• ‘TIME’ MANAGEMENT IS AN ILLUSION; it passes irrespective of our desire, intention or behavior. So framing efforts to improve productivity and efficiency in the context of the clock is misdirected. Reality is that the problem in achieving results is “misplaced attention in a distracting world filled with technology which is designed to persuade us to engage with it, and constantly conspiring to steal time.”  [FORBES -1/8/19]
  • “CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS ARE 60% ABOUT GETTING YOUR HEAD, HEART & GUT RIGHT, AND 40% ABOUT SAYING IT RIGHT… Under conditions of stress and threat, our motives can become short-term and selfish – worrying about being right, winning, avoiding conflict, looking good, even thinking escape – versus focusing on the real issues.” Tips for handling difficult conversations begin with: (1) Clear motives & objectives for yourself, the other side, the relationship, and avoiding “attributing evil or malicious motives to justify any negative actions” (like terminating an employee or contract); (2) Gathering the facts to best mitigate opposing views and avoid discussion “degenerating into contesting conclusions rather than shared information… Never begin with a conclusion. Share facts & premises, layout data and explain logic that supports your position”; (3) Listen fully and fairly to the other side, helping them “feel less of a need to resist you in order to be heard.”  [HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW – 1/22/19]
  • BROWSER ‘ADD-ON EXTENSIONS’ which record all data passed to and from the web can be trouble, since they can also transmit and receive data themselves and become a carrier of malicious coding.  As with Apps, browser add-ons must be granted Permissions – typically displayed when installed but seldom if ever read carefully – which allow access to bookmarks, data reviewed, and “in the majority of cases also enable add-on functions like identifying and previewing,” all of which provide opportunity for cyber-intrusion. Security protection involves “checking the Privacy Policy for every extension installed… and in some cases blocking access by using the browser’s incognito or private mode.”  Mechanics for doing this on different browsers is spelled out at https://gizmodo.com/it-s-time-to-audit-all-the-extensions-youve-installed-o-1831486181 .  [GIZMODO – 1/18/19]
  • MAJOR LONG-TERM CONCERNS FACING THE WORLD IN 2019, according to the World Economic Forum Global Risk Report, involve extreme weather, natural catastrophes, and cyber-attack resulting in massive data fraud or theft. The top five “human side of risks – a sense of insecurity, increasing anxiety, unhappiness and loneliness – are: Climate Change, along with increasing Cyber Dependency, Polarization of Society, Income/Wealth Disparity, and National Sentiment.” [BUSINESSWEEK – 1/21/19]
  • MEANWHILE, “EQUAL ACCESS TO PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES FOR 3RD WORLD MIGRANTS and social protection for all refugees, regardless of their legal status, across the entire region of Europe” has been demanded by the U.N. World Health Organization. Its first Report describes “population movement as a defining phenomenon of our time, as a result of global economic inequalities” for more than 90 million migrants, some 6.7 million of whom are refugees, notes their “higher prevalence of mental illness… and demands that governments take action to tackle poor socioeconomic conditions such as unemployment…to close disparities in outcome between newcomers and natives.”  [BREITBART – 1/23/19] 
  • ARE WE BECOMING A RACE OF ROBOTS? “Most people do not have a thought in their heads that has not been put there by someone or something else. We have become a race of programmed minds which can be persuaded to believe and do almost anything as long as the drip, drip, drip of lies and misinformation continues to bombard us… with ideas which have been fed by those in power, through political systems, media, religion, schools and universities… Humanity has been gripped by a spiritual amnesia which has taken us down a dark and dangerous path from which we may or not escape depending on the choices we make… We stand on the threshold of indescribable and incomprehensible change and can be sure that nothing and no-one will be left untouched by what is happening on the planet.”  [ROBOTS’ REBELLION -1994]

      Scientists estimate that some 80,000 ‘lines’ of cocaine are urinated daily through the sewer system into River Thames, which are turning British eels ‘hyperactive.’

       Pornhub, a streaming pornography service, announced a 6.3% increase in traffic from the Washington DC metro area during the recent government shutdown.