Despite employing a small army of contractors to monitor posts, it’s clear the company is no longer fit for purposeWay back in the 1950s, a pioneering British cybernetician, W Ross Ashby, proposed a fundamental law of dynamic systems. In his book An Introduction to Cybernetics, he formulated his law of requisite variety, which defines “the minimum number of states necessary for a controller to control a system of a given number of states”. In plain English, it boils down to this: for a system to be viable, it has to be able to absorb or cope with the complexity of its environment. And there are basically only two ways of achieving viability in those terms: either the system manages to control (or reduce) the variety of its environment, or it has to increase its internal capacity (its “variety”) to match what is being thrown at it from the environment.Sounds abstruse, I know, but it has a contemporary resonance. Specifically, it provides a way of understanding some of the current internal turmoil in Facebook as it grapples with the problem of keeping unacceptable, hateful or psychotic content off its platform. Two weeks ago, the New York Times was leaked 1,400 pages from the rulebooks that the company’s moderators are trying to follow as they police the stuff that flows through its servers. According to the paper, the leak came from an employee who said he “feared that the company was exercising too much power, with too little oversight – and making too many mistakes”.... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In his book, "21st Century Monetary Policy," former Fed chair Ben S. Bernanke argues for letting the central bank do everything it can to correct serious downturns and keep cheap money flowing into the economy. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-05-27 16:20:21 UTC ]
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‘The Snake’ is a short story by the American author John Steinbeck (1902-68), published in The Monterey Beacon in 1935 before being included in Steinbeck’s collection The Long Valley in 1938. The story tells of a young scientist who is at work experimenting with animals in his laboratory when he […] Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2022-05-26 14:00:50 UTC ]
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“Liarmouth” is about three generations of women in one family who plan to confront or kill one another. It also has a trampoline fun park. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-05-03 09:00:08 UTC ]
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John Gleeson’s “The Gotti Wars” is a memoir about what it took to jail America’s star gangster. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-04-29 20:03:55 UTC ]
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The ‘fascinating insight into what was to become an iconic work’ is the only known surviving copy of its kind and is to be auctioned along with a first edition signed by RowlingA prepublication version of the first Harry Potter book by JK Rowling is expected to fetch at least £20,000 when it is... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-04-26 09:29:11 UTC ]
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"Station Eleven" author Emily St. John Mandel explores time travel and the nature of reality. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-04-12 13:40:01 UTC ]
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To heal after an agonizing divorce, writer Florence Williams consulted researchers and communed with nature. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2022-03-11 13:00:37 UTC ]
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“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” –Arthur Ashe * Years ago, when I was still a budding fiction writer, I published an essay about how hard skateboarding is to write about. I focused on a few novelists who had skater characters in their books but who clearly didn’t skate […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-02-09 09:55:45 UTC ]
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John Murray’s new literary crime and thriller imprint is launching with a line-up of authors including Mick Herron, Frankie Boyle and Kaoru Takamura, among others. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2022-01-18 00:15:20 UTC ]
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Historian Giles Milton's "exhilarating" wartime story Vodka with Stalin: The Allied Mission to Wartime Moscow has gone to John Murray. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-17 06:27:45 UTC ]
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Broken Sleep Books has landed Killernova, a book that explores the woodcutting heritage and colonial history of Southeast Asia in verse, by Bornean-Australian author and poet Omar Musa. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-12-17 01:51:27 UTC ]
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John Legend, Mike Jackson and Ty Stiklorius, founders of Get Lifted Film Co., are joining the independent publishing company Zando with their own imprint. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-12-13 14:00:39 UTC ]
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Singer John Legend and members of the Get Lifted Film Company have partnered with Zando to form a new imprint, Get Lifted Books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-12-13 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Hachette UK has bought John Catt Educational for an undisclosed sum in a deal that sees it become part of Hodder Education Group. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-30 16:03:02 UTC ]
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An anonymous academic’s memoir about his underground mission to save flowers from extinction, The Orchid Outlaw, has gone in a 24-hour pre-empt to John Murray. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-30 09:54:47 UTC ]
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John Murray Press is partnering with Waterstones to host a one-off Facebook Live “fan-led” event with Billy Connolly in December. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-30 07:12:58 UTC ]
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“Look for Me and I’ll Be Gone,” his latest collection, erodes the boundaries between fiction, memoir and essay. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-11-16 19:53:17 UTC ]
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Fay Evans alleges a ‘striking similarity’ between the 2019 Excitable Edgar TV campaign and her 2017 book Fred the Fire-Sneezing DragonThe author of a self-published children’s book about a dragon that causes havoc with its fiery sneezes is suing John Lewis over its 2019 Christmas ad about a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-11-16 14:46:45 UTC ]
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Bonnier Books UK imprint John Blake has landed a “shocking” memoir by Luis Elizondo, the former head of the US government’s highly sensitive UFO programme. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-11-12 02:01:18 UTC ]
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