Friday, August 12, 2016

Golden Age: Recycled Teenagers Unite


INK BOTTLE“Much good has been shown me and much evil, and the good has never been perfect. There is always some flaw in it, some defect, some imperfection in the divine image, some fault in the angelic song, some stammer in the divine speech.”
~ E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier, libretto for Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd (adapted from Herman Melville’s novella)


Pulitzer Prize-winner files age discrimination lawsuit against Los Angeles Times 

A New Study Finds That MEn (MEdiaDragons) Are Weaker Today Than They Were 30 Years Ago

A recent post on the Guardian, titled, “I’m A Serious Academic, Not A Professional Instagrammer,” argues against propelling oneself to stardom on social media.  Professing to be a young Ph.D. student, the author suggests: “[S]urely the dedication I show in the lab, and the subsequent data I collect, should speak for itself.”

Every Day Above The Ground is a Great Day  for MEdia Dragons of Our VintAge Category Raconteur Loves MEdia Dragons: It Provides the Following Feature on Natural and Organic Living ;-) 

Google Is Sooo Into MEdia Dragons: It Translate And Culture Come Together With #EveryoneSpeaksFood Pop-Up 
The tech firm partnered with production company m ss ng p eces to celebrate the 'universal language' of eating 

What were your #FirstCharterSeventySevenJobs before breaking into journalism?

If good old reliable Reported.ly folds, social media dragons will lose an important gatekeeper 

Thinking about making the jump to freelance? Here’s what you need to know

3.5 million people using their Personal Tax Account
HMRC Digital blog Personal Tax Account now has over 3.5 million active users with satisfaction scores currently running at around the mid-70s mark
myTax lodgers sets lodgement record
 

A chapter a day: Association of book reading with longevity ScienceDirect

ESPN’s new 16-part podcast is almost too incredible to believe

Via PublicHealthIntelligence.org:  On Tuesday May 10th 2016, Nathan Yau created and published a chart that allows us to learn the percentage of people older and younger than a person from the U.S. given his/her age, based on the 5-year American Community Survey estimates from 2014. I found the chart informative, and I wanted to replicate it but in a way that helps people from every country to answer that question. I started by downloading estimates of population (by sex and both sexes combined), interpolated by single years of age and single calendar years, by major area, region and country, annually for 1950 to 2100 (medium-fertility projection variant) from the World Population Prospects, Edition 2015

Questions to ask public relations staff when you’re covering scientific research

Five Red Flags That Scream ‘Don’t Hire This Person.’ 

People don't have money to spend – and the government won't act 

The Real Roots of Midlife Crisis What a growing body of research reveals about the biology of human happiness—and how to navigate the (temporary) slump in middle age

How well are OECD economies harnessing the power of an older workforce? Human Resources in Golden Age: Index

New Zealand accords legal personality to (cold) river and former national park through treaty settlements with Maori groups [New York Times]

Via CIO: “Cloud storage provider Dropbox and Ipsos Mori, a London-based market research firm, surveyed more than 4,000 information workers in the U.S. and Europe about their use of technology in the workplace and found that people 55 and up use 4.9 forms of technology per week, on average — a smidge above the overall average of 4.7 per week. More importantly, the survey also revealed that older workers are less likely than their younger colleagues to find using technology in the workplace stressful. Just one-quarter of the respondents who are 55 or older said that they find tech in the workplace stressful. Meanwhile, 36 percent of the respondents who are 18 to 34 years old — the ones who supposedly grew up with technology — said they find tech in the workplace stressful.” 

VIDEO: I LEARNED MORE AT McDONALD’S THAN AT COLLEGE. From Olivia Legaspi at Prager University

What profit is there from my death,
from my descent into the pit?
Can the dust praise you?
Can it declare your truth? 

… Machiavelli Explains What Makes Republics Tick - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

One can scarcely read Machiavelli’s “Discourses” without reflecting on their significance for our day. When he writes that “no kingdom can stand when two feeble princes follow in succession,” one thinks of recent American history and its string of poor presidents. His explanation of how good men were excluded from office, owing to the valuation of wealth over honor and the insidious influence of corruption, so that men of merit gave way to those with ambition merely, makes one think of current American politics.


The Hospital Is No Place for the Elderly

Medical treatment for aging, chronically ill patients is costly and often ineffective. Can they get better care at home?

In 2011 the feminism issue of the literary magazine Granta featured “Night Thoughts,” a satirical story by Helen Simpson, in which a teacher lies awake fretting about his workload at home as well as at school What does it mean to be a man

KB without the G  
"You have your ups and downs… That’s the name of the game." Kevin Jacobsen

For more than 50 years, the Jacobsen name has been synonymous with Australian entertainment – from the dawn of rock-and-roll to big names such as Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand, and global hits like Dirty Dancing.
One and Only Kevin Jacobsen Double J became Tripple J...

Besides lending books, the local institutions are training young journalists, renting garden plots and more
“…public libraries today are actually doing an enormous amount to meet 21st-century needs. A recent contest sponsored by the Knight Foundation awarded shares of a $1.6 million prize to 14 winners who came up with the best, most innovative ideas for helping libraries better serve their changing communities. Here’s a roundup of some of our favorite ideas from the contest, along with several other cool ways libraries are changing with the times…”

Kids in Roleplaying Games. “This isn’t going to be an article about how to interest children in roleplaying games (RPGs),” Moe Lane writes. “I’m not here to do product placement, and I don’t have any direct experience yet in what kind of RPGs my kids will like.  No, the purpose of this article is to talk about kids showing up in RPG campaigns, in the sense of why they should be there, if only in the background.  But maybe ‘only’ is not the right word to use, there.  So many interesting things happen in backgrounds, after all.” Cherish all your happy moments; they make a fine cushion for old age. — Booth Tarkington, born on this date in 1869 To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art. — Herman Melville, born on this date in 1819



The Future of Work report by PSFK Labs explores the trend of personalized career planning 

Data is political — use it responsibly, argue experts at this year’s Technology in Government conference. More conversations are needed about potential savings and benefits to the public, such as NSW’s FuelCheck.
Data is extremely valuable. Many people were surprised when Microsoft offered to buy LinkedIn earlier this year for US$26 billion. But as Steven Wilson, VP of Constellation Research pointed out, LinkedIn’s user data on 450 million registered members can drive many insights into Microsoft’s core customer base, justifying the hefty price tag. Opening up the potential of existing data in government

*Returning to the programme was the Department of Health’s Innovation Conference, workshops on how to innovate like a startup by the Canberra Innovation Network, and of course Govhack...
The Public Sector Innovation Network at the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science has wrapped up another successful Innovation Month.
The PSIN is still gathering attendance numbers from participating departments but the organisers at the PSIN have shared some initial observations on Innovation Month. Noting the growing support Innovation Month receives across the public sector and the developing maturity of programme events. This year’s programme saw the launch of the APS Innovation Awards, a day long workshop on Disruptive Technology from the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, and a cross-state and territory series of presentations on idea development which was live streamed from the Department of Communication and Arts Innovation Month 2016 concludes with record participation, interstate growth