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Thursday, October 03, 2019

In other news about Mouse: Contributing Data to Deepfake Detection Research


The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places.



… In Search of an Honest Man | by Gary Saul Morson | The New York Review of Books
Although it can be read on its own, Life and Fate is actually the second part of a “dilogy.” It continues the story of Grossman’s earlier novel, Stalingrad, which he was forced to publish under the title For a Just Cause, a phrase that Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov had used to describe the Soviet war effort when he announced the German invasion. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler’s new translation of Stalingrad allows us to trace the earlier trajectory of Life and Fate’s many real and fictional characters. First published when Stalin was still alive, Stalingrad is considerably less explicit than Life and Fate about its ethical and political themes. Even so, it was, by Soviet standards, remarkably bold.


 The further you look into it, the more comprehensive and universal do you see the inheritance of our civilization to be. And that is something that we tend to forget today. It isn’t a narrow bequest. It is something which actually is open to all kinds of innovation, which accepts the whole of human being as its subject matter

The Team at Waterhouse Tax Lawyers are Tax Law Experts
Clients are always impressed by Tania's warm, open approach to their tax problems. 


Comparison from tweeter re instagram which is "like watching ballerinas perform in snowshoes. It’s graceless and lumpy and elicits not pity and terror but pity and boredom ..."

White House reporters were sent into a panic Tuesday morning after a mouse fell from the ceiling of the press booth.

NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander tweeted that a mouse “literally fell out of the ceiling” and onto his lap. 


Other reporters, including Reuters correspondent Steve Holland, tweeted photos of White House reporters scrambling in the press room as they searched for the mouse as it ran around the booth.  


One producer’s tweeted video shows the mouse running behind tables and equipment as it remained uncaptured.
… Reporters scramble after mouse falls from White House ceiling | TheHill



Who vouches for you?


Inside a massive cyber ANU hack that risks compromising future leaders around the globe
Without anyone clicking on a link, a massive cyber attack of unprecedented sophistication gained access to private information of potentially high-ranking officials across the globe.
Key points:
  • A massive cyber attack allowed hackers to access 19 years' worth of personal information of staff and students
  • The attack on Australian National University was so sophisticated it didn't even need an email to be clicked on
  • The extent of the hack remains unclear but names, dates of births, addresses and phone numbers were stolen
Thanks to the release of a 5,000-word report into the incident, the public can see for the first time how sophisticated and extensive the attack on the ANU was.
For weeks, hackers quietly trawled through the computer system of the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.
It was months before ANU even realised the hackers had broken in, and almost a year later it remains a mystery just how damaging the attack was.
What is known is personal details were taken from a university that's educated some of the best and brightest people.

The ANU hack came down to a single email — here's what we know






Has Australia Really Had a 28-Year Expansion? (Yes!)

by  Alex Tabarrok in

It’s often said that Australia hasn’t had a recession in nearly 30 years. Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria and Brian Reinbold of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis take a closer look. If a recession is defined as two quarters of negative growth in GDP then the claim is true but if you define a recession as two quarters of negative growth in GDP per capita then there have been three such recessions since 1991: circa 2000-2001, 2005-2006 and 2018-2019.

 A former Chinese mayor was hiding 13 tonnes of gold bullion at his home – video MBS News. Kevin W: “‘Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb'”.
Public Citizen, A Progressive Tax With Beneficial Effects:



A Small Levy on Financial Transactions Would Steer Clear of Struggling Americans, Raise Meaningful Revenue, and Possibly Retire An Abusive Wall Street Industry



A small tax on financial transactions, such as a one-tenth of 1 percent levy on the purchase of stocks and bonds, would likely end the viability of high-frequency trading while raising consequential sums for the U.S. Treasury. Opponents of this proposal have claimed it would hinder the ability of middle-class families to save for retirement. In contrast, we conclude that the costs of a modest financial transaction tax (FTT) would be little to nothing for middle-income families and would be easily manageable for average families in top income bracket.














The IRS’s new Tax Gap Map


Yesterday, the IRS released new federal tax gap estimates, including a new Tax Gap Map. My first substantive post on this blog, back in May 2016 (linked here), was on the IRS’s tax gap study for the 2008-2010 tax years. The new report covers averages from tax years 2011-2013, i.e., picking up … Continue reading →

Nellie Bly Makes the News: An Animated Documentary About the Investigative Journalism Pioneer Who Paved the Way for Women in Media

“As the most famous woman journalist of her day, as an early woman industrialist, as a humanitarian… Bly kept the same formula for success: Determine Right. Decide Fast. Apply Energy. Act with Conviction. Fight to the Finish. Accept the Consequences. Move o


Contributing Data to Deepfake Detection Research - Google Blog: “…So-called “deepfakes“—produced by deep generative models that can manipulate video and audio clips—are one of these. Since their first appearance in late 2017, many open-source deepfake generation methods have emerged, leading to a growing number of synthesized media clips. While many are likely intended to be humorous, others could be harmful to individuals and society. Google considers these issues seriously. As we published in our AI Principles last year, we are committed to developing AI best practices to mitigate the potential for harm and abuse. Last January, we announced our release of a dataset of synthetic speech in support of an international challenge to develop high-performance fake audio detectors. The dataset was downloaded by more than 150 research and industry organizations as part of the challenge, and is now freely available to the public. Today, in collaboration with Jigsaw, we’re announcing the release of a large dataset of visual deepfakes we’ve produced that has been incorporated into the Technical University of Munich and the University Federico II of Naples’ new FaceForensics benchmark, an effort that Google co-sponsors. The incorporation of these data into the FaceForensics video benchmark is in partnership with leading researchers, includingProf. Matthias Niessner, Prof. Luisa Verdoliva and the FaceForensics team. You can download the data on the FaceForensics github page…”

 Matthew Gale and Natalia Sidlina, Natalia Goncharova.  The images in this book I found mind-blowing, claiming a place for Goncharova as one of the very best artists of her time (and what a time for the visual arts it was)

It's time to tax for gender justice  (1 Oct 2019)
at