Eszter's List - Jan 14, 2022

Algorithms - voice assistants

Some of my recent research focuses on people's algorithm skills. One domain of this concerns people's awareness and understanding of voice assistants, known to most as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple Siri, or Microsoft Cortana. In my research group, we have done some work on how people understand these devices, mostly led by PhD student Jonathan Gruber. https://jonathangruber.tumblr.com

Here are some related links.

A no-fee open-access journal article.

Here we suggest methods to study the rather hard-to-pin-down concept of algorithm skills. This may be behind a paywall. You can grab a copy here: bit.ly/wuppubs or email me and I'll send you one.

Already with search engines we are very much in others' hands for what we find. With voice assistants, we don't even get to choose from the top x results.

Should "Latinx" be a thing?

Do Latino groups use/care for/embrace "Latinx"?

Calling out an annoying media obsession

Some excellent points in this piece. Next needed step: it should be okay for women not to want to have children even if it has nothing to do with their career ambitions.

Covid

There is so much out there about Covid that I don't expect to post about it much, but I did find this especially helpful in thinking through what is safe even if you are vaccinated/boosted.

Your questions about masks answered, see especially the end about whether they are reusable.

If you are old enough and lived in the US at the time, you should appreciate this tweet:

https://twitter.com/loather/status/1479902582151675907

Health

Some easy exercises you can do in the office.

This site sells books and also posters/cards for the office.

A film worth watching

I got a chance to watch this documentary about Sweden's role in rescuing Jews during the Holocaust, it is very informative. Denmark comes out especially impressive in all this. (Ideally what they did would be the default, but clearly it is not.) The site lists upcoming screenings worldwide. (I watched it online through the JCC Chicago Film Festival.)

Art exploration

Untitled (boats) by Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, 1913

New to me is Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, a Portuguese artist active in the early 20th century. I could not find a ton of information about him online, but the little I did had me intrigued. I ordered a book (by Pedro Lapa, in French) that ended up being print-on-demand. I'm very happy with the quality and that such an option exists. I wasn't sure if it would have lots of pictures, fortunately it does. I'm super intrigued by this artwork and now am inspired to visit Portugal so I can see his paintings in person.

https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/amadeo-de-souza-cardoso/m08hnx9?hl=en

https://www.amadeosouza-cardoso.pt/en/collections/amadeo-de-souza-cardoso

For fun

I've been enjoying this daily word puzzle for a couple of weeks now.

Or if you want to take it to a whole new level:

"An adversarial version of Wordle"

Read details about how Absurdle works here:

https://qntm.org/wordle

You an also choose different word lengths here.

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