My dog Charlie could be a real prima donna at times. Charlie was pretty happy with the stuff we found along the way, but he wasn't immune to bling. There was a guy in one of the parks we used to go to. He liked to buy his Setter the cheap + chearful squeeky balls, boomerangs and other toys that are available at the local dollar stores. When Charlie saw them he dropped what he had and chased after the Setter's blingy toy-de-jour. Worst of all - whe he finally got it, Charlie would chew it up on no time while the Setter and his owner looked on in disgust or frustration.

I'll let you decide if there's a lesson here.

My take-away is this: display your bling at your peril because you might just loose it - which is O.K. as long as you're not too attached to it.

One of my Gurus taught me that it's O.K. to desire the good things in life so long as you don't covet them and become attached to them.

Kind of like now: those who sweat the losses in the stock market are worse off than those who embrace the rise and fall of the market and enjoy, rather than worry about, the ride.

Recently I went to the washroom at my local Honda dealership and was intrigued by the floor under the urinal. While I’m very accustomed to seeing urine on the floor below and beside the urinal because many men can’t or won’t aim – and also used to the smell, this solution is a first.

It makes me wonder in a few ways:

1.  How frustrated did the business owner get and for how long before resorting to this (rather expensive solution)? Note: Below the grate there’s a drain so-that the urine that drips onto the grate and the pan below can be rinsed away easily.

2.  Does the grate encourage men to be more considerate and aim, or more indifferent – and just piss on the floor?

3.  In marketing, and life, all we say and do helps people form a more positive or more negative opinion of us. What does the need for this kind of drastic urinal hygiene solution say about this Honda Dealership’s owner, staff and patrons?   

Deep-fake dubs can modify or change an 

actor’s original film and TV performances.

A new start-up is helping TV shows and films effortlessly reach new markets around the world. Customers feed the company’s software with video from a film or TV show along with dubbed dialogue recorded by humans. Machine learning models then create new lip movements that match the translated speech and pastes them onto the actor’s head. The results aren’t 100% flawless (yet), but they are pretty good. What makes this technology particularly interesting is its potential to scale. These deep-fake dubs offer tremendous value for money: they’re cheap and quick to create, especially when compared to the cost of full remakes. And, with the advent of global streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney Plus, and Amazon Prime Video, it’s easier than ever for such legitimate and illegitimate dubbs to reach international markets. 

The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted, reported that the demand for streaming services in the US is saturated + companies are looking abroad for future growth. In the first quarter of 2021, for example, 89 percent of new Netflix users came from outside the US and Canada. To create shows with domestic and international viewer appeal you can now roll out versions with local V/O that seem more authentic because the deep-fake dubs preserve, to some degree, the performance of the original actors. The dubs are more sensitive to the facial expressions of the performers, retaining their emotion and line delivery.

My concerns are these. 

Like all other technology that makes something faster or cheaper to make, or replicate, this deep-fake dub technology will quickly get better and cheaper. 

The machine learning aspect scares me because the goal of that learning is to make the deep-fake invisible (to the human eye and brain).  

Once that happens this technology will be embraced and used by unscrupulous people to coerce, confuse and steal from groups and individuals. What is now being done with robo-calls will be done on video platforms like zoom™.

 Almost every day I get lists like these. If I collected them all and tried to act on them I don’t think I’d get very far with my day. They remind me of my mother when I was a kid – telling me to wear clean underwear, an undershirt, appropriate cloths, sit up straight, chew my food twenty times, go straight to school, or bed, etc.

Her “lists” were part of her early childhood training routine, not a replacement for it.

The lists I use today are SHORT and rank what projects I need to do, not how to do them. That’s the purview of training which I see less and less of today because everyone wants everything fast + cheap. So there's no time or financial margin left for training.

I wish business leaders would wake up, return to basics and deep-six all these stupid lists.

They are not a substitute for, and a VERY poor supplement to common sense and genuine on-the-job training.

I’m very good at what I do because people took the time to train me, years of practice and my commitment to making the good better and the better best.

Not because I've got a bunch of (how to do) lists.

Source: REUTERS | MAY 21ST, 2021

Canada's Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien, is among those who've voiced concern that Canada's privacy laws could leave consumer and business data vulnerable. Canada’s existing privacy laws leave consumers and businesses exposed to misuses of data, mainly due to outdated rules and lack of enforcement ability for regulators, privacy commissioners and experts say, and a proposed new bill does not necessarily solve these issues.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government introduced Bill C-11 in November 2020, intended to modernize the oversight of data protection, but critics say it falls short of this goal. The bill has several hoops to pass through before it becomes law.

Canada’s data privacy laws saw a significant update roughly 20 years ago.

Changing technology — such as facial recognition and increased use of artificial intelligence – combined with a lack of enforcement power have “absolutely” left Canadians unprotected from data leaks and misuse, according to Jill Clayton, Alberta’s privacy commissioner.

The dearth of action means that Canada is “seriously starting to fall behind” jurisdictions like Europe, which implemented a landmark set of privacy laws in 2018, Clayton said.

In the United Kingdom, for instance, regulators have more enforcement powers, such as carrying out FBI-style raids, while Canadian regulators are often unable to deliver more than a slap on the wrist.

The lack of enforcement power was highlighted earlier this year, when Daniel Therrien, current federal privacy commissioner, issued a joint report with provincial counterparts into U.S. facial recognition Clearview AI’s actions in Canada.

The commissioners condemned the company’s practice of using Canadians’ photos posted to social media to build a database, but could not force the company to return or delete the data.

Similarly, when sensitive information of 15 million Canadians was leaked at LifeLabs, Canada’s largest provider of specialty medical laboratory testing, commissioners said they were limited in their ability to hand out appropriate punishment.

One outcome of Canada’s outdated privacy law is that industries that handle a lot of data, such as banks, have had to evolve ahead of the legislation due to the increasing gap between modern technologies and existing laws, said Robert Colangelo, senior vice president of the global financial institutions group at DBRS Morningstar.

To strengthen Bill C-11, Therrien’s office submitted 60 recommendations to the government, including a shift in focus towards privacy rights of individuals and away from prioritizing commercial interests.

A spokesman for Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the bill provides a clear framework of rules that allow “Canadian businesses to innovate while protecting Canadians’ privacy,” and its passage is “a top priority.”

The bill also proposes companies that fail to protect the personal information of Canadians could be fined up to 5% of global revenue. Therrien said in a recent statement said that the penalty is “unjustifiably narrow and protracted.”

David Fraser, a lawyer at McInnes Cooper who advises Fortune-100 companies on technology and privacy laws, acknowledges that Bill C-11 is a compromise, but is concerned the bill would make the privacy commissioner “judge, jury and executioner.”