Thursday, July 04, 2019

“Fate has a cruel sense of humor, don't you think?”

“Fate has a cruel sense of humor, don't you think?”
Christopher Paolini,
Inheritance     

“John, vanity. You have overburdened your argument with ostentatious erudition. A noble purpose, no doubt. But some jurists might think that you want to prove the brilliance of the speaker rather than the truth of the case he’s arguing.”
— Abigail Adams to John Adams in HBO’s “John Adams” series


The Man Who Walked His Life Away Deadspin (foghorn longhorn)

Gladys Berejiklian's private email exposed by BCC snafu

Myriam RobinColumnist









Spare a thought today for Michael Hansen, the TV producer turned adviser to NSW Minister for Better Regulation (we didn't make that up) Kevin Anderson.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian prepares for incoming email volleys.  AAP
Hansen endured what we don't doubt was one of the worst days of his career on Tuesday, having that morning shared the Premier's private email address with every journalist in Sydney.


The poor man, you see, forgot to BCC. And to add insult to injury, the email snafu was all to inform everyone about the titanically banal news that "new common-sense paintball laws"
are now in effect. Seems paintball guns no longer count as firearms. On such a hill did Gladys Berejiklian's privacy die!

'Kafkaesque': Meltdowns over MYOB as group certificates go

New Way to Pay Smile at the Camera

Parliamentary press freedom inquiry: letting the fox guard the MuMbrella

Proposing that it lead the quest for a solution shows the inquiry for what it is – a ... and cry over last month's raids by the Australian Federal Police on two media ...

Former KPMG partner to plead guilty over attack

The Australian Financial Review
Former KPMG partner Steven Economides has indicated he will plead ... two campaigners for Tony Abbott in the lead-up to the federal election.

Jan's husband works full-time, but they'll have a mortgage into their 70s

The ABC goes out onto the streets and into shopping centres around the country to find out what financial concerns are leaving some Australians sleepless.

Advising Clients on "How To Do Time" 

I picked up this offering that Tax Crimes fans might be interested in.  Alan Ellis and J. Michael Henderson, How to Do Time, Parts 1-4.  Many of criminal defense lawyers really do not get into the details of the prison experience.  These authors offer useful insights that will be helpful in preparing clients for the experience.  This was published in Law 360 but is available on Allan Ellis' sight, here.

The introduction from an email from Allan Ellis:
How To Do Time, Parts 1-4

Most lawyers understandably are unable to advise a first-time federal inmate as to what it will be like in prison. Rarely do they ever get beyond an attorney visiting room. In this four-part series of articles, Alan Ellis and J. Michael Henderson, the co-authors of the Federal Prison Guidebook, with the help of Phillip S. Wise, retired Bureau of Prisons Assistant Director of Health Services, offer answers to many questions that attorneys, their clients, and their clients' family and friends may have. 




Leader to Leader, Molly Tschang, First published: 06 June 2019 – “Our relationships with ourselves and others make or break our success. The group or individual with highest intelligence or skill set does not necessarily come out on top. Those who get to a shared reality make the best decisions, execute with speed, and deliver outstanding outcomes. Shared reality results when two or more people take the time and effort to build a common view of the world around them. This view can be narrow, such as: what kind of people with what talents and experience do we want to hire for our startup? Or it can be far‐reaching, as in: how do we know our employees understand and buy into our vision? This, by the way, is a step that many skip. Some of us skip it occasionally, and some of us skip it every single time. An ego‐driven chief executive officer who loves the sound of their own voice will never create a shared reality with their team … unless and until it dawns that failure to do so is wrecking their career (and not serving the company)…”
“As part of our ethos that technology can and should be a force for good. Our annual list of 35 innovators under 35 is a way of putting faces on that idea. In these profiles you’ll find people employing innovative methods to treat disease, to fight online harassment, and to create the next big battery breakthrough. You’ll find people using AI to better understand neurological disorders and to make cities more livable. This year’s list shows that even in our hard, cynical world, there are still lots of smart people willing to dedicate their lives to the idea that technology can make a safer, fairer world.”
 

“Berkman Klein’s Cyberlaw Clinic launched the “Principles Artificial Intelligence Project” to map AI principles and guidelines. The team created a data visualization to summarize their findings, and will later publish the final data visualization, along with the dataset itself and a white paper detailing their assumptions, methodology and key findings…” 
Firms That Promised High-Tech Ransomware Solutions Almost Always Just Pay the Hackers
Pro Publica – “As ransomware attacks crippled businesses and law enforcement agencies, two U.S. data recovery firms claimed to offer an ethical way out. Instead, they typically paid the ransom and charged victims extra…
The payments underscore the lack of other options for individuals and businesses devastated by ransomware, the failure of law enforcement to catch or deter the hackers, and the moral quandary of whether paying ransoms encourages extortion. Since some victims are public agencies or receive government funding, taxpayer money may end up in the hands of cybercriminals in countries hostile to the U.S. such as Russia and Iran…”
 
New Stanford linguistics research has analyzed how Republicans and Democrats use different language when discussing mass shootings on social media and found that Republicans talk more about the shooter and Democrats focus more on the victims.