Via Business Insider:
These essential books serve as an excellent study in the success (and failure) of tech companies and the history of how we got where we are with computers.
If you want to know how we got to where we are today.
Best Technology Books
Formatting Rules To Get Your Resume Through The Scanning Software
Via Business Insider:
Here are some formatting rules that Gillis says job seekers should follow to create a filtering software-friendly resume:
Do not place your contact information in the header of your resume, because filtering softwares can be set to ignore headers and footers so there is a risk this information will be deleted.
Choose a conservative font such as Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, or Calibri. Gillis says that serif fonts, such as Times Roman or Cambria may be rejected by screening software.
Do not use any script fonts.
The smallest font size to use for the body of your resume should be 11 point. "Any smaller and you're probably asking for trouble."
No graphics or logos.
Do not format using tables.
No borders.
A one-inch margin top and bottom is best.
- Do not use any lines that cross the entire page from margin to margin, because "some filters have been created that will reject a document for nothing more than having a single line run continuously across the page," he writes.
Formatting Rules To Get Your Resume Through The Scanning Software - Business Insider
Leda and the swan for the 21st century
Via Vimeo. The Leda/swan trope would be more compelling than the wolf image in the video.
Making the blind see
Via The Atlantic:
There hasn't been much that science has been able to do to help those who suffer from RP. While those afflicted with deafness might be able to turn to devices like cochlear implants to improve their hearing, those who suffer from retinal degeneration haven't been so lucky. Until now.
Enter the Argus II, a retinal prosthesis. Since RP affects only the retina, leaving the optic nerve intact, the bionic eye is able to substitute for the eye's natural photoreceptors by directly stimulating the retina's remaining cells -- which in turn pass the signal to the optic nerve. The device, developed by the firm Second Sight and already approved for use in Europe, just got approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
The U.S. Just Got Its First Bionic Eye - Megan Garber - The Atlantic
Why Bureaucratic Managers Are Essential
Via Business Insider:
Most of us, write Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan in their new book The Org: The Underlying Logic Of The Office, "imagine a world without managers as a kind of paradise where workers are unshackled by pointless bureaucracy… a place where stuff actually gets done". Strangely, managers tend to agree.
Points:
- “What employees see as "pointless bureaucracy" is a company acting rationally to survive. There are bad managers, of course – but at least some of the bureaucratic crap, from this perspective, is intrinsic. Remove it and the organization collapses.”
- “Get real, Fisman and Sullivan say: much of what we object to is just what happens when groups work together. If you really can't stand bureaucracy, there's self-employment, which brings different hassles, or working only for small organisations. But don't hanker for organizational life without management nonsense. That can't exist – and surely it's better to make career decisions on the basis of that reality.”
Hardcover: Paperback: Kindle:
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Casino panopticon: a look at the CCTV room in the Vegas Aria
Via Boing Boing:
The valuable trend in surveillance, Whiting says, is toward this data-driven analysis (even when much of the job still involves old-fashioned gumshoe work). "It's the data," he says, "And cameras now are data. So it's all data. It's just learning to understand that data is important."
One thing I wanted to see in this piece was some reflection on how casino level of surveillance, and the casino theory of justice (we spy on everyone to catch the guilty people) has become the new normal across the world.
Casino panopticon: a look at the CCTV room in the Vegas Aria - Boing Boing
Points:
- “They use a lot of machine intelligence to raise potential cheating to the attention of the operators.”
- “…not looking for specific people, but rather patterns of behavior.”
- “…though facial recognition doesn’t yet work reliably enough to replace human operators, Whiting’s excited at the prospects of OCR. It’s already proven useful for identifying license plates. The next step, he says, is reading cards and automatically assessing a player’s strategy and skill level. In the future, maybe, the cameras will spot card counters and other advantage players without any operator intervention.”
Ponder: As surveillance becomes ever more pervasive, will we begin to redefine what we once considered out-of-bounds behavior in order to protect people’s private worlds? For example, will we demand employers not look unfavorably on job candidates because of photos of embarrassing conduct posted on Facebook?
Game to destroy CCTV cameras: vandalism or valid protest?
Via Boing Boing and Guardian:
This is Camover, a new game being played across Berlin, which sees participants trashing cameras in protest against the rise in close-circuit television across Germany.
The game is real-life Grand Theft Auto for those tired of being watched by the authorities in Berlin; points are awarded for the number of cameras destroyed and bonus scores are given for particularly imaginative modes of destruction. Axes, ropes and pitchforks are all encouraged.
Game to destroy CCTV cameras: vandalism or valid protest? | World news | The Guardian
Points:
- “The use of surveillance cameras has become a thorny political issue in Germany.”
- “Camover's direct-action approach revolves around a small but committed group who call themselves ‘workless people – we are shoplifters, graffiti sprayers, homeless and squatters.’ They claim to have snuffed out as many as 50 cameras since the game began a few weeks ago.”
- “Although we call it a game, we are quite serious about it: our aim is to destroy as many cameras as possible and to have an influence on video surveillance in our cities."
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