Friday, February 04, 2022

Deloitte report finds employees more productive during pandemic

 Henderson was based on the late Richard Hughes, a foreign correspondent for the British Sunday Times.

“He is a giant Australian with a European mind and a quixotic view of the world,” the late Ian Fleming said of Hughes. 



Why the IRS wants you to log in with a video selfie


Secret Acres: Foreign-owned agricultural land inaccurately tracked by government Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting


It’s Not Just the IRS—the US Government Wants Your Selfies

Wired: “…More than 20 federal agencies, including the Social Security Administration, use a digital identity system called Login.gov run by the General Services Administration. It’s built on services from LexisNexis and can use selfies for account verification. 

The GSA’s director of technology transformation services Dave Zvenyach says facial recognition is being tested for fairness and accessibility and not yet used when people access government services through Login.gov. The GSA’s administrator said last year that 30 million citizens have Login.govaccounts and that it expects the number to grow significantly as more agencies adopt the system.  

“ID.me is supplying something many governments ask for and require companies to do,” says Elizabeth Goodman, who previously worked on Login.gov and is now senior director of design at federal contractor A1M Solutions. 

Countries including the UK, New Zealand, and Denmark use similar processes to ID.me’s to establish digital identities used to access government services. Many international security standards are broadly in line with those of the US, written by the National Institute of Standards and Technology…”




Drumbl: #Audited — Social Media And Tax Enforcement



Tech Republic: “Deloitte has released a report detailing the firm’s findings on work productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic, stating there was actually a “spike in productivity” during the lockdown period that occurred in 2020. Whereas employers pre-pandemic found it tough to quantify a worker’s output, the pandemic has ushered in a new era of setting measurable tasks for employees to complete that allows companies to measure the success of their workers. The report’s findings dig into the humanization of work during the pandemic, as hybrid and remote work setups have become a need rather than a luxury granted by employers. The most important way to do this is to create a digital space with the appropriate tools to get work completed while also having the ability to collaborate with colleagues in the workplace. Like many companies, once Deloitte was forced to go fully remote the leadership team was not sure how the move would affect the productivity of their workforce…”



A Brief History of Stephen Breyer Enabling Corporate Power Balls and Strikes


Kiama: Why Sydney’s affluent buyers have their sights set on this coastal town


AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM:  Tonga undersea volcano eruption released up to 18 megatons of energy.


MARK JUDGE:  Journalists Need to Learn How to Lay Bricks. “In order to support my writing I often take seasonal jobs, a lot of them temporary—washing dishes, selling Christmas trees, working in a deli. At each and every one of them it has taken me about five minutes to discover, or reconfirm, that the working class—particularly young male minorities—is essentially conservative. It’s obvious why the elites don’t know what’s going on, but the grifters of Conservatism, Inc., are equally clueless.”


Sydney underworld figure Ibrahem Hamze charged with soliciting a murder





Mark Cavendish: The Tour de France comeback for ‘cycling’s greatest sprinter’ BBC 


New dangers? Computers uncover 100,000 novel viruses in old genetic data Science 



I am reminded of John Stuart Mill’s remark:

I know tolerably well what Ireland was, but have a very imperfect idea of what Ireland is.

Still true!  That is from one of Mill’s letters.

Here is my earlier post on my summer visit to Derry.  Remember the 1970s, when people thought there was a reasonable chance of peace in the Middle East, but that the Ireland problem could never be solved?