Culture

in Food & Drink | September 3rd, 2020

Screenshot from article…

As you know if you’re a reader of this site, there are vast, interactive (and free!) scholarly databases online collecting just about every kind of artifact, from Bibles to bird calls, and yes, there are a significant number of cookbooks online, too.

But proper searchable, historical databases of cookbooks seem to have appeared only lately. To my mind, these might have been some of the first things to become available. How important is eating, after all, to virtually every part of our lives? The fact is, however, that scholars of food have had to invent the discipline largely from scratch.

“Western scholars had a bias against studying sensual experience,” writes Reina Gattuso at Atlas Obscura, “the relic of an Enlightenment-era hierarchy that considered taste, touch, and flavor taboo topics for sober academic inquiry. ‘It’s the baser sense,’ says Cathy Kaufman, a professor of food studies at the New School.” Kaufman sits on the board of The Sifter, a new massive, multilingual online database of historical recipe books. Another board member, sculptor Joe Wheaton, puts things more directly: “Food history has been a bit of an embarrassment to a lot of academics, because it involves women in the kitchen.”

Source: A Database of 5,000 Historical Cookbooks–Covering 1,000 Years of Food History–Is Now Online | Open Culture

Current Affairs, Love & Relationships, Pleasures, Politics, Science & Health, Web & Technology

The High Cost of Living Your Life Online | WIRED

Constantly posting content on social media can erode your privacy—and sense of self.

By Thor Benson Security, Oct 3, 2022 7:00 AM

Photograph: Luka Milanovic/Getty Images

To be online is to be constantly exposed. While it may seem normal, it’s a level of exposure we’ve never dealt with before as human beings. We’re posting on Twitter, and people we’ve never met are responding with their thoughts and criticisms. People are looking at your latest Instagram selfie. They’re literally swiping on your face. Messages are piling up. It can sometimes feel like the whole world has its eyes on you.

Being observed by so many people appears to have significant psychological effects. There are, of course, good things about this ability to connect with others. It was crucial during the height of the pandemic when we couldn’t be close to our loved ones, for example. However, experts say there are also numerous downsides, and these may be more complex and persistent than we realize.

Studies have found that high levels of social media use are connected with an increased risk of symptoms of anxiety and depression. There appears to be substantial evidence connecting people’s mental health and their online habits. Furthermore, many psychologists believe people may be dealing with psychological effects that are pervasive but not always obvious.

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/privacy-psychology-social-media/

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Memories & History, Web & Technology

Chronicling America Reaches 50 States

New Hampshire Joins the National Digital Newspaper Program, Expanding Online Access to America’s Historic Newspapers

By Library of Congress, Release Date: 13 Sep 2022

From article…

Chronicling America, the searchable online database of historic American newspapers, will soon include digitized newspapers from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and housed and maintained online at the Library of Congress, Chronicling America offers free online access to 19.9 million pages of newspapers published in the United States between 1777 and 1963.

NEH recently awarded its first grant award to a National Digital Newspaper Program partner for the state of New Hampshire, ensuring access to significant newspapers from the entire United States. Dartmouth College will serve as the New Hampshire state hub, partnering with the New Hampshire State Library, the New Hampshire Historical Society, and the University of New Hampshire Library to identify historical newspapers that reflect the state’s political, economic, and cultural history for inclusion in Chronicling America.

Among the first newspapers to be digitized and added to the online repository are the New Hampshire Gazette, the first newspaper known to be printed by an enslaved person; The Dartmouth, founded in 1799 as the Dartmouth Gazette, the nation’s oldest school newspaper; and Among the Clouds, a newspaper printed on top of Mount Washington between 1889 and 1917.

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item...

Source: https://newsroom.loc.gov/news/chronicling-america-reaches-50-states/s/adfebd2e-eb78-4688-ba71-402f9404c1eb

Current Affairs, Politics, Science & Health, Web & Technology

Why Social Media Makes People Unhappy–And Simple Ways To Fix It | Scientific American

Research suggests platform designs make us lose track of time spent on them and can heighten conflicts, and then we feel upset with ourselves

By Daisy Yuhas, June 20, 2022

Credit: Oscar Wong/Getty Images

Disrupted sleep, lower life satisfaction and poor self-esteem are just a few of the negative mental health consequences that research has linked to social media.

Somehow the same platforms that can help people feel more connected and knowledgeable also contribute to loneliness and disinformation.

What succeeds and fails, computer scientists argue, is a function of how these platforms are designed.

Amanda Baughan, a graduate student specializing in human-computer interaction, a subfield of computer science, at the University of Washington, believes that interdisciplinary research could inform better social platforms and apps. At the 2022 Association for Computing Machinery Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in May, she presented findings from a recent project that explored how social media triggers what psychologists call “dissociation,” or a state of reduced self-reflection and narrowed attention.

Baughan spoke with Mind Matters editor Daisy Yuhas to explain how and why apps need to change to give the people who use them greater power.

Source: Why Social Media Makes People Unhappy–And Simple Ways To Fix It – Scientific American

Current Affairs, Web & Technology

What ‘Cunningham’s Law’ Really Tells Us About How We Interact Online | lifehacker

By Stephen Johnson, 4/01/22 9:00AM

Illustration: “Duty Calls”/xkcd – Creative Commons (Fair Use)

I’m sure you’re familiar with the XKCD comic “Duty Calls” in which an internet user is passionately typing away late into the night because “someone is wrong on the internet!”

The comic illustrates Cunningham’s Law, the tongue-in-cheek axiom that states “the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question, it’s to post the wrong answer.”

The principle behind Cunningham’s Law isn’t new—there’s even a French saying that translates to “preach the falsehood to know the truth”—but even though it’s well-established, Cunningham’s Law is hardly an effective way to gather information online—and actually tells us more about how the internet seems to invite us to disagree about everything.

Source: What ‘Cunningham’s Law’ Really Tells Us About How We Interact Online

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Libraries, Memories & History

Now Online! Presidential Papers – Love and Heartbreak, War and Politics | Library of Congress Blog

June 1, 2021 by Wendi Maloney

This story first appeared in the Library of Congress Magazine.

Above image: Woodrow Wilson, a man in love. Prints and Photographs Division. 

When President Woodrow Wilson’s name comes up, romance isn’t typically the first thing that comes to mind.

Yet, late on May 7, 1915, the recently widowed president penned these words to Edith Bolling Galt, days after confessing his love for her: “I know you can give me more, if you will but think only of your own heart and me, and shut the circumstances of the world out.”

That day, the circumstances of the world were weighing heavily on Wilson’s mind. Earlier, a German U-boat had torpedoed the British-owned luxury liner RMS Lusitania, killing 1,195 people, including 128 Americans. Wilson spent his afternoon and evening receiving updates about the horrific attack that threatened U.S. neutrality in a war that had already engulfed Europe and would eventually draw in the United States.

Researchers using Wilson’s papers at the Library may be surprised to encounter the private — and passionate — Wilson behind the formal and somewhat aloof public figure they recall from history books or World War I-era film footage.

“I must do everything I can for your happiness and mine,” Wilson continued. “I am pleading for my life.”

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item...

Source: https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2021/06/now-online-presidential-papers-love-and-heartbreak-war-and-politics/?loclr=ealocb