Thursday, July 25, 2019

Outrage is profitable. Most online outrage is faked for profit’


C’MON JOHN – YOU’RE ENGLISH; YOU KNOW SOME OF THOSE KNIGHTS WERE VERY NAUGHTY INDEED: John Cleese: I’m ‘too naughty’ for knighthood


Germany celebrates 'symbol of resistance' on 75th anniversary of plot to kill Hitler


German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Europeans to confront populism, nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism as she paid tribute to the Nazi resistance in her own country.




       Philip Roth estate auction 

       They auctioned off a bunch of stuff from The Plot Against America (etc.)-author Philip Roth's estate yesterday. 
       A lot of furniture and household stuff went under the hammer -- down to the patio furniture -- and fairly little that's literature-related. At least most of the stuff went for more than the estimates (the television stand -- despite being in: "good condition used, sturdy" and: "From the Roth Living Room" ! -- was one of the few real bargain items). 
       There were three typewriters up for auction: an Olivetti Lettera 32 with Case (estimate: US$300-500; sold for $17,500), and two IBM Selectric IIs, the first of which had an estimate of US$100-150 (seriously, what were they thinking ?) and sold for $5,000, the second of which had an estimate of US$150-250 and sold for $4,800 
       I remind you that nearly a decade ago Cormac McCarthy's Olivetti went for US$254,500 ..... 

Australia ignores rising industrial cyber threat
  Just as we are behind on internet connectivity, we are also lagging on cyber security for the industrial infrastructure that will increasingly run society. We have a critical under-investment and will fall further behind without government action. Australians are largely unaware of this new cyber security threat, as commentary and policies focus on the theft of IP and personal data - the stealing of secrets from IT. But an even greater danger is posed by the introduction of the industrial Internet of Things across our production and supply lines. see also, Critical infrastructure at risk from ‘gaping holes’ in control systems



Isabelle Roughol, senior editor at large, LinkedIn
An interview with Rachel Botsman on how trust stopped flowing upwards, the traits of trustworthiness and the benefits of distrust.

On The Nature Of Aphorisms



Adam Gopnik: “The aphorism, in the course of history, can be taken as the epitome of the rational or the epitome of the irrational. It can be compressed and self-contained wisdom, or it can be a broken fragment designed to show that ours is an already shattered world. But, whatever it is, it’s always an epitome, and seeks an essence.” – The New Yorker


…Newmark, who has previously observed “a trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy”, prefers not to use the term “fake news” – perhaps it has been tainted for ever by Donald Trump. He reasons: “Some people have said fake news is news that I don’t like, so I will talk about misinformation or disinformation and that is often either false news or false witness, either weaponised information or just carelessness…There is an entire ecosystem at work, he continues, that can enable a falsehood from the obscure reaches of the web to jump on to millions of TV screens with dizzying speed. “It’s a small amount of disinformation originating in some of the social media platforms used by foreign adversaries and their domestic allies. They get amplified: there’s multiple levels including conspiracy sites, then news sites which don’t care about fact-checking. And then once that becomes news, sometimes that emerges into conventional or mainstream media.”…”

China inks secret deal to allow troops at Cambodian naval base: report

China will be able to place armed forces at a Cambodian naval base under a secret agreement the two nations have reached, according to a media report.

How’s this for a headline? “He Wasn’t Seeking to Kill a Mob Boss. He Was Trying to Help Trump, His Lawyer Says.” The New York Times’ Ali Watkins has the story of Anthony Comello and his obsession with far-right QAnon conspiracy theories. 

A heat wave is gripping much of the country, which is why The New York Times’ interactive “Summer’s Hottest Takes” is such a cool idea — such as, what makes 99 percent of all men look like “jumbo dingdongs”?