OLDaily

Microsoft Academic Knowledge Graph
Michael Färber, 2019/08/28

I'm not sure exactly what I would do with this, nor how complete it is, but it is definitely worth noting: "a large RDF data set with over eight billion triples with information about scientific publications and related entities, such as authors, institutions, journals, and fields of study. The data set is based on the Microsoft Academic Graph and licensed under the Open Data Attributions license." It could be used for such things as this data-driven history of the philosophy of science.

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Coursera Introduces Hands-On Learning with Coursera Labs
Coursera, 2019/08/28

Coursera hasn't actually 'introduced' anything, it has acquited a company that did. But it's still an important development: "Coursera Labs allows learners to seamlessly work on projects and assignments in a browser without any environment setup or software downloads — simply click a button to instantly work on programming assignments using today’s most in-demand tools like Jupyter Notebook, RStudio, VS Code, cloud software consoles, and almost any native desktop application." This is made possible with virtualization and cloud-based containers.

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Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine
BBC News, 2019/08/28

It turns out that in Europe, you can't just set up video surveillance in schools. "The Swedish Data Protection Authority (DPA) fined the Skelleftea municipality 200,000 Swedish Krona (£16,800, $20,700) for flouting a privacy law. The trial involved tracking 22 students over three weeks and detecting when each pupil entered a classroom."

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Decentralising scientific publishing: can the blockchain improve science communication?
Flávio Codeço Coelho, SciELO, 2019/08/28

The answer to the question in the title, according to this paper, is 'yes'. "The implementation of a decentralised publication system as described here, even with the limitations of its current design, can serve as the cornerstone for a revolution in the way scientific communication is currently done. New decentralised processes and communities can build on these foundations and expand into areas that are traditionally closely associated with science: higher education platforms, science dissemination initiatives, and others." I happen to agree, but there are many forces working against it.

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A Tiny Sea Ecosystem in a Jar
Jason Kottke, 2019/08/28

One of the highlights of my high school career was the 'closed ecosystem project' wherein we took a jar full of creek water and plant life from the bottom, sealed it, and watched what happened. I kept careful track of it for months while everyone else gave up after a few days, so I got 20/10 for my report. This project is similar. "Last year, this YouTuber put some seawater, sand, and a few small plants in a large jar and sealed it up and over the course of the next year, a number of surprising things occurred in this closed ecosystem."

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