The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.
— Anton Chekhov, born in 1860“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.”
– Robert Frost
'We will keep them here in NSW': Labor announces jobs policy
NSW Labor leader Michael Daley has promised more local workers and materials will be used in major state government contracts if elected in next month's election.
'Sydney should shine after dark': Labor to revive 'twilight economy'
Labor wants to revitalise Sydney's "twilight economy" but remains supportive of the inner city's lock-out laws.
The U.S. government and Facebook are negotiating a record, multibillion-dollar fine for the company’s privacy lapses WaPo. Martha Stewart when to jail on a nothingburger insider trading charge. Why are we even “negotiating” with Zuckerberg?
What It’s Like to Work Inside Apple’s ‘Black Site’
While companies aren’t required to disclose the
sizes of their contingent workforces, there’s ample evidence that tech
companies use large numbers of contractors and temps. At Alphabet Inc.’s Google
employees accounted for less than half its workforce.
How long will the shocking revelations of the royal commission remain at the forefront of their strategies for governance and cultural change? And will our regulators be up to the task of ensuring that long into the future, complacency and misconduct does not become the norm again?
Graeme Samuel AC is a Professorial Fellow in the Monash Business School. He was a co-author of the Report of the APRA Prudential Inquiry into the culture, governance and accountability of Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Banking royal commission: Kenneth Hayne has a message for every boardroom ...
How long will the shocking revelations of the royal commission remain at the forefront of their strategies for governance and cultural change? And will our regulators be up to the task of ensuring that long into the future, complacency and misconduct does not become the norm again?
Graeme Samuel AC is a Professorial Fellow in the Monash Business School. He was a co-author of the Report of the APRA Prudential Inquiry into the culture, governance and accountability of Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Banking royal commission: Kenneth Hayne has a message for every boardroom ...
Small security firm given less than a week to bid for huge Manus Island contract
Paladin, which until last week had its head office as a beach shack on Kangaroo Island, was awarded contracts worth up to $423 million to provide security for refugees.
Art Dealer Mary Boone Sentenced To Prison For Tax Fraud
“After pleading guilty in September to filing false tax returns that claimed she had taken in millions of dollars less than was the reality, Mary Boone — an art dealer with roots in New York’s 1970s-era SoHo scene and galleries in the present in Midtown and Chelsea — was sentenced on Thursday to 30 months in prison in New York’s Southern District Court. – ARTnews
The Stolen Equifax Data Has Never Been Found, Experts Suspect a Spy Scheme CNBC
Revolt of the gig workers: How delivery rage reached a tipping point SF Chronicle
From Misfit With Blog to Author With Deal
ZDNet: “Cyber-criminal groups are exploiting a Gmail feature to file for fraudulent unemployment benefits, file fake tax returns, and bypass trial periods for online services. The trick is an old one and has been used in the past. It refers to Gmail’s “dot accounts,” a feature of Gmail addresses that ignores dot characters inside Gmail usernames
Researchers, scared by their own work, hold back “deepfakes for text” AI
Deepfakes are scary because they allow
anyone’s image to be co-opted, and call into question our ability to trust what
we see. Even if the incriminating footage is subsequently proven to be fake,
the damage to the victim’s reputation may be impossible to repair. What is at
stake is the underlying social structure in which we all agree that some form
of truth exists, and the social realities that are based on this trust. One
approach will be to decentralise trust, so that we no longer need a few
institutions to guarantee whether information is genuine and can instead rely
on multiple people or organisations with good reputations. One way to do this
could be to use blockchain
Germany Opens Massive Intelligence Complex (Maybe the World’s Largest) in Berlin NYT
Opinion – Wired: “…What blockchain does is shift some of the trust in people and institutions to trust in technology. You need to trust the cryptography, the protocols, the software, the computers and the network.
Germany Opens Massive Intelligence Complex (Maybe the World’s Largest) in Berlin NYT
Opinion – Wired: “…What blockchain does is shift some of the trust in people and institutions to trust in technology. You need to trust the cryptography, the protocols, the software, the computers and the network.
“We know how important it is for marketers to have their pulse on the latest consumer insights and industry trends. To help you easily stay up-to-date we organized hundreds of Google insights and facts by industry, platform, and theme. Search through to find inspiration, or the perfect insight to power your thinking. Insight cards are shareable and downloadable, so you can easily use in a presentation, or send as inspiration to your colleagues…”
Any Western country using Huawei or other Chinese tech makers in major projects will risk consequences, US ambassador warns South China Morning Post
The strange superstitions of Chinese tech companies Abacus
Why have we become so bamboozled by numbers?
Official figures are produced to serve particular ends. Their names are mere labels, with no connection to infallible underlying stable properties. Most of the time, the statistics that politicians and the media quote do not reveal scientific facts. In the 1980’s TV comedy Yes, Prime Minister, the prime minister asks: “Is it OK to mention figures?” The TV director replies: “Yes. Practically no one takes them in and those who do don’t believe them, but it makes people think you’ve got the facts at your fingertips.”
Official figures are produced to serve particular ends. Their names are mere labels, with no connection to infallible underlying stable properties. Most of the time, the statistics that politicians and the media quote do not reveal scientific facts. In the 1980’s TV comedy Yes, Prime Minister, the prime minister asks: “Is it OK to mention figures?” The TV director replies: “Yes. Practically no one takes them in and those who do don’t believe them, but it makes people think you’ve got the facts at your fingertips.”
Facing death with Tolstoy
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, as its title plainly suggests, tells the story of the final months of one man: an ordinary, reasonably prosperous, and successful middle-aged Russian judge. An apparently trivial injury (he hurts his side in a fall from a chair while hanging curtains in his new apartment) quickly develops into something worse. Doctors offer all kinds of diagnoses, medicines, and guarded reassurance, but within weeks, Ivan Ilyich can see that he is a dying man, confronted with the agony, indignity, loneliness, and (in Tolstoy’s uncompromising description) foul stench of his own demise. For most of his family and colleagues, his death is an inconvenience and an embarrassment; they were, as the living usually are, relieved not to be dying themselves but simultaneously aggrieved by the reminder of their own mortality that Ivan Ilyich’s death gave them. It is only a young servant, Gerasim, with all of Tolstoy’s favorite peasant virtues, who can look the processes of dying in the eye and care for his master with true humanity; he deals unashamedly with excrement and allows the dying man to lie in the one position in which he can find some comfort—with his legs raised, resting on Gerasim’s shoulders.
SV pair tackle Commissioner of Police over revocation of security licence
Ex-acting FBI chief describes secret meetings to 'remove Trump'
In
his first TV interview, Andrew McCabe also revealed that he launched
the Russia investigation because he was disturbed by Donald Trump's
comments.
How
Zip Pay works, and why the extra cost of ‘buy now, pay later’ is still enticing
In the past three years, the number of Australians using such services has jumped from 400,000 to 2 million. Its business model means it can avoid the responsible lending requirements of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act. As such, Zip lends money without verifying a person’s income or credit history. The potential it will entice those with low income and bad credit has attracted the scrutiny the Senate inquiry into credit and financial services. The problems should be obvious, despite the “interest-free” boast, Zip Pay’s $6 monthly fixed fee is in fact a quasi-interest charge, equivalent to paying 7.4% interest annually on a $1,000 debt.
In the past three years, the number of Australians using such services has jumped from 400,000 to 2 million. Its business model means it can avoid the responsible lending requirements of the National Consumer Credit Protection Act. As such, Zip lends money without verifying a person’s income or credit history. The potential it will entice those with low income and bad credit has attracted the scrutiny the Senate inquiry into credit and financial services. The problems should be obvious, despite the “interest-free” boast, Zip Pay’s $6 monthly fixed fee is in fact a quasi-interest charge, equivalent to paying 7.4% interest annually on a $1,000 debt.
One-third
of Australians think banks do nothing for the greater public good
The leaders of our banks and financial institutions are seen as the most self-serving in the nation. More than a third (35.4%) of respondents believe banking and financial institutions show “no leadership for the greater good”. This score is slightly worse than public perceptions of the Federal Government, substantially worse than religious institutions and significantly worse than trade unions.
The leaders of our banks and financial institutions are seen as the most self-serving in the nation. More than a third (35.4%) of respondents believe banking and financial institutions show “no leadership for the greater good”. This score is slightly worse than public perceptions of the Federal Government, substantially worse than religious institutions and significantly worse than trade unions.
