Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Digital Trends: How Reviewing Movies Has Changed

It is my contention that a really great novel is made with a knife and not a pen. A novelist must have the intestinal fortitude to cut out even the most brilliant passage so long as it doesn't advance the story.
— Frank Yerby, born in 1916


BATTLE OF VIENNA: Good morning, Instapundit readers. It’s September 12th, the 335th anniversary of the Battle of Vienna.   That day in 1683 was a turning point in history with the forces of the Habsburg imperial monarchy, the Holy Roman Empire’s principalities, and the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, combining to stop the Ottoman Empire’s expansion into Europe. John III Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, was their military leader.
Vienna, which had been under siege since July, was near collapse. The Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I had fled and was now begging for help from the rest of the Empire, from Poland-Lithuania and from France. Poland as well as Saxony, Bavaria, Swabia, and some other HRE principalities answered the call. (France’s Louis XIV said no, and the Lithuanians, though willing, arrived too late for the battle.)
Sobieski personally led the 18,000-man cavalry charge that scattered the Ottomans. This was the beginning of a long end for the Ottoman Empire. After the battle, Sobieski gave credit to both the High and the low, “Venimus, Vidimus, Deus vicit (“We came, We saw, God conquered”).


 The past is images faded into patterns,

A dim, smudged diary of pleasures and concerns

We see through a crystal sphere of water and oil,

A second universe of calm and bitter moil.

The future yet to appear is already here,

Like the moon in clouds or a mask, a faceless sphere.

We can’t be sure, but we’re almost convinced it’s there,

As we take on faith there’ll be a next breath of air.

The present is our own distorted reflection

To be, added to the past’s fading collection

At the instant we see the next experience

With a curious and innocent prurience.

No; present is our eyes, myriad blinking spheres

That see through reflections to find that we are seers.  

At Stake in Lawsuit: What Can Bosses Access on Your Personal Devices? WSJ
The Village Voice, founded in 1955, ceases publication. A look back at how it changed journalism.
↩︎ The New Yorker


Data Protection: Actions Taken by Equifax and Federal Agencies in Response to the 2017 Breach. GAO-18-559: Published: Aug 30, 2018. Publicly Released: Sep 7, 2018:
Hackers stole the personal data of nearly 150 million people from Equifax databases in 2017. How did Equifax, a consumer reporting agency, respond to that event? Equifax said that it investigated factors that led to the breach and tried to identify and notify people whose personal information was compromised. In addition, three federal agencies that use Equifax services made their own security assessments and modified contracts with Equifax. Moreover, other federal agencies that oversee consumer reporting agencies started investigating Equifax and gave further advice to consumers on how to protect themselves against security breaches.”
Maybe Literature Really Is Dead 
If so, then modern technology is not the murderer, writes David Ulin. After all, when books had their greatest power and influence (he cites Thomas Paine's Common Sense as an example), mass-market printing was cutting-edge technology. That's not to say that today's technology isn't involved in the death, though. … [Read More]


AO Scott: How Reviewing Movies Has Changed


"It still matters to my colleagues and me that we experience a film in aesthetically optimal conditions — projected on a big screen in a dark room with no distractions — even if many of our readers will end up watching at home." … Read More











How The Online Global Gig Economy Threatens Us All


While freelance websites may have raised wages and broadened the number of potential employers for some people, they’ve forced every new worker who signs up into entering a global marketplace with endless competition, low wages, and little stability. Decades ago, the only companies that outsourced work overseas were multinational corporations with the resources to set up manufacturing shops elsewhere. Now, independent businesses and individuals are using the power of the internet to find the cheapest services in the world too, and it’s not just manufacturing workers who are seeing the downsides to globalization. All over the country, people like graphic designers and voice-over artists and writers and marketers have to keep lowering their rates to compete.

 We DIDN’T win the war! Like us all, PETER HITCHENS grew up on stories of Britain’s heroic victory over Hitler… but now, without questioning the bravery of our troops, he’s written a book challenging all we think about WW2 Daily Mail


Income tax evasion is one of the principal concerns that tax authorities face. In the United States, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates that tax evasion reduced government revenue by about USD458 billion between 2008 and 2010. In Australia, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) estimates a tax gap of $8.7 billion for individuals – this is the gap between the amount of tax collected and the amount of tax that would have been collected if every Australian taxpayer was fully compliant with the law. Tax evasion is a major concern for governments because they require the tax revenue to generate economic development and finance government transfers.




One of Sydney Night Patrols longest serving volunteers, Noel Davar, has worked with the team for over 30 years.Throughout his time volunteering, Noel has seen the scope of the Patrol evolve, but affirms that social connection has always been one of its greatest impacts.


“Twenty years ago, it wasn’t uncommon to make 12 or more
stops in a night. The stops were small, and even at the
biggest ones, you’d usually just see 10 or 15 people,” Noel
said. “Many stops only had one or two people and often we’d
stop for someone we’d just see sitting in an alcove on the
street. We were friends with people like Carl who lived in a
bus shelter at St Vincent’s Hospital, Steve who sat on the
steps of the Uniting Church opposite Woolworths and Alan who slept at Woodchips.


Woolworths trials 'scan and go' smartphone shopping
Woolworths will trial technology in one of its stores in Sydney’s east that will allow a few thousand people registered in its loyalty program to scan and pay for items using just their smartphones.

The "new payments platform" (NPP) has finally reached critical mass, with Westpac Banking Corp and ANZ Banking Group rolling out access to the system's first application, Osko. Using Osko, money can be sent and are received in under a minute via a PayID or BSB and account number between participating Osko banks and financial institutions


In Defense Of Connoisseurship


This, then, is a familiar distinction, the contrast between scrutiny of art’s social background and the connoisseur’s concern with artworks’ visual qualities. In principle, perhaps these two approaches are complimentary. But in practice, they seem to come into conflict. … [Read More]