Digital Gems

Words like "ok," "sure" or "yup" can be interpreted as angry door-slamming when communicated through written text without the help of non-verbal cues like vocal utterances (e.g., sighs, screams, and laughs) that reduce ambiguity.

CPR News again traversed Colorado to tell the stories of the people who live here, and to cover the news as it happened.

Social media posts containing expletives has increased 27% on Twitter and 41% on Facebook between 2019 and 2021. Another profanity-filtering service run by Inversoft found that the volume of filtered words has tripled in the past 18 months on the forums and message boards.

Federal officials will invest $282 million in funding to ensure a smooth transition to the three-digit suicide hotline 988, with $177 million going toward expanding operations and telephone infrastructure and the other $109 million will increase staff at call centers. Since 2005, the line has received over 20 million calls, 2.4 million last year alone.

Americans widely distrust algorithms used across different industries. Both liberals and conservatives overwhelmingly agree that there should be public or government oversight of the use of algorithms (71%).

Christie's, Sotheby's, and Phillips collectively earned a record $15B in sales this year. Between a third to one half of the buyers were new. A third of Christie's buyers were millennials.

Almost $100B out of $3.5T of pandemic relief funds have been stolen since early 2020. More than $2.3B in stolen funds have been recovered so far, resulting in the arrest of more than 100 suspects.

Following up on a newsletter from two weeks ago, the US Census Bureau reported that the US population increased by just 392,665 people (about the population of Cleveland, OH), or 0.1%, from July 2020 to July 2021, bringing the total population to 331.8M people. This the first time that the population grew by less than 1 million people since 1937.

12/22/21 was the 22nd and final palindromic date of the year. The next year with 22 palindromic dates won't occur until 2111. The date 1/20/21 was the first Inauguration Day with a palindromic date in American history. The next one will come in 1,000 years, on 1/20/3021.

A survey by the Washington Post-Schar School found that 72% of internet users do not trust Facebook to responsibly handle their personal information and data on their internet activity and 64% said that the government should do more to rein in big tech companies.

Glaciers across the region are melting at an extraordinary rate, with new research showing that the vast ice sheets there shrank 10 times faster in the past 40 years than during the previous seven centuries.

Merriam-Webster investigated the curious origins of the word "asshat," which emerged in the late 1990s.

The ongoing debate over transgender rights in rural America frames transness as a nascent movement, ignoring a long undercurrent of transgender history that is all but forgotten.

From March 2020 to March 2021, the number of Latinas in the workforce dropped by 2.74%, the biggest drop of any demographic group.

Working women were twice as likely as men to report feeling severe burnout over the past year, regardless of whether or not they had children. Women were also underrepresented across the corporate ladder and routinely experienced microaggressions, particularly women of color.

Learn about the history of analogue and digital computing, from how this technology helped us predict the tides and navigate the ocean to planning strategic attacks during WWII.

Lack of access and infrastructure, stigma and isolation intensify a mental health crisis in agricultural communities.

Similarities and differences in languages related to color are due to variations in communicative need across cultures.

After 50+ years, a trio of codebreakers solves the puzzle and earns a nod from the FBI.

Omicron is now the most common variant among new Covid cases in the U.S., accounting for nearly three-quarters of new infections.

Across 115 disciplines that publish to the PubMed or arXiv paper repositories, 87 had fewer than 45% women authors in 2016.

Innovators' personal experience and social networks may affect their familiarity with customer needs, and in turn the types of products they bring to market. For example, startups with a female founder are also more likely to sell products with a disproportionately female consumer base.

Patents where the majority of the inventors are men are more likely to patent male-focused patents and patents where the majority of the inventors are women are more likely to patent female-focused patents.

1 in 6 parents report high stress levels during the holidays. Twice as many mothers than fathers report high levels of holiday stress. 1 in 5 parents say their stress level negatively affects their child’s enjoyment of the holidays. 1 in 3 parents are relieved when their child goes back to school after the holiday break.

A study by UpWork estimated that 14 million to 23 million Americans may relate due to the rise of remote work, amounting to 9% to 13% of the workforce. The vast majority are moving to the South and West, consistent with migration trends that were established before the pandemic (🔒The Economist).

The Netherlands is requiring all nonessential businesses to close until at least January 14 to reduce transmission of omicron.

Replacing business conferences with virtual meetings and virtual conventions would cut carbon emissions by an estimated 94% and energy use by 90%.

There will be a lot less money sloshing around China’s tech startups next year—at just the time when they’re going to need it most. VC firms that invest U.S. dollars in Chinese tech startups have raised far less money this year than in the past. Such firms have raised $4.2 billion this year so ...

The annual cost of childcare has risen as much as 41% since the beginning of the pandemic, increasing from an average of $9,977 to $14,117.

Algorithms are surfacing content that combines Christian ideas like prosperity gospel with New Age and non-Western spirituality — along with some conspiracy theories.