Night is falling, and it's cold.
Alone in the park.
So If you love someone set them free ...
Coffee may be your mind-sharpening tool of choice, but some of Silicon Valley's brightest brains are relying on something substantially stronger for their morning pick-me-up.
Those gals and guys are again going beyond our blogging expectations ... Excelling at exceeding ...
HTTPS support coming to Blogspot posted by Google Blogs at Blogger Buzz
Google Official Blog: “It takes years of practice to perfect the pirouettes. Months of rehearsal to get the crescendos just right. Multiple stories of lights, rigging and machinery to set the scene. At the world’s leading performing arts venues —like Carnegie Hall, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Bolshoi Theatre—artists, costume designers, musicians, stage crews and many more all come together to create the perfect moment on stage. In a new virtual exhibition from the Google Cultural Institute and more than 60 performing arts organizations. Starting in partnership with a handful of renowned museums, we’ve since joined forces with 900+ institutions to include historic archives, street art, and 200 wonders of the world. Now you can also visit dozens of the world’s stages together in one place—across mobile, tablet and desktop at g.co/performingarts and on the Google Cultural Institute website.”
It sounds like something from a spy movie, but instead of James Bond, it’s coming from the Australian Taxation Office. Voiceprint technology is being rolled out by the tax office as a secure way to speed up its online services. Voiceprints remove the need for passwords and codes, and the ATO says they contain more than 120 characteristics that you carry wherever you go. This month the ATO introduced voice authentication on its app for smart phones and tablets, and Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan said the ATO already had 1.3 million voiceprints provided voluntarily by taxpayers over the phone. “It’s making it easier,” he said. “It’s a very high-value biometric authentication.” The ATO goes hi-tech to help taxpayers and catch tax cheats
Robert Wood, Sean Connery’s Wife Could Face Prison In ‘Operation Goldfinger’ Tax Case. The real James Bond would never let this happen...
Speaking of creativity, note this English blog as it is a powerhouse of virtual trends and stories out there and authoring The Joy of Tax ... With 21000 readers a day Professor Richard Murphy is a force to be reckoned with (like Churchill he gets away with sentences finishing/ending with prepositions (sic) ... Richard's observations do make waves in many places - The last thing HMRC needs to be is-a digital powerhouse
The national Dutch Ombudsman is starting a major inquiry into the tax office’s plans to stop communicating with people by traditional mail. Ombudsman to look into tax office digitalisation drive
Coming from the old kommunist Czechoslovakia tends to make me rather worried when I come across stories along these lines ... Mittleuropeans dislike all political system were extremists and totalitarians rule. That is why I am partial to characters who run google or operate little blogs that can make a difference like Richard's entries. Tony Burton of the Mandarin fame is an antipodean pundit to peruse and ponder upon...
My Mate Ken Duncan was nearly arrested for taking photos at Barangaroo in Sydney. He was there taking some photos for my friends at Gosford Quarries as they did all the sandstone for this area. They are a great Australian company and the owners are like family to me so he thought he would help them with some happy snaps of their great work.
A photo taken by world-famous photographer Ken Duncan during the visit to Barangaroo Photo: Ken Duncan
"So on entering this great new park area with my camera and
starting to take some images I was then accosted by two rangers and
informed that I was not allowed to take photos without paying a fee and
having a permit." Poor Ken Duncan - Big Brother pub without the beer with Duncan
Google has become a champion of evidence-based management,
utilising internal data through its People Analytics department (its version of
HR) and built close relationships with academics. In an impressive move, Google
is now paying it forward and trying to help other organisations through its new
site re:Work, which aims to “make work better” by sharing management best
practice. Google
Spills Its Work Secrets and Gives Lessons in Boosting Creativity - A christmas pressie from google guys and gals
Google Official Blog: “It takes years of practice to perfect the pirouettes. Months of rehearsal to get the crescendos just right. Multiple stories of lights, rigging and machinery to set the scene. At the world’s leading performing arts venues —like Carnegie Hall, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Bolshoi Theatre—artists, costume designers, musicians, stage crews and many more all come together to create the perfect moment on stage. In a new virtual exhibition from the Google Cultural Institute and more than 60 performing arts organizations. Starting in partnership with a handful of renowned museums, we’ve since joined forces with 900+ institutions to include historic archives, street art, and 200 wonders of the world. Now you can also visit dozens of the world’s stages together in one place—across mobile, tablet and desktop at g.co/performingarts and on the Google Cultural Institute website.”
It sounds like something from a spy movie, but instead of James Bond, it’s coming from the Australian Taxation Office. Voiceprint technology is being rolled out by the tax office as a secure way to speed up its online services. Voiceprints remove the need for passwords and codes, and the ATO says they contain more than 120 characteristics that you carry wherever you go. This month the ATO introduced voice authentication on its app for smart phones and tablets, and Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan said the ATO already had 1.3 million voiceprints provided voluntarily by taxpayers over the phone. “It’s making it easier,” he said. “It’s a very high-value biometric authentication.” The ATO goes hi-tech to help taxpayers and catch tax cheats
Robert Wood, Sean Connery’s Wife Could Face Prison In ‘Operation Goldfinger’ Tax Case. The real James Bond would never let this happen...
Speaking of creativity, note this English blog as it is a powerhouse of virtual trends and stories out there and authoring The Joy of Tax ... With 21000 readers a day Professor Richard Murphy is a force to be reckoned with (like Churchill he gets away with sentences finishing/ending with prepositions (sic) ... Richard's observations do make waves in many places - The last thing HMRC needs to be is-a digital powerhouse
The national Dutch Ombudsman is starting a major inquiry into the tax office’s plans to stop communicating with people by traditional mail. Ombudsman to look into tax office digitalisation drive
Coming from the old kommunist Czechoslovakia tends to make me rather worried when I come across stories along these lines ... Mittleuropeans dislike all political system were extremists and totalitarians rule. That is why I am partial to characters who run google or operate little blogs that can make a difference like Richard's entries. Tony Burton of the Mandarin fame is an antipodean pundit to peruse and ponder upon...
"Is the ABC report of a major internet attack on the Bureau of Meteorology, the wake call Australian governments — state and federal — have needed to take the threat of cyber security seriously? Australian government agencies have been largely immune from some of the major hacks that have recently so embarrassed and compromised major public and private overseas organisations — and their users — such as the US Office of Personnel Management, the dating site Ashley Madison, the US bank JP Morgan and Sony BOM cyber security wake call Australia governments needed
My Mate Ken Duncan was nearly arrested for taking photos at Barangaroo in Sydney. He was there taking some photos for my friends at Gosford Quarries as they did all the sandstone for this area. They are a great Australian company and the owners are like family to me so he thought he would help them with some happy snaps of their great work.
A photo taken by world-famous photographer Ken Duncan during the visit to Barangaroo Photo: Ken Duncan
Almost at once after the Paris attacks, speculation began to circulate that the murderers had used encrypted communications to plan their operation and that legislation giving government backdoor tools to break encryption was therefore needed more urgently than ever. Later reports have suggested, however, that the plotters employed a combination of plain vanilla unencrypted messaging with in-person communication. [Karl Bode/TechDirt, The Verge, Vice “Motherboard” (“How the Baseless ‘Terrorists Communicating Over Playstation 4’ Rumor Got Started”)] Related: Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg View. A contrary view: Alex Spence and Duncan Gardham, Politico Europe.
Raunchy emails in Kathleen Kane saga: “Pennsylvania’s attorney general seems to have decided that if she has to go, she’s going to take others down with her.” [AP/Yahoo]
“That’s not harassing, stalking, libeling or cyber bullying. That’s called reporting.” Florida Man offers to help with online reputation management but digs himself and client in further [Tim Cushing, TechDirt, background]
Raunchy emails in Kathleen Kane saga: “Pennsylvania’s attorney general seems to have decided that if she has to go, she’s going to take others down with her.” [AP/Yahoo]
“That’s not harassing, stalking, libeling or cyber bullying. That’s called reporting.” Florida Man offers to help with online reputation management but digs himself and client in further [Tim Cushing, TechDirt, background]
Social media the ultimate branding tool
“The FBI recently began open beta testing of eFOIA, a system that puts Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests into a medium more familiar to an ever-increasing segment of the population. “The eFOIA system,” says David Hardy, chief of the FBI’s Record/Information Dissemination Section, “is for a new generation that’s not paper-based.” Hardy also notes that the new process should increase FBI efficiency and decrease administrative costs. The eFOIA system continues in an open beta format to optimize the process for requesters. The Bureau encourages requesters to try eFOIA and to e-mail foipaquestions@ic.fbi.gov with any questions or difficulties encountered while using it. In several months, the FBI plans to move eFOIA into full production mode.”
Terror Related Raids in Merrylands
Global Terrorism Index 2015 – “Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, the GTI is
based on data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) which is collected and
collated by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism. The GTD is considered to be the most comprehensive dataset on
terrorist activity globally and has codified over 140,000 terrorist
incidents…Terrorist activity increased by 80 per cent in 2014 to its highest
recorded level..”
“The FBI recently began open beta testing of eFOIA, a system that puts Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests into a medium more familiar to an ever-increasing segment of the population. “The eFOIA system,” says David Hardy, chief of the FBI’s Record/Information Dissemination Section, “is for a new generation that’s not paper-based.” Hardy also notes that the new process should increase FBI efficiency and decrease administrative costs. The eFOIA system continues in an open beta format to optimize the process for requesters. The Bureau encourages requesters to try eFOIA and to e-mail foipaquestions@ic.fbi.gov with any questions or difficulties encountered while using it. In several months, the FBI plans to move eFOIA into full production mode.”
Terror Related Raids in Merrylands