The historian, essentially, wants more documents than he can really use; the dramatist only wants more liberties than he can really take. -Henry James, preface to The Aspern Papers
Late love has this in common with first love, it is again involuntary. -Sybille Bedford, A Legacy
When people hear that one is married to a Sikh girl, they often assume it’s a glamorous affair: parties, champagne, stories of the warrior’s early days in Punjub and Kenya, and famous hunters as far as the eye can see. This Friday XI-IV-MMXII, they were right as we peppered the landscape of the Government House and lunched at the Parliament House … Preserving blogs for posterity
The stripping naked of a human soul
The stripping naked of a human soul, foamed one advertisement. ''Revelations of unusual love episodes of her own life, written and enacted by herself.'')
• Airing idiosyncratic opinion; Chatter in people’s social networks about political issues prompts a share of disagreements among friends and the sites yield surprising revelations about people’s views; 18% of users have shunned “friends” who have different ideas and 16% have found friends whose beliefs match their own." Social networking sites and politics [Risk-taking by banks played a critical role in the global crisis and Eurozone crisis. This column introduces a new eReport that focuses on four aspects of excessive risk-taking by banks, highlighting the causes and the curesA new eReport: Excessive risk taking by banks ; Solar cell turns windows into generators ; Four times in the past century, a large chunk of the industrial world has fallen into deep and long depressions characterized by persistent high unemployment: the United States in the 1930’s, industrialized Western Europe in the 1930’s, Western Europe again in the 1980’s, and Japan in the 1990’s. Two of these downturns – Western Europe in the 1980’s and Japan in the 1990’s – cast a long and dark shadow on future economic performance. The Shadow of Depression ]''If Mary was blogging now, she'd be famous,'' Novakovic says. ''She was a lonely and singular woman. I've never encountered a character quite like her.'' ''To me the show is about the human condition surrounding loneliness and desperation - all the lengths that a human heart and mind go to in striving for a life beyond itself. ''Her subject was herself. She never wrote about other things. Her vanity is shameless yet it's so filled with irony and self-knowledge. It's totally bizarre.'' WERE it not for the fact she was born in 1881, Mary MacLane might strike you as a very 21st-century sort of girl. The precocious writer who published her diaries and became a media sensation at 19 (when media was ticker tape and telegraph) was a vocal feminist, openly bisexual and fearless when it came to airing idiosyncratic opinion
• · Companies often develop crisp stories about how they have nurtured a “culture of innovation.” When failure isn’t free ; Australian Government agencies achieving the highest number of click-throughs of all sectors for email marketing campaigns Browsing the latest Email Market Metrics Australia report from Vision6 definitely has good news for government agencies. Community engagement/Interactions with Government ; Ever since reading Clayton Christensen’s book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” and giving my first big talk on the topic in 1999 at a publisher’s dinner in Georgetown, I’ve been watching how the term “disruption” morphs and wanders, its rhetorical power undeniable but its meaning often unclear. The word is thrown about with abandon, many times without its user acknowledging some of the subtleties. You may hear “disruption” used as one might use “revolutionize” in the broadest sense, or used as a synonym for “irrelevant” or “defeated.” The Innovator’s Dilemma
• · · We judge the value of science by the ignorance it defines. Science is always wrong, George Bernard Shaw famously proclaimed in a toast to Albert Einstein. It never solves a problem without creating 10 more. ; Imagine a world with chocolate prices so high that not everyone could afford to indulge except for Imrich The last few weeks have seen articles on chocolate included in this newsletter. First there was the ‘chocolate printer’ then there was the study into chocolate and its impact on BMI. As we are on the eve of Easter, I have included some further chocolate news but for chocoholics out there it is perhaps all not what you would like to hear Imagine Halloween and Valentine’s Day without chocolate. Imagine a world with chocolate prices so high that not everyone could afford to indulge. Not a bright future. Though the world’s demand for chocolate almost exceeds the ability of worn-out plants to produce it, experts say it’s not time to panic yet. But something needs to be doneCould the appetite for chocolate exceed the world’s supply?
• · · · The Swiss Federal Council has announced the extradition of Tomas Pitr to the Czech Republic to serve the rest of his sentence for "white-collar and tax offences" under the principle of dual criminality; Pitr was arrested on July 27, 2010, in St. Moritz. Switzerland Extradites Tax Criminal to Czech Republic; The Economist came out today with two great investigative articles on shell corporations The two largest providers offshore may each have 10% of the global market, estimates Jason Sharman, an Australian professor who studies the industry. Onshore markets are more concentrated. Two firms handle two-thirds of all Delaware companies: CT Corporation (part of Wolters Kluwer of the Netherlands) and CSC—though both companies’ websites give little hint of this, focusing on their less controversial compliance services. Jason Sharman
• · · · · Some of the most widely used apps on Facebook—the games, quizzes and sharing services that define the social-networking site and give it such appeal—are gathering volumes of personal information. A Wall Street Journal examination of 100 of the most popular Facebook apps found that some seek the email addresses, current location and sexual preference, among other details, not only of app users but also of their Facebook friends. Selling You on Facebook; Firefox enables HTTPS safe searching as default setting Fire fox
• · · · · · The Global Information Technology Report 2012 - Living in a Hyperconnected World ; Regardless of how weak or sophisticated their political financing regulations are, countries around the world are equally failing to effectively regulate the a new report finds flow of money into politics