Friday, February 02, 2018

Standing Room Only: clickbait headline

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and  speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” 

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free."
~ Charles Evans Hughes, Supreme Court Justice

AT AMAZON, Jozef Imrich's story Cold River: The Cold Truth of Freedom is still at #1,777,777
I have a pen in my possession
which writes in 2 languages
and draws in one



Lucy Gichuhi, independent senator, to join Liberal Party



Spermageddon: Why the human race could be infertile in 50 years Telegraph. More substance here than the mere clickbait headline


Irrelevance is the fate of most political magazines. Yet there are times when they change the course of history. Now might be one of those moments Political magazines  

No Time to Wait: Building a Public Service for the 21st Century. A White Paper by a Panel of the National Academy of Public Administration. “What the federal government most needs, we believe, is a human capital system built on a sturdy three-legged stool: mission first, principles always, and accountability for both.

You're on the verge of losing everything — but you don’t understand why.
A run of bad luck leaves one man struggling to make sense of the UK benefits system. Put yourself in his shoes. (BBC)





State of the States 2018: Broadband, Cybersecurity Surface as Priorities

GovTech.com: “With a wave of gubernatorial elections on the horizon later this year, many states’ top elected leaders were nearing the end of their terms as they delivered their most important policy speech of the year, the State of the State address. So understandably, many seized the opportunity to reflect on their accomplishments while in office. Governors across the map cited positive economic news, like low unemployment rates, number of jobs created and a better fiscal picture than they inherited from their predecessors.    We took a look at the speeches, however, to see whether technology is on the minds of the nation’s governors. A few years ago, explicit mentions of how modern technology can help government deliver on its mission were rare, but tech’s profile has been raised, reflective of how central it is to many policy

                         From the Latin (but not so pagan)

Blessed is he that has come to the heart of the world and is humble.
He shall stand alone; and beneath
His feet are implacable fate, and panic at night, and the strumble
Of the hungry river of death.

Hilaire Belloc, Sonnets and Verse (Duckworth 1938).

Yes, "there will be dying, there will be dying,/but there is no need to go into that."  At least not yet

America’s Decline Is Accelerating (Are People Noticing?)

American collapse is much more severe than we suppose it is. We are underestimating its magnitude, not overestimating it. American intellectuals, media, and thought doesn’t put any of its problems in global or historical perspective — but when they are seen that way, America’s problems are revealed to be not just the everyday nuisances of a declining nation, but something more like a body suddenly attacked by unimagined diseases. … Read More


Why the difficult person at work probably isn’t a psychopath.
Our workplace and work processes may be contributing to stress and bad behaviour.

“The first lesson of culture is that the world is vast, the past unfathomable, and that billions of men think and have thought differently than we, our neighbors and our countrymen. Culture leads back to the universal and engenders scepticism.”
“We must be careful to preserve life’s spontaneity as well as the flexibility to adapt to new situations.”
“Books are essential. Literature is the oxygen of the soul.”


A philosophical argument to prove an existence for “the self” says to reconsider the five ways we think it exists.

What Happens When You Publish A Novel

Mira T. Lee: “I always told myself that once I’d written the book I wanted to write, anything else would be gravy. But suddenly I find myself plagued by feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, everything from ‘Will my sales meet my publisher’s expectations?’ to ‘Why didn’t that reader like my book?’ I thought I was old enough to be over all that ego-type stuff, but it’s a constant battle to stay grounded.”

Writers, Jane Hirshfield observes, have something essential in common with monks, both being social species who “embrace the margins”:

For writers, as for monks, to take on this work often means leaving the mainstream in outward ways, abandoning the world of ordinary jobs and housing; the garret life is found up literal stairs as well as within the steep reaches of the psyche. In its deepest sense, though, threshold life for a writer has to do with a changed relationship to language and culture itself. In writing lit by a liminal consciousness, the most common words take on the sheen of treasure — transformed in meaning for the entire community because they have been dipped in the mind of openness and connection.

The World Economic Forum: “Each year the Global Risks Report works with experts and decision-makers across the world to identify and analyze the most pressing risks that we face. As the pace of change accelerates, and as risk interconnections deepen, this year’s report highlights the growing strain we are placing on many of the global systems we rely on. The prospect of strong economic growth in 2018 presents leaders with a golden opportunity to address signs of severe weakness in many of the complex systems that underpin our world, such as societies, economies, international relations and the environment. That is the message of The Global Risks Report 2018, published by the World Economic Forum on January 17, 2018. The report – which every January shares the perspectives of global experts and decision-makers on the most significant risks that face the world – cautions that we are struggling to keep up with the accelerating pace of change. It highlights numerous areas where we are pushing systems to the brink, from extinction-level rates of biodiversity loss to mounting concerns about the possibility of new wars. Our annual Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS) suggests that experts are preparing for another year of heightened risk. When we asked nearly 1,000 respondents for their views about the trajectory of risks in 2018, 59% of their answers pointed to an intensification of risks, compared with 7% pointing to declining risks. A deteriorating geopolitical landscape is partly to blame for the pessimistic outlook in 2018, with 93% of respondents saying they expect political or economic confrontations between major powers to worsen and nearly 80% expecting an increase in risks associated with war involving major powers.”
Website Builder Expert: “Cybercrime is the fastest growing type of criminal activity in the United States – and it’s affecting more and more of us each year. Whether it’s credit card fraud, identity theft, email hacking, ransomware, account stealing or any other number of activities – you’re in the midst of an online war you may not even know it. Billions of dollars are spent each year combating cybercrime and yet the number, intensity and severity of attacks keeps increasing…We used publicly available data from the FBI and the Insurance Information Institute to answer some questions we had about cybercrime and its repercussions in the coming year…Our research suggests that California is going to have the most cybercrime complaints of any state over the next 12 months…”

CIO – Develop a data-driven culture but be mindful of regulatory and ethical considerations: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be a priority for more than 30 percent of CIOs by 2020, according to Gartner. While AI promises game changing capabilities, this is only going to happen if your organisation applies it effectively. If you’re a chief data officer (CDO) trying to realise the full potential of AI, now’s the time to broaden your strategy, assess the impact on both business models and customer experiences, and prepare for other strategic challenges. Much of the current wave of attention is the result of gains in advanced analytics and machine learning. This current shift is partially attributable to the emergence of inexpensive, massive and readily available computing power, as well as the mountains of data available to train machines, form patterns and produce insights. Although top of mind, many organisations are just beginning their AI journey — gathering knowledge and developing strategies for applying it. If you’re like many data and analytics leaders, the need to define an AI strategy and identify uses is a real challenge…”

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