Just in Case it Matters to You
Weekly Report 21-18
- “BUSYWORK IS OFTEN CHARACTERIZED AS A FORM OF PROCRASTINATION THAT FEELS PRODUCTIVE in the moment, but has little lasting impact.” And ‘inbox clearing’ is one of those tasks – momentarily satisfying, but often letting us get caught up in low-impact errands with little, if any correlation to priorities. Other impediments to efficiency and effectiveness include failing to: (1) Prepare actionable Priority Lists at the start of the day, and update during the day; (2) Carve out uninterrupted time (without text, email or phone) to complete top priority tasks; and (3) Give yourself short ‘breaks’ for change of pace & scenery to help keep alertness. “True productivity results from making proactive choices that are aligned with the bigger goals.” [JRNL OF ACCOUNTANCY – 2/16/21]
- THE ‘DARK WEB,’ AN UNINDEXED PART OF THE INTERNET NOT SEARCHABLE, is where stolen passwords are sold and contribute to over 80% of hacking-related data breaches. “The average U.S. adult has between 90 and 135 different applications that require a set of credentials, and nearly four-in ten people use the same passwords across both work & home apps… A study of some three million Dark Web passwords found that 60% included the user’s name or birthday, a third their pet’s name, and the average person re-used their bad password 14 times.” The most common categories which generate stolen passwords are: (1) sequential strings of numbers or letters like 12345, 12341234, or Abc123; (2) common names like Password, Qwerty, sunshine and Maggie; (3) cities/ sports/ food/ famous people & characters, like baseball, NewYork, cookie; or (4) variations of family names. “The safest way to keep track is through a Secure Password Manager.” DCG is happy to help you brainstorm. [HUFFPOST – 2/19/21]
- “THERE IS NOTHING MORE POWERFUL AND DESTRUCTIVE IN TODAY’S WORLD THAN ‘NARRATIVE’ for the initial News Cycle, spun by media in competition for public audience and to support their political bias. The media model is repetition of assumptions loud & often enough that they become widely accepted by the general public as ‘facts.’ Then, once the base set of believed facts are wrong, every step thereafter will also be incorrect, but accepted… Many many people now believe that shutting down the country and/or economy is the only way to ‘stop’ coronavirus; that most cops hunt down minorities to kill them; that five ‘murders’ (versus one) happened at an ‘insurrection’ led by former President Trump on January 6.” Acceptance of ‘creative’ news cycles at face value is now standard & acceptable practice to cement a lie in the minds of the public, who still believe that seeing someone on TV saying something is believing. [FEDERALIST – 2/18/21]
- “OUR SUPREME COURT IS NOW PART OF THE WASHINGTON SWAMP, totally divorced from any understanding of or caring about the rest of the nation. Last week’s decision effectively codified that Election Laws & Procedures cannot be challenged beyond a state court, at any time, regardless of how badly those states shred the U.S. Constitution, and regardless of the major consequences to the other 49 states as a result.” Their logic is baffling. “Challengers to obviously corrupt and rigged state election systems have been told that (a) state citizens cannot do so ahead of the election, because there is not yet a victim; (b) fellow Americans impacted cannot challenge, because of ‘standing’; and now (c) they cannot challenge after the election, because it’s moot… Justice Thomas’ angry dissent summarized this kind of infantile and absurd logic saying: ‘We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections. The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling. By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence. Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us.” [AMERICAN THINKER – 2/23/21]
- THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK: “The problem today is not so much whether one trusts the news as whether one finds it.”
A McKinsey report now forecasts 100 million workers in the top eight global economies – 17 million in America, one-in-ten – may be forced to change occupations in the next nine years due to the pandemic shift to remote work, the ‘delivery’ economy, artificial intelligence, and robots in the workplace.
Supposedly, when a State investigator was sent to confirm Minimum Wages paid by a small farming business, he began with interviewing the owner about employees & pay rates. The owner told him: “I’ve got two good workers, each gets $600 weekly plus room & board. Then there’s the half-wit who works about 18 hours every day with no days off, and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $100 weekly and pays his own room and board, but I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night, and he also sleeps with my wife occasionally.” The investigator says “That’s the guy I want to talk to… the half-wit.” “You’re talking to him,” replied the farm owner.