Yes, there are more spies at Wyong Creek than you think

A Surveillance State Unlike Any the World Has Ever Seen - Spiegel Online: “In western China, Beijing is using the most modern means available to control its Uighur minority. Tens of thousands have disappeared into re-education camps. A journey to an eerily quiet region… Nowhere in the world, not even in North Korea, is the population monitored as strictly as it is in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, an area that is four times the size of Germany and shares borders with eight countries, including Pakistan, Afghanistan Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. Oppression has been in place for years, but has worsened massively in recent months. It is targeted primarily at the Uighur minority, a Turkic ethnic group of some 10 million Sunni Muslims considered by Beijing to be a hindrance to the development of a “harmonious society.” A spate of attacks involving Uighur militants has only consolidated this belief…”

Americans underestimate the extent of spying in their midst because they're looking for Ethan Hunt, not bureaucrats.

 Bloomberg
More and more Chinese spies in New Zealand


As the epicenter of US innovation, Silicon Valley is, unsurprisingly, also a hotbed of international espionage.
Politico

When your Uber driver is a spy

A Book Wrapped in Intrigue: The co-author of the book 'The Spy Chronicles,' a former Pakistani intelligence chief, is facing an inquiry over the book from his Indian counterpart.

The Terror (AMC)

Adapted from Dan Simmons’s acclaimed historical novel and executive-produced by Ridley Scott, this account of a British nautical expedition gone wrong had the look and sound of a classic horror movie, essentially a haunted-house flick set on creaky wooden boats in the icy Arctic. But the longer it went on, the more it felt like a torture device in the form of a TV show, cataloguing all the different ways in which a person can violently die, from accidents and illness to drowning, exposure, and animal attack. There’s no reason why such a relentless, grim, and unpleasant series should be watchable, yet this was perversely enticing, maybe because it had such a deep understanding of human psychology pushed to the limits of endurance, and a sense of how far to push thematically and symbolically freighted situations while still making it seem as if it were just telling the story of a bunch of guys who’d gotten in way over their heads without realizing it. —MZS

The Ethics Problem With True-Crime Entertainment, Especially The Highbrow Kind

“Serial and Dirty John and The Jinx and Wild, Wild Country are all conspicuously well made, with lovely visuals and strong reporting. … But for these so-called prestige true-crime offerings, the question of ethics — of the potential to interfere in real criminal cases and real people’s lives — is even more important, precisely because they are taken seriously.”

You’ve Seen Nude Shakespeare In Central Park, Now See Nude Aphra Behn In Brooklyn

Director Pitr Strait and Torn Out Theater, who made headlines with a nude all-female Tempest in 2016 and a nude all-male Hamlet last year, will unveil a mixed-gender cast in The Rover by 17th-century English playwright Aphra Behn, one of the first women to make a living in that profession.

More Of The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries In Pictures

We're suckers for these galleries - it's pure library picture porn. The amazing images of these libraries around the world speak to the place books have in our consciousness. … [Read More]

Confirmation connection - Good advice from Patrick Collison

If you’re 10–20: These are prime years! If you're 30 and over the life is over ;-)  

• Go deep on things. Become an expert.
• In particular, try to go deep on multiple things. (To varying degrees, I tried to go deep on languages, programming, writing, physics, math. Some of those stuck more than others.) One of the main things you should try to achieve by age 20 is some sense for which kinds of things you enjoy doing. This probably won’t change a lot throughout your life and so you should try to discover the shape of that space as quickly as you can.
• Don’t stress out too much about how valuable the things you’re going deep on are… but don’t ignore it either. It should be a factor you weigh but not by itself dispositive.
• To the extent that you enjoy working hard, do. Subject to that constraint, it’s not clear that the returns to effort ever diminish substantially. If you’re lucky enough to enjoy it a lot, be grateful and take full advantage!
• Make friends over the internet with people who are great at things you’re interested in. The internet is one of the biggest advantages you have over prior generations. Leverage it.
• Aim to read a lot.
• If you think something is important but people older than you don’t hold it in high regard, there’s a decent chance that you’re right and they’re wrong. Status lags by a generation or more.
• Above all else, don’t make the mistake of judging your success based on your current peer group. By all means make friends but being weird as a teenager is generally good.

The culture that is Sheffield

Origin of “culture wars” in the 1990s (WSJ)

Lip-reading AI 

Yes, there are more spies than you think ;-)

Pink remittance house

Fashion, The Genius Project

Nine priority areas for the APS review
The APS needs to start thinking about integrity as institutional quality rather than a set of rules, argues ANZSOG's submission to the Thodey review. Plus: their other priority areas for reform.

In-house data integration to help resource deployment
Victoria’s EPA is looking to in-house data integration to create a more complete picture of how the state’s economic growth affects its natural environment.

'Fit for Purpose. Fit for Future' — public sector survey coming your way
Professor Peter Shergold is meeting with governments across Australia in August to test the pulse of the public sector.

Want to lead self-motivated employees?
University of Melbourne research has shown how leaders can support employees to work more autonomously, creating a happier and more productive workplace.
◾ Managing self-motivated, intelligent knowledge workers

 

Secret Aussie life of a global tax spy

 

Foreign Economic Espionage in Cyberspace 2018 – Economic cyber espionage will only get worse, ODNI report says

• See also – With hacking of U.S. utilities, Russia could move from cyberespionage toward cyberwar –
• See also Axios Special report: America’s greatest threat is a hurricane-force cyberattack
• See also WSJ.com (paywall) U.S. Officials Push New Penalties for Hackers of Electrical Grid – Red line set for cyberattacks on infrastructure after Russian agents penetrated utility control room
• See also Axios – When we asked America’s foremost intelligence experts what keeps them up at night, one response came up over and over again: the risk of a crippling cyberattack.

'Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war' -  ...