“The way I think about culture is that modern humans have radically changed the way that they work and the way that they live. Companies need to change the way they manage and lead to match the way that modern humans actually work and live.”
"When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
― Ansel Adams
― Ansel Adams
I often warn people: "Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you, 'There is no "I" in team.' What you should tell them is, 'Maybe not. But there is an "I" in independence, individuality and integrity.
~George Carlin
Czech author Jiří Hájíček was awarded this year's CzechNational Literature Prize -- but, as Brian Kenety reports at Radio Praha, Writer Jiří Hájíček Rejects National Literature Prize -- apparently: "because some jury members had quit after the parliamentary elections and so the award cannot be considered apolitical".
This prize has a solid list of previous winners -- Jáchym Topol won last year, and previous winners include Patrik Ouředník (2014), Daniela Hodrová (2011), and Ludvík Vaculík (2008).
Hájíček's Rustic Baroque is available in English -- get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk -- and see information about the author at Czech Lit.
Dull talks at conferences can feel interminable. Or could it be that they really do go on for longer?
I investigated this idea at a meeting where speakers were given 12-minute slots. I sat in on 50 talks for which I recorded the start and end time. I decided whether the talk was boring after 4 minutes, long before it became apparent whether the speaker would run overtime. The 34 interesting talks lasted, on average, a punctual 11 minutes and 42 seconds. The 16 boring ones dragged on for 13 minutes and 12 seconds (thereby wasting a statistically significant 1.5 min; t-test, t = 2.91, P = 0.007).
For every 70 seconds that a speaker droned on, the odds that their talk had been boring doubled. For the audience, this is exciting news. Boring talks that seem interminable actually do go on for longer.
Quest for silence
The apostle of pastiche, Leonard Bernstein flitted between high and low, sacred and profane, romanticism and kitsch. He was music’s public Intellectual
Legal Ontologies and How to Choose Them: the InvestigatiOnt Tool: “Ontologies are often at the basis of systems that support question answering, information extraction and knowledge modelling tasks. They are used to model the domain of knowledge for which a system is developed and the underlying concept structure. The design of ontology-based systems is usually assigned to computer scientists which need, in addition to the technical knowledge, a further knowledge about the domain for which the system is developed (e.g., economics, health care, law, agri-food sector). A particularly challenging domain is law, where concepts of increasing complexity are used and related to each other. In this context, there is the need to define tools able to support both developers and end-users towards a better understanding of the legal concepts expressed in the legal ontologies, so that an informed decision about the best ontology to select, depending on the target application, can be taken.”
Borgman, C. L. (2018). Open Data, Grey Data, and Stewardship: Universities at the Privacy Frontier. Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 33(2), 287–336.
“As universities recognize the inherent value in the data they collect and hold, they encounter unforeseen challenges in stewarding those data in ways that balance accountability, transparency, and protection of privacy, academic freedom, and intellectual property. Two parallel developments in academic data collection are converging: (1) open access requirements, whereby researchers must provide access to their data as a condition of obtaining grant funding or publishing results in journals; and (2) the vast accumulation of ‘grey data’ about individuals in their daily activities of research, teaching, learning, services, and administration. The boundaries between research and grey data are blurring, making it more difficult to assess the risks and responsibilities associated with any data collection. Many sets of data, both research and grey, fall outside privacy regulations such as HIPAA, FERPA, and PII. Universities are exploiting these data for research, learning analytics, faculty evaluation, strategic decisions, and other sensitive matters. Commercial entities are besieging universities with requests for access to data or for partnerships to mine them. The privacy frontier facing research universities spans open access practices, uses and misuses of data, public records requests, cyber risk, and curating data for privacy protection. This paper explores the competing values inherent in data stewardship and makes recommendations for practice, drawing on the pioneering work of the University of California in privacy and information security, data governance, and cyber risk.”
Drunk birds are wreaking havoc in Minnesota Popular Science
Consider the Wombat LRB
How (not) to run an innovation lab: the three mistakes to avoid
"Most government innovation labs fail — for surprisingly obvious reasons." (Apolitical)
Our media's vested interest in racism
"They weren't remotely interested in delving into the deep systemic issues." (Eureka Street)
Why is behavioral economics so popular?
"The recent vogue for this academic field is in part a triumph of marketing." (The New York Times)
Researchers say wealth tax an incentive to work - article discussing the advantages of introducing broad wealth tax on Australia's social welfare system and income tax.