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Daily Archives: November 26, 2017

The Golden Age of the Illustrated Book Dust Jacket

The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970 chronicles the rise of the book dust jacket from disposable object to a creative platform for publishing design.
“…The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970 by Martin Salisbury, out now from Thames & Hudson, chronicles how this once disposable object became a major creative force in publishing.Salisbury has identified numerous book illustrators, yet a large number of the dust jackets were unsigned, their creators now anonymous. And as he notes in The Illustrated Dust Jacket, even a successful designer such as Edward McKnight Kauffer, known for his use of form and geometry on covers for The Invisible Man (1952) and Intruder in the Dust (1948), was not “widely appreciated during his own lifetime in his native America.” The Illustrated Dust Jacket argues for celebrating the design and art of the dust jacket, and the often obscure creators behind these innovative covers…”

Google Study Says Phishing Attacks Are the Biggest Threats to Web Users

DeepDotWeb: “A study by Google discovered that phishing attacks through fake emails were as effective as compared to data breaches that exposed usernames and passwords. Cyber criminals or cyber groups manage to steal over 25,000 valid sets of web credentials for Gmail accounts every week, painting a picture of the extent this problem has reached.… Continue Reading

AI Can Help Hunt Down Missile Sites in China

Wired – AI Can Help Hunt Down Missile Sites in China “Intelligence agencies have a limited number of trained human analysts looking for undeclared nuclear facilities, or secret military sites, hidden among terabytes of satellite images. But the same sort of deep learning artificial intelligence that enables Google and Facebook to automatically filter images of… Continue Reading

Pew – Public Defenders Fight Back Against Budget Cuts, Growing Caseloads

Pew Charitable Trusts: “Public defenders have complained for decades they’ve got too many cases and not enough money — or time — to do their clients justice. Now, more public defense advocates are suing states for more funding. Overwhelmed public defenders also are increasingly trying other tactics: refusing to take on new cases, raising money… Continue Reading

HBS – How Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.com

Harvard Business School: “Ryan Raffaelli set out to discover how independent bookstores managed to survive and even thrive in spite of competition from Amazon and other online retailers. His initial findings reveal how much consumers still value community and personal contact.” “When Amazon.com burst onto the nascent online retail scene in 1995, the future seemed… Continue Reading

The Generalized Specialist: How Shakespeare, Da Vinci, and Kepler Excelled

Read the entire article at Farnam Street “…A generalist is a person who is a competent jack of all trades, with lots of divergent useful skills and capabilities. This is the handyman who can fix your boiler, unblock the drains, replace a door hinge, or paint a room. The general practitioner doctor whom you see… Continue Reading

IssueVoter supports direct communications between voters and elected officials

FastCompany: “A site called IssueVoter is designed to make it much simpler to follow what elected officials are doing, easily share opinions about proposed bills, and track the results of votes.“I use this analogy: When you hire someone, and you pay and promote them, you get to see their work and evaluate the work they’re… Continue Reading

Consumer Protection Bureau Now Has Two Interim Acting Directors

The New York Times: “Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s budget director, was named the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on November 24, 2017…moving to take control of the agency hours after its departing leader had taken steps to install his own choice for acting chief. By the end of the night, an agency… Continue Reading