“The government of my country snubs honest simplicity, but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.”~Mark Twain, Roughing It
HMRC IT boss quit £185k job for more cash
“Art,” Jeanette Winterson observed in a terrific conversation about art and the human spirit, “pulls people up short. It says, don’t accept things for their face value; you don’t have to go along with any of this; you can think for yourself.” This function of art as a force of wakefulness — of wokefulness — is particularly vital and vitalizing at times of injustice and oppression, under regimes built on ideologies of mass coercion. But it comes at a price
The series was adapted from novels The Marmalade Files and The Mandarin Code, which were co-written by ex-News Corp political correspondent Steve Lewis and the ABC's Chris Uhlmann.
At a time when the public is particularly cynical about our leaders, there is something appealing about programs like Secret City that imagine us as flies on the walls in the corridors of power
In what may possibly be a sign of the impending apocalypse, Canberra is beginning to look pretty good on Australian screens.
I'm not, of course, in any way referring to current coverage of the federal election campaign, the drudgery of which is making that long-rumoured 10-hour Lars von Trier film about hibernating prairie dogs an ever more appealing proposition.
In 2014, ABC TV's The Code brought guns, hackers, murder and uranium to the steps of Parliament House. It was a pace-y, more-you-peel-more-it-stinks onion of a thriller, led by actor Dan Spielman as a journalist Who Knows Too Much.
The Artist Who Won Britain’s Hepworth Prize Plans To Share It Equally With All The Other Finalists
Sculptor Helen Marten said, “In the light of the world’s ever lengthening political shadow, the art world has a responsibility, if not to suggest a provisional means forward, then at least show an egalitarian platform of democracy. I believe the hierarchical position of art prizes today is, to a certain extent, flawed.”
The Oxford Dictionaries declared "post-truth" the word of the year (evidently they were unimpressed with our counterarguments)
Author photo, tours, readings, lectures, interviews: The modern hustle of the moderately successful writer. Elena Ferrante wanted none of it...Book Club
How Swedish literature reflects the benefits of a shorter working day The Conversation
Hardly normal NorMan: WHY JOURNALISTS LOVE TWITTER Current Affairs (chris g). The use of tweets in lieu of quotes based on original reporting has been noteworthy
Blankespoor, Elizabeth and deHaan, Ed and Zhu, Christina, Robo-Journalism and Capital Markets (November 7, 2016). Available for download at
SSRN:https://ssrn.com/abstract=2872784
“In 2014, the Associated Press (AP) began using algorithms to write media articles about firms’ earnings announcements
One of Japan’s largest casualty insurers is going to start offering internet and social media backlash insurance.
Here is the link, including to the original Japanese
To grow up in the Soviet Union was to celebrate suffering. It “justifies our hard and bitter life. For us, pain is an art” Celebrating Suffering
To grow up in the Soviet Union was to celebrate suffering. It “justifies our hard and bitter life. For us, pain is an art” Celebrating Suffering
Don't stray bro they didn't build Rome in a day
And I don't need to satisfy a ceaseless appetite
Just to feel at peace or gratified
If we don't reach for the stars only reach for satellite
We'll live in faded colour and dream in black and white
I know our demons walk among us
But struggles something that we do not something to becomes us
So let go of the of all the suffering and hurt
Yo unless we ball it up and we burst
Via BC The Lyrics Noir- burning midnight oil
Biography in Twitter age
- The
Toronto Star tallied Trump falsehoods compiled by two reporters. The result looked
like this:
- Tax Havens, Bribery and Corruption: Overcoming the Shadow Economy by JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ AND MARK PIETH
- ICRICT Report: Four Ways to Tackle International Tax Competition
- Unregulated web cash transfer systems 'using Edinburgh shell companies as fronts'
- Citi May Have to Write Off Up to $12 Billion of Tax Credits Under Trump Plan
- Baltimore police spokesman T.J. Smith about force’s use of dragnet of social media information about citizens: “The only people that have anything to fear about anything being monitored are those that are criminals and attempting to commit criminal acts.” Yes, that’s really what Smith said [Alison Knezevich/Baltimore Sun; in sequel, social media companiesrescind access to the Geofeedia service]
- “It ought to be possible to terminate cops short of criminal convictions for incidents like that involving [Freddie] Gray’s” [Ed Krayewski]
- Librarians have always been all about information literacy. But that's become sooo much more complicated now, with "information overload" compounded by a lack of understanding of the internet. Read The Verge's interview with a top librarian
- New York Times, ‘Hamilton’ Cast’s Appeal to Pence Ignites Showdown With Trump
- New York Times, ‘Hamilton’ Had Some Unscripted Lines for Pence. Trump Wasn’t Happy.
- New York Times, ‘Hamilton’ Duel: Addressing the President-Elect on His Own Blunt Terms
- Data on fake news on Facebook. And Leonid Bershidsky on related matters. Are Danish people happier when they quit Facebook?
- Are we worrying too much about fake news? (2) The paradox of media fact-checking in an age of low trust. (3) TheJournal.ie dishes out its first "Nonsense" rating for a claim on Trump refugees. (4) Whither fact-checking? Glenn Kessler looks into it. (5) Getting verbally abused for being an Asian-American, female fact-checker. (6) Students developed a Chrome extension to flag fake stories.
- How does Facebook even know that 99 percent of its content is "authentic"? (2) Are we sure we want a more muscular policing of the "truth"?
- Plenty of federal public servants think they are too restricted from expressing political views on social media. The Australian Public Service Commission asked for their views and has published over 5000 words of their thoughts Social Media
- “The lies that many Americans now believe, and that make it so difficult to move the country on the big issues, go to existential facts. A government of the people requires the people to conduct an honest assessment of their world — something too many citizens are no longer capable of doing.” — Timothy Egan, New York Times