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Sunday, August 07, 2016

Attitude of Working Wisely: The Discovery of Chance

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
~William James



Corning's highly engineered glass, with companion technologies, will help shape our world ...
A Day Made of Bohemian Glass: Unpacked. The Story Behind Corning's Vision

Meanwhile, here: prominent Harvard Law professor says “rule of law” and “First Amendment” are “almost entirely without content” [David Bernstein on views of Mark Tushnet] 

Federal Telework: Better Guidance Could Help Agencies Calculate Benefits and Costs, GAO-16-551: Published: Jul 15, 2016. Publicly Released: Aug 1, 2016: “With over 1 million federal employees eligible for telework in 2013, federal agencies are fully engaged in incorporating telework as a standard human capital flexibility.

Janet Novack, Buffett Challenges Trump: I’ll Show My Tax Returns If You’ll Show Yours

What are the challenges that come with marrying a lawyer and maintaining a happy marriage with a lawyer? Are there special rules or considerations when loving a lawyer?

Digital disrupts all of society — including politics and public policy

Berlin's Startup Hub Wants To Prove It's More Than Just A Scene

Samuel Arbesman Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension entertaining and insightful book, Arbesman offers a necessary guide to where we are headed and why everything seems so strange along the way.”  Here are a variety of positive reviews ... 

World Economic Forum: “The report, Risk Mitigation Instruments in Infrastructure: Gap Assessment, offers a framework for institutions to assess gaps in the provision of risk-mitigation instruments and to mobilize much-needed long-term infrastructure investment in emerging and developing economies.

Man may […] be master of his fate, but he has a precious poor servant. It is easier to command a lapdog or a mule for a whole day than one's own fate for half-an-hour.
— Hilaire Belloc who will never be able to read about the fate of the Cold River as he died in 1870


Fail Fast: Komedian Glynn Nicholas on Trust, HuMan Konnektion, Laughter essential ingredients for small business success 

This small business guy used over 80,000 old photos to create a Google Street map of New York City in the 1800s 

“I felt like I never said what I really meant to anyone; I was trying to please everybody. I felt like a coward, and I wanted to break out of all of that.”
~ Quote from an evening walk...

 GSK and Google parent forge $715 million bioelectronic medicines firm Reuters 
waving squirrels links"People here pride themselves on a kind of militant open-mindedness," Manjoo writes. "It is the kind of place that will severely punish any deviations from accepted schools of thought."
~Mr. Manjoo and his editor need to read what he writes more attentively.
Two villages either side of the Apurimac River in Peru must rebuild the rope bridge linking their communities every year. You wonder: why don't they build a modern one that lasts? Then you watch the video and you know why. Every year, this scary rope bridge over a river must be replaced

Is the Present Worse Than Any Fictional, Futuristic Dystopia? Vulture

Hour’s activity ‘offsets sedentary day’ BBC

On Tuesday, film industry house organ Variety ran the headline, “Box Office Meltdown: Hollywood Races to Win Back Summer Crowds.”

Debt Collectors’ Abuses Prompt Consumer Agency to Propose New Rules New York Times

There is that platitude in smug work groups: We work hard, we play hard...
Miss South Dakota, a knife and fee sharing — this attorney suspension has everything but the kitchen sink. [Legal Profession Blog]


News from the Profession. Rise of the Robots” – It’s Time for Accountants to Be Afraid (Jim Peterson, Going Concern). “They’ll come first for audit staff, and eat upwards.”


Using legal technology to help low-income Americans get legal services. [Law360]



Only by incorporating peer learning into work — and discussing failure as well as success — can government avoid repeating mistakes. Staff need to share stories on an ongoing, real-time, face-to-face basis to make meaningful progress. Reinventing the wheel is a common problem across the government sector. Share cold war stories face-to-face to avoid reinventing the wheel

The first step is to recognize that resilience and perseverance are qualities you’d like to develop further. Acknowledging a desire to change is the first step toward transformation.
Why You Should Celebrate Your Failures 

“Filmmakers, photographers, artists, authors, designers, musicians, and others reported that their project led to professional growth, greater earnings, and career advancement.”
AVC Kickstarter’s Impact On Cold River and Other The Creative Economies

Crowd funding site Kickstarter has helped generate more than $5.3 billion for creators and their communities, according to a new study

Forbes: Woman Sentenced To Jail For Pretending To Be A Tax Attorney, by Kelly Phillips Erb:
Kimberly Kitchen ... worked as an attorney in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, for ten years. There was just one problem: Kitchen was never actually licensed to practice law.



Behavioural Approaches to Increasing Diversity Over Lunch
NSW Behavioural Insights CoP, 4/8/16. We have put together a short publication on some of the ways biases can affect decision making in the recruitment process and examples of evidence-based behavioural interventions that could prevent and overcome these biases. These interventions, coupled with structural changes, could help to drive diversity in our workplaces.

Judge orders suspect to cover his tattoos with makeup for trial (also a semi-noisy video at that link)

New online literary magazine for artificial intelligence only

“He envisions a society where each person can express himself or herself in a manner that enriches everyone – in the way that an orchestra harnesses the gifts of its members or a potluck becomes more fun when many people bring their signature dish.”
 Aeon

“Though the occupation is only expected to grow by 2 percent from 2014 to 2024, many librarians have forgone bookkeeping and cataloging for specializing in multimedia and taking on research- and technology-oriented projects such as digitizing archives.” The Atlantic 

"If you want to go places you've never been before-you have to think in ways you've never thought before. Cold River or another doorstopper - this book below will teach you how: ;-)"

*How Successful People Think: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life


Once again, I have run into a law review that has adopted the convention of using decisionmaking as a one word unhyphenated noun and adjective. I hate to be pedantic about this, but the Chicago Manual of Style still says that decision making is an unhyphenated two word compound noun and a hyphenated two word compound adjective… Decisions Decisions
I ALWAYS WORKED AT LEAST TWO JOBS while going to college. One of the most interesting was working the midnight shiftat the newspaper in town. That job entailed getting the newspapers packaged and prepared for delivery by 3 a.m. to the Post Office. Trust me when I say that most of my fellow employees for that shiftcame from the "rough and tumble" side of the community. I decided on the first night that I should just work hard, keep my head down and not draw attention to myself. Unfortunately, my work ethic was noticed by the supervisor and he quickly decided on my first night on the job that I should be the driver of the truck to deliver the papers at the end of the shift. At the time, I was confident that it was my work ethic that drew his attention to me. Looking back years later, I think I was selected to drive the truck because he knew I was the only one working who held a valid driver's license! He threw me the keys and loudly instructed three of my friendly fellow employees to go with Plagge to deliver the papers. As soon as we got outside of the building, one of those fellow employees told me to throw him the keys because he was driving. Noting his size, angry demeanor and bulldog leadership style, I quickly decided that he would be an excellent driver and I threw him the keys. Needless to say, we made it back and forth from the Post Office in record time. I learned two things that night: first, some people have a leadership style that is more direct than others, and second, I needed to take college more seriously and get a real job ;-)
-JEFF PLAGGE is president and CEO of Northwest Financial Corp., Arnolds Park, Iowa'
I remember the old fashion ways with fondness ... The internet of things (IoT) refers to the network of interconnected physical devices and equipment, in which those devices are capable of collecting, sending and receiving data autonomously, predominantly via wireless communications
Gartner Says Worldwide IoT Security Spending to Reach $348 Million in 2016

"It's OK to Hold Police to a Higher Standard": Online today at Bloomberg View, law professor Noah Feldman has an essay that begins, "Can police be held to a higher standard than civilians? The Ohio Supreme Court said no last week, in striking down a law that criminalizes sex between a police officer and a minor."

Off-duty cop refused service at McDonald’s in Texas.
Related: Virginia police officer refused service at Noodles & Co.; Two employees fired for their ‘inexcusable actions.’
Following up on yesterday's post, 2016 Google Law Review Rankings:
Brian Leiter (Chicago), Annals of "Bullshit" Rankings:
The problem (we've encountered it in philosophy in the past, but now everyone there knows Google  Scholar is worthless for measuring journal impact) is that there is no control for the volume of publishing by each journal, so any journal that publishes more pages and articles per year will do better than a peer journal with the same actual impact that publishes fewer articles and pages.
This rare disease brews beer in your stomach:
Rob Anderson (Pepperdine), Google Scholar Releases 2016 Journal Rankings, Controversy Ensues:
Leiter's arguments are (mostly) incorrect. And as my previous posts about Google Scholar were used as part of the ranking, I felt the need to respond. ...
Against Injustice: Corbyn launches his campaign Defend Democracy

Astronauts who reach deep space ‘far more likely to die from heart disease’ Independent

How to Run a Successful Mobile Crowdsourcing Project

You Smeared and Sneered at Polite People. Now You’re Shocked at What You’re Getting Instead

Photographer Puts Her Images In Public Domain; Getty Picks Them Up And Charges Others To License Them; Photographer Sues Getty For $1 Billion

Announcements – The 2016-2018 term of the FOIA Advisory Committee began on July 21, 2016 at 10 am with a meeting in the William G. McGowan Theater. Video.  The Committee’s next meeting is scheduled for October 25, 2016.”