Sunday, April 17, 2016

Tweety’th my name but I don’t know my age

Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again...

~ On the Road a Jack Kerouac novel

The only way to achieve true joy and fulfilment is by becoming a being of sharing. Our short destiny on earth is to experience joy, not suffering, if we know how to connect with those who deserve to be trusted ...

This week nights were filled with reading Lots of short stories a book on Australian plants and Niki Sava's story Road to Ruin  as she is invading the Glebe Bookshop on Tuesday ... There is a banquet of link sharing as colourful bloggers burnt midnight oil and Malchkeon created romantic atmosphere over powerful story from Rome circa 1980s and 1990s. We recommend a brilliant scriptwriting of The 2 chapters of 22 series also includes an episode on Velvet Revolution aka Fall of Berlin Wall and it shows rather creatively how the Italians changed the culture of its Secret Seevice a must for all ASIO operatives to watch. May wisdom and kindness prevail as truth is rather dubjective ... Romanzo Criminale


Working more than 25 hours a week? Then you're doing your brain more harm than good. And if you're clocking up 60-plus hours a week, your brain is actually performing worse than if you didn't work at all Reading, capturing and sharing ideas and links on bloggosphere is a hobby :-)

The Economist’s new 1843 periodical asked an economist whether workaholics are danger to society:
Work? What is work anyway? I’m a writer on economics and thus also a reader.  I don’t find writing to be so hard, but I need something to write about and that means reading. For me, working more means reading more. And you know what? Working less also means reading more....

Also, most fiction isn’t that good. In fact, it isn’t even true. Or if it is true, it is true by coincidence or accident. That’s not a complaint, but I don’t see why I should give up cash income for the privilege of giving up reality. Can it be such a winning bargain to give up cash and reality at the same time? It’s not, and I won’t. Unless it’s Star Wars or Elena Ferrante.
Here is the whole symposium, which includes Diane Coyle and Daniel Hamermesh.  This was all inspired by Ryan Avent’s excellent recent essay on work-life balance.

Unlike most European countries, the Czech Republic has lacked a one-word version of its name in foreign languages. Now, the country is set to use the name Czechia in English, Tschechien in German or Tchequie in French," translations of "Cesko" in Czech Lunatic are in charge of Czechia or was that Czechnya 


WE USED TO HAVE THINGS CALLED SCHOOLS* THAT TAUGHT YOU OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPERIENCE, SO YOU DIDN’T NEED TO REINVENT THE WHEEL:A Hippie Discovers Economics, And You’ll Never Guess What Happens Next!

Praise pretension! It’s a noble cultural yearning, an assertion of intellectual ambition, a refusal to be defined by a reductive understanding of oneself... Slate

Unionizing Pays Big Dividend for Professors at Regional Public Universities Chronicle of Higher Education. Furzy: “This is pretty sad…” Richard Smith warns that this “feels hoaxy”

Why people are crowdfunding their funerals New Statesma

Raunchy KFC ad campaign removed in an hour Sydney Morning Herald

What makes a dog a dog? Forty-two teeth, advanced auditory and olfactory senses, tight-knit social structure. But really it's all about food... more »

Man accidentally ‘deletes his entire company’ with one line of bad code Independent 
Romanzo Criminale.jpg
Movie poster for Romanzo criminale
I’m just getting mouldy enough to be interesting

~ “I’m like a good cheese.  I’m just getting mouldy enough to be interesting.” Paul Newman


Via NextGov: “Paid consultants are scheduled to teach agents “Internet reconnaissance” during a three-day June workshop at the office’s Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, according to a November 2015 contracting notice. The training will include methods “to identify the target individual/organization’s social media and Internet footprint,” the notice states, referring to government employees, contractors and other companies. “Developing the methods necessary to attack those targets successfully” via social media and other public Internet pathways will be one lesson.  A government or contract employee’s online footprint could include, among other things, dating websites, user name searches, phone searches, website downloads, people searches, and public records, according to the contract synopsis. Specific websites mentioned are Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Google Image Recognition, CraigsList and Google Advanced Search. The online surveillance performed must be covert “with no attribution back” to Postal Service agents, according to the contract…”
StayUncle Indian markets in everything, badly needed.

Russ Fox, Bozo Tax Tip #2: Use a Bozo Accountant! If everyone gets a refund, eventually the IRS catches on, and everyone gets audited.

Press Release, Senator Warren Introduces Bill to Simplify Tax Filing:
United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) today introduced the Tax Filing Simplification Act of 2016 to simplify and decrease the costs of the tax filing process for millions of American taxpayers. This year, taxpayers will spend an average of 13 hours preparing and filing their returns, and will pay $200 for tax preparation services — a cost equal to almost 10 percent of the average federal tax refund.


Kristin Hickman (Minnesota) presents Treasury's Retroactivity at Christ's College, Cambridge today at a conference on The Role of Judges in Developing the Content of Tax Law: In Bowen v. Georgetown University Hospital, the Supreme Court described retroactivity as "not favored in the law" and generally rejected allowing federal administrative agencies to adopt regulations "altering the past legal consequences of past actions."  Unlike most regulatory agencies, Treasury and the IRS are expressly authorized by Congress to adopt regulations with precisely such primary retroactive effect.  Specifically, IRC § 7805(b) grants Treasury and the IRS the power to backdate tax regulations under a variety of circumstances.

New York Times, European Union Calls for Big Companies to Disclose More Tax Data:
European Union officials on Tuesday waded into the fight against international tax dodging, calling for the world’s biggest companies to disclose more data about their tax arrangements with the bloc’s member governments and to share information about offshore havens where they shelter money. ..

TaxGrrrl, Thieves Repackage Decades Old Tax Scam Using Fake Forms, Email, “Finally, remember that the IRS doesn’t initiate contact with taxpayers by email to request personal or financial information . This includes any type of electronic communication, such as text messages and social media channels.”



FinTechNews, 5/4/16. Citi Global Perspectives and Solutions (Citi GPS) has released a new report highlighting key fintech trends and data. Entitled ‘Digital Disruption: How Fintech is Forcing Banking to a Tipping Point,’ the report provides insights on the current state of fintech globally.
Also: 30% of bank jobs are under threat
- CNN


Artificial intelligence     
Insurance and Risk, Feb-Mar 2016.
With an ever-increasing amount of work being automated, young professionals are missing out on learning on the job. Suncorp Commercial Insurance Executive General Manager Darren O’Connell says that the lack of skills training in lower-level risks could prove problematic for the industry



“The cuts at the Biblioteca Nacional, once run by Jorge Luis Borges, were announced last Tuesday to ‘tears and cries of outrage’ … Staff had been phoned by authorities throughout the day to be given the news, which caused ‘fainting and nervous breakdowns’.”  The Guardian