| |
| There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs. |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Humor |
3:36 pm EDT, Jul 24, 2004 |
Ratbert, a cheerful talking rat who has been hired as an intern at Dilbert's company, pipes up at a meeting: "Let's form multidisciplinary task forces to reengineer our core processes until we're a world-class organization!" "Sounds good," replies the boss, "Go do it." At which point, Ratbert slips away with, "I'm more of an idea rat." After an extensive search, I've found no prior use of this term, so I offer the following definition: idea hawk, noun. 1. one who uses powerful ideas, and advocates their application, in the way that a 'traditional' hawk applies the conventional instruments of military power. I invite any pointers to previous citations of the term. I'm More of an Idea Hawk |
|
World-Wide Media eXchange |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Technology |
3:08 pm EDT, Jul 24, 2004 |
What can you do with a gazillion photos on a single database indexed by their location? World-Wide Media eXchange |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Health and Wellness |
2:45 pm EDT, Jul 24, 2004 |
I strongly recommend the practice of getting lost in the wilderness. Lost in Space |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: War on Terrorism |
2:32 pm EDT, Jul 24, 2004 |
The appropriate response to the Sept. 11 commission's report is to be found in its statement that "countering terrorism" is "the top national security priority of the United States." This means that the challenge cannot be handled by continuing to bury it in either the usual bureaucracies and boondoggles, or in new ones. Fighting terrorism and ameliorating its sources must be the main business of our country, as if we are fighting a world war or the cold war, although we will need new rules and techniques. This should take precedence over our other national cares. If it doesn't, the terrorists will become stronger, and our other cares will pale by comparison. It really is a battle for civilization. In another letter, an NYT reader shares my complaint with the commission's selective recall of history: The 9/11 report does not go far enough back in time to tell the whole story. The seeds of 9/11 were sown in the Reagan years when that administration trained and financed terrorist movements like the mujahedeen in Afghanistan against nationalist governments the administration identified as Soviet proxies. Where are the historical, connect-the-dots details of these so-called "proxy" wars? Get Your Hawk On |
|
The Sources of Soviet Conduct, by X |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: International Relations |
2:13 pm EDT, Jul 24, 2004 |
The political personality of Soviet power as we know it today is the product of ideology and circumstances: ideology inherited by the present Soviet leaders from the movement in which they had their political origin, and circumstances of the power which they now have exercised for nearly three decades in Russia. There can be few tasks of psychological analysis more difficult than to try to trace the interaction of these two forces and the relative role of each in the determination of official Soviet conduct. yet the attempt must be made if that conduct is to be understood and effectively countered. David Brooks refers to this essay in today's column. The Sources of Soviet Conduct, by X |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: War on Terrorism |
2:00 pm EDT, Jul 24, 2004 |
We're not in the middle of a war on terror. We're not facing an axis of evil. Instead, we are in the midst of an ideological conflict. It seems like a small distinction -- emphasizing ideology instead of terror -- but it makes all the difference, because if you don't define your problem correctly, you can't contemplate a strategy for victory. We've had an investigation into our intelligence failures; we now need a commission to analyze our intellectual failures. Last week I met with a leading military officer stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, whose observations dovetailed remarkably with the 9/11 commissioners. He said the experience of the last few years is misleading; only 10 percent of our efforts from now on will be military. The rest will be ideological. MemeStreams is a weapons system in the war of ideas. War of Ideology |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Technology |
1:41 am EDT, Jul 24, 2004 |
This can't go on. I believe we have reached the event horizon of complication and crap (craplexity). The present paradigm is in for a big fall. That is my hope and the center of my effort. The trick is to make people think that a certain paradigm is inevitable, and they had better give in. They were wonderful and innovative for their time, but are now tired, clumsy and extremely limiting. Computer Lib |
|
Cook Report | September-October 2004 |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Telecom Industry |
12:57 am EDT, Jul 24, 2004 |
Most Carriers are trapped. They are faced with equally unpalatable choices: "lose-if-you-win" and "lose-if-you-lose." Anyone looking to understand the economic future of the telecom industry must begin to look at global as well as regional assumptions about culture, technology policy and economics. Over the last three decades, Western technologists have designed vast, complex greenfield systems like the Public Internet. For a while they built and people came. As Moore's Law turned their products into commodities, they found themselves too top heavy to compete. The IT and telecom companies of Europe and North America are locked in to a complex systems concept frame of mind from which they are unlikely to escape. In reviewing both the marketing and profit and loss lessons of the last quarter of the last century, from automobiles to fine china to radio to agriculture, we find that the adoption of "one size fits all" economies of scale lead irreversibly to "production cost below sales price" commodities that either require governmental subsidies or an entire re-thinking of the system's goals. Intelligence is moving to the edges and the edges are found on the Asian mainland. Cook Report | September-October 2004 |
|
Bells Win a Battle, Not Necessarily the War |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Telecom Industry |
9:43 am EDT, Jul 23, 2004 |
AT&T's capitulation is not necessarily the Bells' victory. The future poses its own uncertainties for the Bell companies. "The Bells should enjoy it while it lasts." The Bells are benefiting from the now largely irrelevant distinction between local and long-distance calls, and the emergence of service "bundles," in which consumers pay a single monthly price for local, long-distance and even Internet service. The publisher of Consumer Reports said AT&T's decision was "an enormous big deal." Fail fast! (One can hope ...) Bells Win a Battle, Not Necessarily the War |
|
Inspiration 101: How to Make Students Think |
|
|
|---|
| Topic: Education |
9:35 am EDT, Jul 23, 2004 |
Here are a few of the letters to the editor in response to David Brooks' recent column. It is true that many professors aren't dedicated to teaching in a meaningful way. But it is also true that in today's universities, a Molly Worthen is as rare as a Charles Hill. Most students today are overprotected, uninterested and filled with a sense of entitlement. The obsession of parents and policy makers with quantifiable achievement has created a world in which measured results are all that matter. It is a world in which learning how to think and live has no place, a world that produces students that greet even great professors with blank stares and protestations about the "B" on their exam. Blame it on the Bubble. (Does that, by extension, blame it on Berners-Lee and Andreessen?) Inspiration 101: How to Make Students Think |
|
