He spoke about some of the books he wrote, although he didn’t include his novel I like best, Solo Days.He described Light Years …”as being like the worn stones of conjugal life: everything ordinary, everything marvelous, everything that makes it full or makes it embittered—it goes on for years, decades, and in the end seems to have passed like things seen from a train, a meadow there, trees, houses, darkened towns, a station going by.”
The book represented the memory of those days, memories that are probably true for any marriage.
A snake is a simple creature driven by its instincts. It follows a set of hardwired rules which it can’t question and which can lead to dangerous errors when it encounters something outside of its normal experience, like a towel. In other words, a snake’s mind is a very limited algorithm. But the world today is saturated with algorithms, from Facebook to FinTech to facial recognition systems used by the police and ten thousand other things. The $64,000 question – perhaps, the $64 billion dollar question or the 64,000 lives question – is how many of them are still operating at the “dumb snake swallows a towel” level of sophistication.
An algorithmic snake brain and an algorithmic world
Some departments are still making staff report to the office despite a direction from the Public Service Commissioner to make working from home the default.
Services Australia staff have been told they must all continue to report to the office, unless they had existing work from home arrangements in place.
Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan), Taxes in the Time of Coronavirus: Is it Time to Revive the Excess Profits Tax?:
At a time when most American citizens and businesses are suffering catastrophic economic damage from the Coronavirus recession, some corporations—such as Amazon, 3M, Gilead, and Zoom—are seeing their profits rise dramatically because of the pandemic.
You Probably Should Be Wearing a Face Mask if You Can
Shifting Ground: Are You Ready For A New Discourse For A New World?
“These are not the end times, I mean, but nor are they business as usual, and we would do well to understand that not only is there room for a middle path between these, but indeed there is an absolute necessity that we begin our voyage down that path. To the squealing chiliasts and self-absorbed presentists, indulging themselves with phrases like “the end of the world,” I say: “Did it never dawn on you that all of human history has just been one partial apocalypse after another?” And to the business-as-usual mandarins I say: “Thank you for your service in the glorious battles of the past.” – The Point
Explainer: Hobbled IRS tax agency may need months to get cash to Americans Reuters. Maybe I should introduce a “Failed State” category
CoronaRorts: rescue measures a free kick or fee kick for the banks?
Aren't the banks lovely to let their home loan customers take a six month break from mortgage repayments! Only one catch ... they are charging compound interest; interest on their interest. Michael West reports on the hardship of the banks versus the hardship of their
Matt Stoller @matthewstoller It's so much easier for an airline exec to apply for $32 billion in bailout money than for a random poor person to apply for food stamps. (ht @amandalfischer ) https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Guidelines%20and%20Procedures%20for%20Payroll%20Support%20to%20Air%20Carriers%20and%20Contractors.pdf
Matt Stoller @matthewstoller Author, "Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy," Research Director at American Economic Liberties Project
Chinese mask entrepreneur reaps $1.9bn coronavirus bonanza FT
How the Pandemic Will End The Atlantic
Coronaviruses Similar to The COVID-19 One Have Just Been Found in Pangolins
PR Disaster: President Xi Forgets To Remove ‘Made In China’ Tags From Coronavirus
Reminder: The Virus Is a Fire, and the Arsonist Is China. “China did this. It’s not racist to say so. Telling the truth doesn’t make you responsible for the actions of racists. Thinking so, saying so, only helps the people who did this to you.”
The Chinese probably won’t like this one, either.
Half of the tax office's workforce has started working from home as the public service begins a large-scale shift of staff from the workplace in a bid to avoid COVID-19 infections.
Mass APS work-from-home shift under way
Mass APS work-from-home shift under way
During the shutdown, the creativity pours forth (Joseph’s Machines).
UK fiction sales surge, most of all long classics
The Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic is, at least on available evidence, striking rich western countries the hardest so far. Lower-income countries will be hit hard too, however: massive capital flight is already underway. And in all societies, as ever, the impacts fall hardest on those who are already marginalised and vulnerable.
Tax justice and the coronavirus
Investors demand OECD tax transparency
The Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic is, at least on available evidence, striking rich western countries the hardest so far. Lower-income countries will be hit hard too, however: massive capital flight is already underway. And in all societies, as ever, the impacts fall hardest on those who are already marginalised and vulnerable.
Tax justice and the coronavirus
Does a USB drive get heavier as you store more files on it? Supposedly it gets lighter.
How big will the trade collapse be? (The Economist)
MIE: Dr. Fauci donuts.
Michael Greenstone: key economic facts about Covid-19.
Musical version of the new Bohemian Rhapsody (recommended).
