“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.”
― Aesop
Ach, everything we do is futile, but we must do it anyway... The MEdia Dragon journey is part hobby, part labour of love, part irony
Linkedin Learning Blog: “Whenever there is change, there is opportunity. With report after report showing the world of work changing faster than ever today, it’s fair to assume there’s more opportunity than ever. The challenge? It isn’t easy to know where that opportunity exists. If only some organization with the resources necessary to answer that question could release a roadmap… Well, consider this is your roadmap. Using a combination of LinkedIn data and survey results, we determined both the soft and the hard skills companies need most. And then we provided LinkedIn Learning courses that teach those skills, which we’ve made free for all of January 2018…”
A study finds that most people are terrible judges of their own physical appearance.↩︎ Nautilus*Ballerina looking less beautiful
Booooooom
THIS JUST IN: Hatred of journalists by leaders and
their followers are behind a drop in press freedom in the United States, India,
and Philippines. Nordic nations remain the most free. That's from the
latest world freedom rankings by Reporters Without Borders. Here
are the rankings. “The unleashing of hatred towards journalists is one
of the worst threats to democracies,” the
organization's secretary-general, Christophe Deloire, said. “Political
leaders who fuel loathing for reporters bear heavy responsibility because they
undermine the concept of public debate based on facts instead of
propaganda."
JOY REID HACKED?: The MSNBC host says she's the victim of hackers who have
planted fake items on social media that purport to show homophobic posts from
her old blog. But not everyone is buying her explanation, reports
the New York Times.
At 30, Elizabeth Jennings was a celebrated poet. At 40, she lived in poverty, a shabby eccentric haunting Oxford cafes. What went wrong? At 60
Berlin has maintained its cool factor by keeping costs low for residents—families, artists, and businesses alike.
↩︎ The Sunday TimesWarner Bros. Faces Tax Fraud Investigation for 'Sully' Airplane Costs
The fiscal picture is worse than it looks—and it looks bad - Brookings Institution
A week after a painful interview where she repeatedly avoided questions, Financial Services Minister Kelly O'Dwyer finally concedes the Government got it wrong in delaying a banking royal commission.
Loyal blue heeler stays with three-year-old lost in bush overnight ABC
Say what you will about Jozef Imrich's Media Dragon's Dragon Karl Ove Knausgaard, but his recent piece in the New York Times is excellent. The essay focuses on the literature and politics of Russia over the past two hundred years. Part of what I enjoyed most about the essay is its accessibility: Knausgaard orients his readers to Russia's literary titans, and makes a convincing case for the role of stories -- and storytelling -- in Russian identity. For an honest look beyond the standard view of Russia under Putin, give Knausgaard's piece a read. As I say, it's excellent (and it's making me want to read Turgenev).
In the human mind, the word library seems to sit alongside other pregnant and evocative words such as garden, forest, galaxy, and labyrinth. Book lovers speak of their possessions as beautiful flowers, verdant leaves, precious fruit, flowing fountains. Books are stars and planets and meteorites. To browse library shelves is to wander in a maze or a mirror gallery. Cemetery is another neighboring word. Libraries have always been a matter of life and death. They are places of reverence, homes for things long gone. Through books, the dead speak.
The fiscal picture is worse than it looks—and it looks bad - Brookings Institution
A week after a painful interview where she repeatedly avoided questions, Financial Services Minister Kelly O'Dwyer finally concedes the Government got it wrong in delaying a banking royal commission.
The Man Who Brought Down Lance Armstrong
Floyd Landis, a former teammate of the cyclist’s, just won more than $1 million in a legal case against Armstrong. Here are his thoughts on the suit, cycling, and his onetime rival.
Data Privacy Is a Human Right. Europe Is Moving Toward Recognizing That. Foreign Policy in Focus
The Changing Face of the Country Der Spiegel. Part one of two. Part two.
Great Lengths Guardian
Catherine drinks champagne, for when she’s trying not to get too drunk, and vodka, for when she’s seeking refuge from reality. Bohemia Beach
Do ghosts prefer southerly winds? Are Mediterranean ghosts calmer? They say that in Northern Europe ghosts are loud, horrifying, that their shrieks are more out of tune because of the cold. With Northern ghosts — Irish, Estonian, German, it's easy to imagine them coming at you with a knife and no explanation. Mediterranean ghosts, however, are not as gloomy, it's impossible to take them too seriously; even when they kill you, they do it in an incompetent way; Don Juan Tenorio and others like him are laughable, buffoonish, and sometime it's their own comedic candor that makes them all the more fearful; we'd risk our necks to bet that they'd rather dance to a tambourine than use a knife; Mediterranean ghosts sound like they'd be fun to have a few glasses of wine with. "Ghosts fervid for Frescuelo and Maria. "Is there a really frightening and serious ghost in Spanish literature? And in the Basque Country? Who are they? What are Basque ghosts like?— from Twist, by Harkaitz Cano.
Loyal blue heeler stays with three-year-old lost in bush overnight ABC
Say what you will about Jozef Imrich's Media Dragon's Dragon Karl Ove Knausgaard, but his recent piece in the New York Times is excellent. The essay focuses on the literature and politics of Russia over the past two hundred years. Part of what I enjoyed most about the essay is its accessibility: Knausgaard orients his readers to Russia's literary titans, and makes a convincing case for the role of stories -- and storytelling -- in Russian identity. For an honest look beyond the standard view of Russia under Putin, give Knausgaard's piece a read. As I say, it's excellent (and it's making me want to read Turgenev).
The Strange Magic of Libraries
Nearly One-Third Of U.S. Lottery Winners Declare Bankruptcy SafeHaven
"In
the West, our idea of monastic ritual involves prayer and quiet
reflection. But there are monasteries in Assam, in the far reaches of
northeastern India, where prayer has always been, and continues to be,
expressed through dance. The monks in these communities, or sattras,
perform with and for each other, and for the deity. Sattriya, as this
dance form is known, became one of the eight official classical dance
forms of India only in 2000 - since then, its visibility has grown
beyond the monastery walls." … Read More
The
report by our African coordinator, Will Fitzgibbon, highlights how Bastos
benefited from his strong ties with global accounting firm KPMG. For example,
when offshore law firm Appleby had concerns about Bastos’ credentials it was
assumed they could take “a certain amount of comfort” from his relationship
with KPMG.
Nearly One-Third Of U.S. Lottery Winners Declare Bankruptcy SafeHaven
- Filthy Rotten T.S. Eliot
When my staff of thousands sent me this book cover, APRIL IS A MOTHERFUCKER, by none other than T.S. Eliot, it put me in mind of Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917, which includes ... read more
These Monks Meditate By Dancing
"In
the West, our idea of monastic ritual involves prayer and quiet
reflection. But there are monasteries in Assam, in the far reaches of
northeastern India, where prayer has always been, and continues to be,
expressed through dance. The monks in these communities, or sattras,
perform with and for each other, and for the deity. Sattriya, as this
dance form is known, became one of the eight official classical dance
forms of India only in 2000 - since then, its visibility has grown
beyond the monastery walls." … Read MoreFinancial Services Minister Kelly O’Dwyer challenged over royal commission Financial Review (UserFriendly)
It can often take time for the impact of our
investigations to really be felt. This month, Mauritian authorities froze 91 bank accounts linked to an investor, Jean-Claude
Bastos, closely connected to Angola’s former leaders.
House
panel advances bills to guard energy grid from cyberattacks
Creating Data Visualizations Without Knowing How to Code
Center for Data Innovation: “A research collaboration between Adobe and Georgia Tech has published a free data visualization tool called Data Illustrator that allows users to create visualizations in a graphical interface without having to know how to code. Additionally, Dutch data visualization firm Vizualism has published a tutorial for Data Illustrator to walk users through how to create a visualization using data about life expectancy in Dutch cities.”
Creating Data Visualizations Without Knowing How to Code
Center for Data Innovation: “A research collaboration between Adobe and Georgia Tech has published a free data visualization tool called Data Illustrator that allows users to create visualizations in a graphical interface without having to know how to code. Additionally, Dutch data visualization firm Vizualism has published a tutorial for Data Illustrator to walk users through how to create a visualization using data about life expectancy in Dutch cities.”