Semi-autobiography, semi-philosophical expository by Australian distance star Murray Rose. A triple gold-medalist at the 1956 Melbourne Games – then the youngest ever – Rose was less successful in Rome (winning a medal of each hue), triumphed 4 times at the 1962 Commonwealth Games, and was controversially excluded from 1964’s national trials. He established 15 world records in the 400, 800, and 1500 freestyle while being one of the first overseas recruits, to Peter Daland’s USC. Remaining in the US, Rose became a marketing professional, sometime actor, and NBC commentator. The book interestingly sketches his World War II expatriate parents but omits his first own marriage. Upon his 1994 return to Sydney, the Australian sports community lionized the vegetarian and devotee of Indian-turned-Californian guru Jiddu Krishnamurti. Most interesting are details of Aussie life and swimming in the 1950s. Most kids rarely wore shoes outside school; competitors had no goggles, often trained in bayside ‘pools’ or Manly reservoir, and did open turns against algae- and barnacle-covered walls. Rose liked competing in storms, from which he drew energy, and never had warmup pools; competitors false started to get a feel for water. In 1956, Aussies were the first cohort to shave. His best swims, he relates, were when absorbed in his own rhythm (p88); the first warning sign of fatigue is loss of mental focus; and the real challenge of sport is not competition but training the right way. One’s calling is not work but a craft: train not to get it right but to get it right when things go wrong, train for clarity and purpose not fitness. Hope not for victory but courage. His philosophy, which permeates the book along with contemporary pictures, is Eastern transcendentalist. Children are artificially ‘programmed’: the ‘opportunity to hold the window open to all the mysteries of life soon passes’ (p34). Is there not wisdom too in convention? By the book’s end, he has overdrawn: detachment (‘choiceless awareness’) is always good, everything must be examined; what of Burkean prejudice?
Month: July 2023
11. Wendt, The Wall Street Journal (17 Aug 2007)
Narrates the rise of Dow Jones to the 1980s, emphasizing the
- Wall Street Journal’s
pathbreaking transition from trade publication to the country’s first national newspaper. CW Barron and Barney Kilgore are the protagonists, the former for his world-renowned stature as a journalist and confidence of the elite, and the latter for introducing news analysis and quirky ‘A hed’ stories. Perforce, the author treats major economic and political events, and thereby delves into the growth and influence of the editorial page. Wendt’s work displays a now-quaint preoccupation with printing and delivery operations.
12. Wood, The American Revolution (18 Aug 2007)
Authoritatively summarizes the War of Independence, featuring political and military events plus social and ideological transformation. After sketching colonial America, Wood moves briskly through the conflict. The book is more powerful in discussing the consequences of triumphant republicanism and the course toward the Constitution. Locating sovereignty in the people not only sealed the Federalists’ case but also clinched the defeat of egalitarianism, which was already bested in trade, culture, and religion. The national charter further converted Montesquieu’s assumption that democracy requires small polities into the Madisonian ‘balance of conflict’ model. There are interesting sections on the dysfunctions of state government, notably legislative overreach on behalf of special interests, which extends the normal portrayal of powerless national government. A very useful bibliographic essay.
13. Magnus, Kitchener (15 Sep 2007)
A definitive biography of the late Victorian solider, whose autocratic successes in Sudan and South Africa inspired adulation in the metropole, but left him unprepared to lead Great Britain during World War I. The scale of strategy and scope of operations were too great for one man; the lessons learned were put to good use in World War II. Written in the tradition of political-diplomatic history, the book relies on primary sources from the highest levels (i.e., autobiographies) to portray this thorough (his motto) and driven but ultimately indecisive figure. Kitchener was unable to rally and guide equals, or defeat evenly matched colleagues / opponents, because he could not persuade or rely on staff to create superior force. Magnus moves briskly through events, while providing insight into Kitchener’s relationship with Asquith, Churchill, and King Edward, as well as the mechanics of British imperial machinery. This 1958 work, though evidencing dated punctuation, has lost very little with the passage of time. No need to read further on the topic.
13. Millard, Cloud Computing Law (7 July 2023)
Limns core and emerging concepts of legislation, jurisprudence, and policy regarding software, platform, and infrastructure as IT services, focusing on the European Union and United Kingdom circa 2020. To this reader, the most pertinent topics may be divided as operations, commercial matters, and taxation.
Operations:
• Cloud services, for purposes of governance, are fundamentally different from outsourcing in terms of design and control and geographic nexus
• PaaS is indicated by large degree of client control over specification or complexity of usage
• Security
o Security by nature entails risk management, as rules can never encompass all use cases; risk management is well suited to principle-based regulation (common in UK and Australia). For this reason, insurance is commonly part of risk management
o Misconfigurations are the largest internal threat to security
o To establish one’s services as a ‘trusted execution environment’, one should encourage the client to consider whether the vendor’s security setup is better or worse than the client’s own systems
• Data transfers
o across international borders may be governed by any of several mechanism (e.g., Privacy Shield, Standard Contractual Clauses, approved bespoke certifications)
o The acceptability of the SCCs to the EU is premised on the former’s compliance with the recipient country’s standards (e.g., the Australian Privacy Principles)
• Privacy: data sharing (e.g., among companies) is a controller-to-controller sequence; conversely, controller-to-processor is provision and instructed use. See chart p. 311 (which further demonstrates that Jacobi’s control of platform security, etc., make it at least a joint controller)
Commercial matters:
• The most negotiated clauses are liability (12 months’ fees being standard) including carveouts; service levels including availability; security and privacy; lock-in, portability, and exit; and intellectual property rights
• An estimated 1/3d of negotiations fail over the transparency of using subcontractors
• Data residency and indemnification for 3d-party claims are frequently client imperatives, increasingly joined by transition plans. APIs have come to be seen as acceptable means of interoperability or portage
• Pre-commercial procurements (PCP) are a means for public buyers (government) purchasing and then sharing emerging technologies without violating state-aid strictures of GATT
Taxation
• The most fluid question is re-establishing consensus of jurisdiction: where is value created? The residence of a provider’s 3d-party infrastructure does not create nexus (because the provider does not control hardware); however the location of the end user (the client) might. There is dispute among OECD and UN principles,
• Cloud fees (including PaaS) are generally taxed business profits not royalties
• A service that is linked (i.e., not separable) is likely to be singularly taxed, rather than as separate products or business lines