(Un)read in the?ledger

Weekly reading list: Monday 27 May–Sunday 2 June?2024

Read

What I've been reading the week:

'Denying history is simply lying': how the University of Melbourne honoured racists, thieves and body snatchers

New book is truthful about University of Melbourne's problematic past for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

A shocking new book published by Melbourne University Press seeks to "tell a greater truth about the [University of Melbourne] and its dealings with Aboriginal people." The first of two truth-telling volumes, Dhoombak Goobgoowana (translated as 'truth-telling' in the Woi Wurrung language) reveals a string of University staff, alumni and conspirators who were Nazi apologists, eugenicists, grave robbers and who participated in massacres of Aboriginal people and others who withheld information about Aboriginal peoples' remains held by the University.

Lorena Allam – Tuesday 28 May 2024

The Guardian

Internet Archive and the Wayback Machine under DDoS cyber-attack

Denial-of-service attacks against cultural heritage organisations seem to be on the rise.

Internet Archive is the latest cultural heritage to be hit by a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack, While the cyberattack has intermittently impacted access to Internet Archive services it is unclear what the motivation is. It is another instance of GLAM organisations hit by similar attacks.

Chris Freeland – Tuesday 28 May 2024

Internet Archive

Spunk Records goes out on a high: 'Like a mixtape from your coolest friend'

Spunk Records closes; founder says "It's literally impossible now for a record label to exist.

"The Australian music scene has taken another hit with indie label Spunk Records calling it after 25 years. The label was farewelled with a performance at the Sydney Opera House as part of Vivid. The article feels a little like you are reading a love letter that's not addressed to you, but the most telling thing in it for me is label founder Aaron Curnow's comment that "It's literally impossible now for a record label to exist." Music festivals are cancelling and closing all over the country and venues are struggling amidst a post-COVID cost of living crisis, while streaming pulls in more listeners, and by extension replaces tastemakers like niche labels with algorithmic recommendations.

Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen – Wednesday 29 May 2024

The Guardian

Journalists "deeply troubled" by OpenAI's content deals with Vox, The Atlantic

More media groups ink training data deals with OpenAI exposing the irony of copyright in journalist employee–employer relationships.

OpenAI continues to ink deals with holders of significant quantities of content, this time entering into agreements with The Atlantic and Vox (who publish The Verge, New York magazine and POPSUGAR and other mastheads). The deals reportedly allow OpenAI to utilise those publishers' archival and recent reportage in exchange for an undisclosed payment and the use of OpenAI's technology "to power new journalism products." Unsurprisingly the unions for each publishing group have expressed alarm and concern about the deal, citing a lack of transparency and the potential for the displacement of their jobs. There's a certain horrible irony in the fact that the way copyright in employee–employer relationships works means that the news content created by employees of media organisations may be used as training data for AI systems that media organisations may use to replace (or at least reduce the numbers of) journalists.

Benj Edwards and Ashley Belanger?-?Saturday 1 May 2024

Ars Technica

Smartphones Can Now Last 7 Years. Here’s How to Keep Them Working.

Smartphone manufacturers seem to be shifting to a seven year software update commitment.

Maybe the right to repair movement is coming into its own as more smartphone manufacturers shift to commitments to provide smartphone products with longer periods of software updates. Google recently committed to seven years of software updates for the Pixel 8A. This follows Samsung making a similar commitment for the Galaxy S24 and Google making a seven years of updates commitment last year when the Pixel 8 was released. This article also provides a range of other tips for how to make a smartphone last seven years.

Brian X. Chen – Wednesday 15 May 2024

The New York Times

Of course, there’s lots of other stuff I have been reading that doesn’t make it into the weekly round up. If the long list is too much, I also group links into collections for AI, Arts & culture, Cities & built environment, Indigenous Knowledges, Copyright, Cultural heritage, Education, Entertainment & content, Journalism & news, Law, Marketing communications, Other IP, Science and Technology. If you have a Google Account you can even share links with me.