Secret mic in Nest gearwasn't supposed to be a secret, says Google, we just forgot to tell anyone
Whoops! Oh gosh
PCWorld: “Can PowerPoint speak aloud and read the text in my slideshows? Yes, it can. Using the Speak command, also known as the Text to Speech (TTS) feature, PowerPoint can read the text in your slideshows and in your notes out loud. Be advised, however, that there is not a pause and continue feature with Speak. This is available only with the Read Aloud command, which is available in Word and Outlook, but not yet in PowerPoint or Excel…”
New York Times, Everyone Needs Legal Help. That Doesn’t Mean Everyone Needs a Lawyer.:
Rebecca Sandefur, a sociologist and researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has spent years considering a question that’s central to the American legal system: Does everyone facing legal issues need a lawyer?
She has found that, especially for everyday matters, many people would benefit more from what she likes to call the “just resolution” of legal problems. “Across a number of common justice problems,” she wrote in a recent article, “nonlawyer advocates and unrepresented lay people have been observed to perform as well or better than lawyers.”
For those who care about Chicago State University’s future, we recommend a visit to theCSU Faculty Voice blog. The online site () specializes in bracing, acerbic criticism — of former President Wayne Watson, of the university’s culture of cronyism, of bloated administrative salaries and sagging enrollment. Its slogan: “Crony $tate University: Where competent people are fired and our friends are hired.”
For years, CSU spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees trying to shut down the blog. Thin-skinned, anyone?
Leandra Lederman (Indiana) & Joseph Dugan, Information Matters in Tax Enforcement:
Most legal and economics scholars recognize both that the government needs information about taxpayers’ transactions in order to determine whether their reporting is honest, and that third-party reporting helps the government obtain that information. Given governments’ reliance on tax funds, it is risky to think that information or third-party reporting is not needed by tax agencies. However, a recent article [Taxation Without Information: The Institutional Foundations of Modern Tax Collection, 20 U. Pa. J. Bus. L. 93 (2018)] by Professor Wei Cui asserts that “modern governments can practice ‘taxation without information.’” Professor Cui’s argument rests on two premises: (1) “giving governments effective access to taxpayer information through third parties does not explain the success of modern tax administration” because, he argues, some important taxes, such as the value added tax (VAT), do not involve information reporting; and (2) modern tax administration succeeds because business firms are “sites of social cooperation under the rule of law,” fostering compliance. As this Article explains, the literature demonstrates that both arguments are mistaken.
Yale Environment 360: “Two new videos visualize how drastically global temperatures have changed since 1900 — and how much worse they will get by the end of this century. The data visualizations, created by Antti Lipponen, a research scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, depict 200 years of climate change in each of the world’s 191 countries in less than a minute.
Movers & shakers: treaties and tribunals
CAREERS: It's not just ex-politicians and their staffers who get the good gigs.
Flooded with criticism, MDBA finds a small island of common ground
WATER: The MDBA is being grilled in estimates today on its response to the royal commission, as the government refuses to release its controversial legal advice. It finds some common ground, but says recommendations were reckless.
Why the disruption-fit leader is crucial to every organisation
CHANGE: Three ways today’s managers can stay ahead of change. A framework for how leaders can remain grounded amidst disruption.
The fundamental step in the evolution of government services
PARTNER EBOOK: Download this eBook for recommendations on how to create new opportunities to drive savings, and take a fresh look at the way government services are delivered.
Murray-Darling Basin bipartisanship: not new, not strong
Scott
Hamilton & Stuart Kells
Water provides many examples of how politics can get in the way of good policy, and how Australia’s federal system sometimes supports and sometimes derails bipartisan solutions.
Whistleblowing reforms show hopes and risks for Australian politics
A
J Brown
Today’s overhaul of private sector whistleblower protections provides a glimmer of hope for the strong, bipartisan integrity reforms Australia needs … if and when we are prepared to lift our sights.
Four lessons from 11 years of Closing the Gap reports
Nicholas
Biddle
Some targets seem easier to meet than others, while some are just plain unreliable. Here are four things we've learnt from the last decade of Closing the Gap policy.
Improving commissioning through design thinking
Maria
Katsonis
Public policies and programs are intended to improve the lives of citizens. But policy design is often removed from the gritty environments experienced daily by citizens.
