Record high batting average

Sign up for Derek’s newsletter here . Remote work seems fully entrenched in American life. Offices are more than half empty nationwide, while restaurants and movie theaters are packed. Housing prices in suburbs and small towns have surged as white-collar workers take advantage of the demise of the daily commute. But if the work-from-anywhere movement has been successful for veteran employees in defined roles with trusted colleagues, for certain people and for certain objectives,  remote or hybrid work remains a problem to be solved. First, remote work is worse for new workers . Many inexperienced employees joining a virtual company realize that they haven’t joined much of a company at all. They’ve logged into a virtual room that calls itself a company but is basically a group chat. It’s hard to promote a wholesome company culture in normal times, and harder still to do so one misunderstood group Slack message and problematic fire emoji at a time. “Small talk, passing … [Read more...] about The Biggest Problem With Remote Work

Rishi Sunak apparently used a Sainsbury’s workers family car for a photo op to make himself appear relatable. The millionaire chancellor put £30.01 into a Kia Rio in New Cross, south east London, yesterday. A picture of him doing so was posted on Twitter at 6pm on Wednesday and it has since emerged that it belonged to a worker called Conner. It did not take long for people to respond, suggesting that someone as rich as Rishi would not own a car like this (which costs around £13,000 from new). The timing of the post suggests it was taken earlier in the day – therefore before he introduced a 6p decrease in fuel prices in his spring statement. Mr Sunak is believed to have paid out of his own pocket to fill up Conner’s car. Once at the petrol station counter, things only got worse for Rishi. Footage that he didn’t appear to know how to use a contactless machine when he tried to pay. Footage shows Mr Sunak raising his bank card to the shop attendant’s barcode … [Read more...] about Rishi borrowed Sainsbury’s worker’s car for photo op and put £30.01 in the tank

The public forms its impressions of the administration of the criminal law in the county of New York—very naturally—from the accounts it reads of important and intricate cases, and therefore—very naturally, again—believes that defendants languish long in prison, awaiting trial; that the majority of them go free, or that, if convicted, the punishment of most of them is either defeated or delayed by technicalities and appeals. As a matter of fact, these impressions are entirely erroneous, so far as the general enforcement of the criminal law in New York County is concerned. During the year 1903, the average length of time between a defendant’s arrest for felony and his trial—in cases where he was imprisoned awaiting trial—was less than two weeks. There were 2400 convictions by plea or verdict, to 615 acquittals; while out of 11,011 convictions during the five years 1898 to 1902 inclusive, the number of appeals brought to hearing was only ninety-five, and out of that number the ratio of … [Read more...] about In the District Attorney’s Office

FIFTY years ago Charles Street was still fashionable. Now it is impossible. Then it signified peace and position. Now teamsters and the trolley rumble and jangle in undisputed possession. It was once, for Boston, a broad, quiet street which people loved on account of its proximity to the water. Especially were the houses on the west side preferred. There, behind plain brick fronts many a rich family lived a placid and luxurious existence. Some of those houses are left to-day, islands in the ocean of a roaring trade. Their occupants might be called prisoners of the past, marooned by tradition, memory, or habit, into inherited homes. One of these mansions, whose back may be said to front on the Charles River Basin, had been the home of Nathaniel Morley of East India fame. The days of the old merchant princes have passed away, and have left behind them their priceless carved teak, imperial jade ornaments, silk brocades, and sandal-wood chests; their descendants maintain an unassailable … [Read more...] about The Tangent of a Crime

II THE first characteristics which the book of Grotius revealed were faith and foresight. Great as it was, — the most beneficent among all volumes not claiming divine inspiration, — yet more wonderful than the book itself was the faith of its author. In none of the years during which he meditated it, and least of all during the years when it was written, could any other human being see in the anarchic darkness of the time any tribunal which could recognize a plea for right reason in international affairs, or enforce a decision upon it. The greatness of Grotius lies first of all in the fact that he saw in all this darkness one court sitting supreme to which he might make appeal, and that court—the heart and mind of man. What the darkness was which his eye alone could pierce was stated in his preface. He says: “I saw many and grave causes why I should write a work on that subject. I saw in the whole Christian world a license of fighting at which even barbarous nations might blush. … [Read more...] about The Warfare of Humanity With Unreason: Hugo Grotius

Standing before the door of his long-established but modest emporium, his ample form flanked by windows displaying hoes and pancake flour, boys’ suits and writing-paper, washboards and cigars, while a garish sign, “General Merchandise” creaked above, the pioneer proprietor pointed to a heap of freight the train now disappearing over the plains had dumped on the depot platform. “More work of the catalogues,” he commented bitterly. “Three sacks of ’em came to the post office last week, — now the folks are sending for the goods. Think they are saving money, I suppose.” “Perhaps they are?” “Not much. If they will give me all their orders and pay cash as they have to do with the catalogue mail-order houses, I’ll get ’em just as good stuff, and just as cheap. Some things they may buy cheaper, but they’re cheaper goods.” “Why do they do it, then?” “Because it’s the city, — it sounds better, somehow; and the catalogues make everything look so fine. Why, the other day a farmer came … [Read more...] about The Country Store

The Google software engineer who was fired for writing a 10-page memo that argued against hiring more women for engineering and leadership roles at the technology giant is standing by his assessment. In an email exchange with The New York Times Tuesday , James Damore, 28, defended the memo titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber." He asserted his right to bring up the highly controversial subjects of biological and personality differences between men and women, as well as how he believed Google's attempts to elevate the latter group to top jobs were "unfair, divisive, and bad for business." "As far as I know, I have a legal right to express my concerns about the terms and conditions of my working environment and to bring up potentially illegal behavior, which is what my document does," Damore wrote to the Times. He added that he would "probably" engage in legal action against his now former company. After a social media firestorm and significant backlash in Silicon … [Read more...] about The fired Google engineer is not backing down from his memo

WHENE’ER I take my walks abroad, I am fain to remark, not how many poor I see, for in that respect the cities of the United States do not appear unduly freighted, but rather how many and how potent are the street influences that tend to pauperize the soul. The school, the home; on these two foundations, we constantly are told, the welfare of this great republic rests; and that the assertion is far from being so much barren rhetoric is amply proved by the enormous sums spent on public education to a luxurious degree, and by the pure ideal of domesticity to which the private lives of candidates for high office at the people’s hands are required to testify. Many and admirable, also, are the schemes of public and private enterprise that seek to carry humanizing influences into the crowded tenement, bridging so far as they may the gap between the standards of the classroom and the illiterate or alien homes in which such vast numbers of the commonwealth’s schoolchildren dwell. But there … [Read more...] about Ethics of the Street: A Protest

The UK is set to run out of monkeypox vaccines, with bookings in some areas already closing as a result, Sky News understands. Sources have suggested supply issues mean there are only around 5,000 doses of the jab left. The latest figures from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), published on 8 August, show a total of 3,017 cases of the virus have been reported across the country, with 2,914 confirmed through testing. Stocks of the smallpox jabs, which are used to combat monkeypox , have been limited around the world as the sudden global outbreak caused a huge upsurge in demand. On top of that, the historically low number of monkeypox cases outside of countries where the virus has been endemic for many years, has restricted supplies of the vaccine. Advertisement It also takes time to manufacture the doses needed to meet the current global demand, and as a result, the UK is constrained by when the doses are available for delivery. "UKHSA moved … [Read more...] about Monkeypox vaccines set to run out in UK with bookings in some areas already closing

All children between one and nine years old in London are to be offered a polio booster vaccine in the next four weeks, health officials have said. Parents have been told to wait until approached by the NHS before taking their child to get the jab and GP surgeries will give out the majority of the doses. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has now spotted the polio virus 116 times from 19 sewage samples across London between February and July and is now ramping up detection efforts. Most are harmless forms of the virus from people who have recently had a polio vaccination, but some have been identified as so-called “vaccine derived poliovirus (VDPV2)”. VDPV2 is when the virus in the vaccine replicates, mutates and behaves more like the wild form of the disease, which can cause paralysis. There are no known cases of polio despite the outbreak and health officials are unable to say how many people have likely been infected without knowing but insist the risk to the wider … [Read more...] about Polio vaccine will be offered to London children after virus found in sewers