A cybercrime is reported every 10 minutes, federal police say
On Christmas Eve 2003, one of the nation’s largest bank heists occurred when $150 million was stolen without the robbers ever setting a foot in the bank.
The Christmas holiday period is one of the most lucrative times for cyber criminals, particularly in the form of Business Email Compromise (BEC), said Detective acting Superintendent Ben Case from the Australian Federal Police’s cybercrime operations.
Prague zoo’s month-old Sumatran orangutan finally has a name AP (Vlade). Must read, at least as far as paragraph five
Slate – Here are the top 20: “…To pick our 80 octogenarians (and nonagenarians and centenarians), we tried to measure influence broadly. We especially weighed significant achievements after 80 and current relevance, though lasting impact is important too. The list is limited to Americans (sorry, Pope Francis), but we used some editorial discretion for people who weren’t born here but have lived in the states for much of their lives. For illustrations, we partnered with students from the New School’s Parsons School of Design. It’s also important to note that this list inevitably skews toward white men, which is a reflection of the barriers that were in place while this generation was rising to power—barriers that in some cases still exist or are just beginning to be dismantled. “Influence” isn’t necessarily a positive thing, either; the list includes plenty of figures with complicated legacies. Some make movies. Some make laws. Some sing. Some tweet. One broke a record for the 100-meter dash at 99 years old. [Note – I am deeply grateful to know three extraordinary octogenarian women who deserve to be on this list – and am grateful that they have been the beacons in my life for many decades.]
Theatre That Steps Outside The Bohemian Theatre
“We are all here because we believe in the power of theatre, right? We think it has the power to change minds, to catalyze conversations, to shift narratives. But we most often limit that to what’s on our stages, with the goal that our mostly wealthy, mostly white patrons might see our groundbreaking show and say, “Wow, I never knew that.” But if we approached theatremaking as cultural workers, we wouldn’t be measuring success only by the number of tickets sold, and our programming choices wouldn’t be driven primarily by the institution’s need to sustain itself.” – American Theatre
Catie Lazarus, Who Made A Comedic Career Out Of Interviewing Everyone, 44
Lazarus landed into the public eye during another highly unfunny time – just after the Great Recession. She “probed the minds of celebrities and created her own late-night comedy universe on her longstanding self-produced live New York talk show, Employee of the Month.” – The New York Times
Try the contemporary dance version of A Christmas Carol. Yes, Ebeneezer can dance. – Dance Magazine
Blogging as a cynical curmudgeon’s survival strategy.
As long as you’re alive, life presents you with challenges. Living means dealing with them. Never back down
He Was a Stick, She Was a Leaf; Together They Made History NYT. “The augmentation of the complexity and intensity of the field of intelligent life.” –Ursula LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness.
Stablecoins: risks, potential and regulation (PDF) Bank of International Settlements
Repealing Section 230 as antitrust Interfluidity
Exclusive-U.S. to blacklist dozens of Chinese firms including SMIC, sources say Reuters
US-China tension: Pentagon’s 2021 maritime strategy has Beijing’s South China Sea activities in its sights South China Morning Post
China Is Not The Big Bad Guy In This Story The American Conservative
China to Provide Financial Support to Key Foreign Companies Bloomberg
Washington’s ploy to drive wedge between China and Mekong neighbors: China Daily editorial China Daily
She wants out. He’s not sure. Hong Kong splits apart as China tightens its grip. NBC
You may recall I already posted my best non-fiction books and best fiction books of 2020. But, unlike on previous lists, I didn’t pick a very best book of the year because in my gut I felt it had not yet arrived. Now I have a top three, all of which came after I posted my original list. Here are my top three picks for the year:
David S. Reynolds. Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times. At some point I vowed never to read another Lincoln biography, but this one won me over with its readability and also grasp of the broader cultural and political context. You may know Reynolds from his excellent Walt Whitman book — could there be a better background to write on Lincoln? Conceptual throughout. At 932 pp. every page of this one is instructive, even if you feel sated in Lincoln as I did.
Heather Clark, Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath. This is like the Lincoln biography — I was convinced I didn’t want to read a thousand pages about her (though I am a fan). And yet I keep on reading, now at about the halfway mark and I will finish with joy. This is one of the best and most gripping biographies I have read, covering growing up as a brilliant young woman in the 1950s, poetry back then, dating and gender relations amongst the elite at that time, how mental health problems were dealt with, and much more.
Jan Swafford, Mozart: the Reign of Love. Self-recommending. A wonderful biographer covers one of the most important humans, to produce the best Mozart biography of all time. You may recall I also had high praise for Swafford’s Beethoven biographyfrom 2014.
Those are my top three books of the year. I think you can make a good case for Joe Henrich’s WEIRD bookhaving the most important ideas of the year in it, but, perhaps because I already had read much of the material in article form, I didn’t love it as a book the way I do these.
Finally, I will note that the “best books lists” of other institutions have grown much worse, even over the last year. A good list has never been more valuable, and please note my recommendations are never done to fill a quota, “achieve balance,” right previous wrongs, or whatever. They are what I think are the best books. Scary how rare that has become.