Nails on the chalkboard...
Sydney traffic...
Other people's snoring...
YouTube ads...
Waiting in a line more than 4 people deep...
It’s better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission!
Sydney traffic...
Other people's snoring...
YouTube ads...
Waiting in a line more than 4 people deep...
It’s better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission!
5 motivators to engage your viewers
The big journalism void: ‘The real crisis is not technological, it’s geographic’ Guardian. Dan K: “Over a month old, but shouldn’t be missed. Healthy local journalism is a pillar of community, and an important and possibly essential compliment to community activism.”
OpenAI conducts fundamental, long-term research toward the creation of safe AGI
Around half of all adult Americans are on the agency’s image database, and its software is incorrect 15 percent of the time, Jamie Condliffe, March 27, 2017.
“Last year, we learned about the remarkable scale of the FBI’s facial-recognition technology, with its access to nearly 412 million photos—many originating from sources unrelated to crime, such as ID documents. The intelligence agency has been trying to create a system that can accurately identify criminals in, say, CCTV footage—though it wasn’t then known how well the bureau’s software worked, nor whether it actually improved investigations. Now, we have at least a little more insight into the program. The Guardian reports that a House oversight committee hearing last week revealed some interesting new details about the proliferation and abilities of the FBI’s facial-recognition systems…”
Annette Nellen, AI, Apps, FinTech and More:
I’m working on an article for State Tax Notes on how we need to make far better use of today’s technology for income tax compliance, which is still too tied to paper filing. Basically, we just moved the paper to e-files. You still manually enter a lot of information even though much of it exists electronically.
In theory we could automate a lot more tax compliance, but I lack faith in the ability of the IRS to do so competently.
Luddite sex workers in Spain shut down robot brothel? (NB: tabloid source, plus video at the link)
Suicide, self-destruction, poetry. Berryman, Plath, Chatterton, Larkin, Frost, Auden: Is an unhappy end a necessary price for Poetic Genius 
What Your Therapist Doesn’t Know
Big Data has transformed everything from sports to politics to education. It could transform mental-health treatment, too—if only psychologists would stop ignoring it.
Robert Silvers, who described editors as middlemen and cautioned against taking credit away from writers, is dead. The founding editor of The New York Review of Books was 87... Laura Marsh... Adam Gopnik... Mary Beard... Hillel Italie... Cass Sunstein... Louis Menand...*Novy York ...
Deconstruction: a detective story. A new play about Paul de Man shows how something monstrous can begin as a cavalier disregard for Truth
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruffled a few feathers this week by calling everyone who offended him a Nazi, starting with the Germans and winding his way over to the Netherlands. But as Godwin’s Law decrees, invoking the Nazis is the easy way out for an insulter. Here are a few world leaders who took the time to make a slightly more creative insult.
Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo. Last week, Poland’s current government tried to block a former Polish prime minister from renewing his term in a senior EU position. The government’s objections were overruled by the rest of the EU’s leaders, including French President Francois Hollande, who warned the EU could withhold funds from Poland if they didn’t stop pursuing reforms perceived as anti-liberal. The Polish PM responded by lashing out at Hollande’s approval ratings: “Am I supposed to take seriously the blackmail of a president who has a 4 percent approval rating and who soon won't be president?”
In praise of forgetting
Land titles: the folly of privatising an essential monopoly
“Collective Wisdom: An Exploration of Library, Archives and Museum Cultures was written by the participants in the Library, Archives and Museum Conference Exchange project, in which 18 librarians, archivists and museum professionals explored cross-sector practices and culture, and potential for interdisciplinary collaboration and http://Collective Wisdom: An Exploration of Library, Archives and Museum Cultures was written by the participants in the Library, Archives and Museum Conference Exchange project, in which 18 librarians, archivists and museum professionals explored cross-sector practices and culture, and potential for interdisciplinary collaboration and continuing education. This project was part of the grant-funded and OCLC-managed Coalition to Advance Learning. The cohort was charged to 1) Build stronger cross-sector relationships; 2) Increase understanding of sector cultures; and 3) Identify opportunities for collaborative continuing education or professional development. The white paper summarizes their in-depth efforts in each of these three areas.