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Showing posts from February, 2020

The Most Annoying Corporate Buzzwords - The Atlantic

The Most Annoying Corporate Buzzwords - The Atlantic : According to Gretchen McCulloch, the author of Because Internet, buzzwords were born from the artifice of the office itself. At work, people are paid to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do in their leisure time. They don’t dress at the office the way they do at home; they don’t act at the office the way they do outside of it; and they don’t talk about drilling down and rightsizing around their friends. Buzzwords mark the boundary of work life, broadcasting “I’m working!” in much the same way an Ann Taylor getup does. They allow workers to relate to one another—the much-decried “synergy” is an important part of a lot of people’s jobs, after all.
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Here Is the Technical Report Suggesting Saudi Arabia’s Prince Hacked Jeff Bezos’ Phone - VICE

Here Is the Technical Report Suggesting Saudi Arabia’s Prince Hacked Jeff Bezos’ Phone - VICE : get a look at the full file system. That’s where that state-sponsored malware is going to be found. Good state-sponsored malware should never show up in a backup,” said Sarah Edwards, an author and teacher of mobile forensics for the SANS Institute
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“Downhill,” Reviewed: An Inert Remake of “Force Majeure” | The New Yorker

“Downhill,” Reviewed: An Inert Remake of “Force Majeure” | The New Yorker : Both films are variations on a theme by Ernest Hemingway—specifically, the one in “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” a 1936 story (originally published in Cosmopolitan) about a couple of rich American socialites on a high-priced hunting trip in Africa, where Francis, in the presence of a charging lion, bolts, in full view of his wife, Margot; the white hunter, Robert Wilson, who’s running the hunt; and the local black men who are Wilson’s much-put-upon staff. Hemingway’s story quickly and deeply parses the couple’s intimate secrets and those of their set, the institutional organization of rich people’s safaris and the staffers who work for them, the psychology of cowardice and courage and the psychic overtones and romantic implications of both, not to mention even the inner lives of hunted and wounded animals. (For the record, a far better cinematic drama than “Force Majeure” and “Downhill,” based on t...
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TV is in decline, but successors remain in doubt | WARC

TV is in decline, but successors remain in doubt | WARC Reach depends on age YouTube’s coverage, key among 16-24 audiences, builds reach more quickly and with a narrower range of results than Facebook. By comparison, the social network’s reach curves are extremely varied, though this is an indication of the huge variation in the kind of Facebook ads that can be bought. Over 45s, meanwhile are far better reached by TV. In short, TV, YouTube, and Facebook all have the potential to find similar levels of reach under 45s. TV is, however, “unrivalled” among over 45s. The value of an impression Simply, impressions are not created equal. Though it is harder to measure TV impressions, the medium is far more likely to grab a viewer’s attention for just under half of a 30” commercial. Look elsewhere and the attention per viewed impression, according to Lumen figures, don’t clear 5 seconds, while the majority of ad media garners less than 4 seconds. The question, says Radford, is “will anyone e...
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OneCoin - Wikipedia

OneCoin - Wikipedia : On 30 September 2015, Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) issued a warning of potential risks in new cryptocurrencies, citing OneCoin as an example.[19] After the warning, OneCoin ceased all activity in Bulgaria and started to use banks in foreign countries to handle wire transfers from participants.[20]
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Gazprom’s soccer jersey strategy, explained

YouTube Gazprom’s soccer jersey strategy, explained. Become a Video Lab member!  http://bit.ly/video-lab Russia has the world’s largest reserves of natural gas, and most of it is controlled by the state-owned company Gazprom. But Gazprom has also built a global profile as a soccer sponsor. Good publicity for Gazprom means good publicity for Russia; since Gazprom is owned by the Russian state, domestic approval for the foreign energy provider can help build a reputation for Russia in places that might otherwise be wary of their creeping influence. And as Vladimir Putin pursues that influence abroad, building relationships with foreign business leaders using the sport of soccer has proven extremely useful. One place where that's been especially true is in Germany, where the team FC Schalke 04 has a longstanding sponsorship deal with Gazprom. When the deal was first signed in 2006, Russia was vying to increase their presence in the Western European gas market. Over a decade la...
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Africa: a proposal for an AFCON "every four years" and a "pan-African league" (G. infantino, FIFA)

Africa: a proposal for an AFCON "every four years" and a "pan-African league" (G. infantino, FIFA) This strategy includes the creation of a $1bn (€901m) fund "to build at least one top stadium in the countries of each of FIFA and  CAF 's 54 member associations," as well as the establishment of a genuine "pan-African league" with "the potential to generate a revenue of $3bn (€2.7bn) over a five-year cycle," said Gianni Infantino.
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Avast Is Going To Stop Selling Your Web Habits

Avast Is Going To Stop Selling Your Web Habits : Avast, one of the world’s biggest antivirus and security companies, announced on Thursday plans to wind up its subsidiary Jumpshot after a privacy furor erupted over the last two months. After Forbes pressed Avast CEO Ondrej Vlcek over the privacy implications�of the Czech cybersecurity giant sharing the Web-browsing habits and histories of its users with Jumpshot, Senator Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) wrote to the company, asking for more information. With 400 million users, the potential for privacy infringements was great, as proven in a joint investigation by Vice and PCMag, earlier this week, in which leaks revealed the businesses buying user data from Avast’s subsidiary. Customers included Google, Microsoft, Home Depot and many other companies. Data included which websites people visited, including porn sites and what specific videos they watched. Though Vlcek explained to Forbes in December that all the data was anonymized and aggregated...
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Excesses of the John Delaney FAI years laid bare again

Excesses of the John Delaney FAI years laid bare again Catastrophic error One obvious lesson that might be drawn from his time at the association is that when a catastrophic error is made by an organisation, then it is in everybody’s interests that the person responsible depart, whether voluntarily or not. There is a widely held view within business that chief executives generally take that sort of stuff less personally because they appreciate why they were getting the big bucks in the first place. But not Delaney, whose opening gambit in negotiations aimed at securing his departure this year was a bid to reach a settlement that ran into millions. Even that might have been worth paying a decade or so ago. With Delaney in the driving seat and the rest of the board comatose at the wheel, the association went for broke  It is actually more than that now since Delaney championed the Vantage Club premium ticket scheme that was supposed to pay the FAI’s share of the cost of redevelopin...
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Betting sponsor SportPesa given the boot by FAI | Ireland | The Sunday Times

Betting sponsor SportPesa given the boot by FAI | Ireland | The Sunday Times The  Football Association of Ireland  (FAI) has terminated its two-year sponsorship agreement with the betting company SportPesa one of the final deals that John Delaney agreed before he stepped down as chief executive of the football body last March. Despite its financial crisis, which was resolved through a €20m government bailout announced last week, the FAI decided to end its two-year contract with the Kenyan betting giant which only began last March. The association had been widely criticised by gambling addiction groups for agreeing a deal with SportPesa. When briefing the FAI board on the deal, which was launched in the Aviva Stadium with press photos of national team manager Mick McCarthy and Shaun Simmonds, a SportPesa marketing executive, Delaney pointed out that Shamrock Rovers had a sponsorship deal with Paddy Power. "[This] will be the last time we do a betting sponsor and [we] will get...
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