In his 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell famously decried the use of language by bureaucrats, politicians and corporations to obfuscate and distort reality. The media are not far behind: Now the BBC, in a misguided attempt at even-handed journalism, has reached new heights in the art of euphemism. What would it take to get the media to call a spade a spade?
In August, Ashley Madison CEO Noel Biderman stepped down over the hacking scandal embroiling his marital cheating website. In September, a user whose data had been leaked killed himself. Were the hackers justified in publishing the names, account details, credit card information and sexual preferences of some 32 million users (including many records with .gov emails and, unless it's fake, of former UK prime minister Tony Blair), or are they needlessly and gratuitously jeopardizing the lives of countless people and their families?
Fascinating article by Peter Fingar on Cognitive Computing and the breakthroughs the new technology makes possible. If you don't have time to read the whole thing, just watch the second video with Rick Rashid of Microsoft doing a demo of computer-aided real-time translation into Chinese. Think of the possibilities for cross-cultural understanding and uniting humanity. Of course technology is value-neutral, it can be used for good or for evil, so we will also need to think about how to prevent destructive applications of Cognitive Computing, for example robotic warfare that could get out of hand and bring down humanity as a whole. Peter concludes that "We must evolve a fundamentally new economics, one not based on the 20th century reality of scarcity but on a new 21st century reality of abundance..."
From Mozart to Picasso, geniuses deliberately shaped their workdays to produce breakthroughs in creativity and performance. Author Mason Currey has researched 161 great artists, scientists, writers, composers and philosophers across history and found that none of them relied on their talents alone: they designed daily rituals and used original tricks that could work just as well for normal mortals like you and me. What strategies do you use to optimize your productivity?
In 2014 Apple beat Google and Samsung to become the world's most valuable brand at $119 billion. And now the iconic company made $18 billion in three months. But how did Apple produce those record earnings? A report by the German weekly Spiegel Online shows four of the tech giant's questionable practices. Should brand value be tied to ethical practices, or does it not matter how you make profit?
The cold-blooded murders of Charlie Hébdo staff by Islamists pose a dramatic culture clash: On one side radical jihadists who want to avenge perceived insults against their prophet Mohammad; on the other Europeans who want to exercise their freedom of the press and poke fun at the mighty everywhere (be they Moslem, Jewish or Christian). Nothing can justify killing journalists. But do Moslems have a point? Have the Western media violated a fundamental taboo against depicting the prophet or does Islam need to lighten up and accept the universal human value of free expression?
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