We've now had a few days above freezing, and while enjoying the comparatively warm weather I listened to talks and books on my run for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a compelling talk by Svitlana Lebedenko on a technological perspective on intellectual property and propositions for change at the Cambridge Faculty of Law https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgDhTgyKfYk

Next was "Cultures of Prediction" by Ann Johnson and Johannes Lenhard. This book provides a number of case studies of different approaches to prediction across engineering and science, showing how the theoretical and practical interact to form different cultures. The cases here are fairly disjointed, with little connective tissue between them until the final (excellent) chapter. The chapter on Bayesian statistics is by far the best here, and the conclusion is also can't miss (with great reflections on modern machine learning techniques) https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548236/cultures-of-prediction/

Last was "Dying for a Paycheck" by Jeffrey Pfeffer. This book is a great summary of the state of research on how common approaches to management harm both employee health and firm performance, with a number of case studies sprinkled in for good measure. I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of time Jeff spends on lower income workers, although books such as "Getting Me Cheap" put more focus on the topic and expand on a lot of what's included here. There's also very little about the Global South, despite many workers there being subject to management dictates from the Global North, and it's also hard to take lots of the cases about companies/executives doing things well when so recently they've reversed course. That being said, the research that's presented here is timeless and needs to be repeated to avoid falling into the myopia of the current moment. Highly recommend https://jeffreypfeffer.com/books/dying-for-a-paycheck/