A bicycle for the mind, redux.

Electronic Learning April 1994

(interview with Alan Kay, inventor of the Graphical User interface)

A bicycle for the mind | Alan Kay

Gloria Steinem: I wish someone would write an article called "How Did Condoleezza Rice Get That Way?"

Heh.

All About Eve

Religion has always been a major force in U.S. politics, but the recent surge in the number and the power of evangelicals is recasting the country's political scene -- with dramatic implications for foreign policy. This should not be cause for panic.

As used here, the term "fundamentalist" involves three characteristics: a high view of biblical authority and inspiration; a strong determination to defend the historical Protestant faith against Roman Catholic and modernist, secular, and non-Christian influence; and the conviction that believers should separate themselves from the non-Christian world.

The difference between fundamentalists and evangelicals is not that fundamentalists are more emotional in their beliefs; it is that fundamentalists insist more fully on following their ideas to their logical conclusion.

Mead offers a reading list.

Consider:

"The test of a first rate mind is to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time." [1]

"It is the rare thinker who keeps two contradictory thoughts simultaneously in mind; yet this is precisely what is often needed to get at the truth." [2]

God's Country? - Walter Russell Mead | Foreign Affairs

Nobody should relish the demise of once-great titles. But the decline of newspapers will not be as harmful to society as some fear. Democracy, remember, has already survived the huge television-led decline in circulation since the 1950s. It has survived as readers have shunned papers and papers have shunned what was in stuffier times thought of as serious news. And it will surely survive the decline to come.

Who killed the newspaper? | Economist

The turmoil over the Danish cartoons was costly in human lives, damaged property and heightened ill will. In the West, the unspoken conclusion of many was that Muslims are overly sensitive, do not understand freedom of the press — and don’t have a very developed sense of humor. This article examines — and quickly dispels — the latter belief. Quite to the contrary, a lengthy history of autocracy has bred a rich tradition of subversive political jokes. And while religion itself might be taboo, its earthly representatives were not, as a multitude of jokes about village mullahs attests. From irreverent bloggers such as the Saudi “Religious Policeman” to stand-up comediennes like Shazia Mirza, whose routine includes a sequence centering around the hajj, to women’s rights activists such as the group “Sisters in Islam” whose magazine uses cartoons to critique “pompous Islamists,” humor is wielded with effective expertise by Muslim reformers and enjoyed from the Muslim club to the Muslim street.

Humor in the Muslim World - the Cartoon Controversy and the Rest of the Story | RAND

"It's nice to be the first one to get a big scoop that just came out and nobody's heard of," Spring said. "You want to be the first to say, 'Hey, look at this!'"

"It's almost like urban archaeology, finding interesting things."

An Eye for Cool, and Cash

Sounds like this arrest could backfire significantly.

The law, which went into effect in 1977, was meant to put legal teeth in international trade embargoes with other nations, but once it was amended by the Patriot Act after 9/11, the government began to use it far more frequently against particular groups and individuals.

The use of the law, however, to focus on television broadcasts seemed to fall under an exemption laid out in a 1988 amendment to the act, several experts said, and it raised concerns among civil libertarians and some constitutional scholars about limiting the free marketplace of ideas.

The exemption covers publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact discs, CD-ROM’s, art works and newswire feeds.

Law Put to Unusual Use in Hezbollah TV Case, Some Legal Experts Say

Those in the openness movement believe that access to information is inherently democratic, and assume the effects of openness will all be good from the movement’s perspective. But means are not ends, nothing is inevitable, and just what will be done with openly available information once achieved is rarely specified. One implicit goal of the openness movement is to create and sustain politically useful memory in situations in which official memory may not suffice, but to achieve this, openness is not enough. With the transition from a panopticon to a panspectron environment, the production of open information not only provides support for communities but also contributes to surveillance. Proprietary ownership of information is being challenged, but there is erosion of ownership in the sense of being confident in what is known. Some tactics currently in use need to be re–evaluated to determine their actual effects under current circumstances. Successfully achieving tactical memory in the 21st century also requires experimentation with new types of tactics, including those of technological discretion and of scale as a medium. At the most abstract level, the key political battle of the 21st century may not be between particular political parties or ideologies but, rather, the war between mathematics and narrative creativity.

Tactical Memory

The Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age released its third report today with recommendations on how to reconcile national security needs with civil liberties requirements. The report offers a new "authorized use" standard for government handling of legally collected information that bases authorization to view information on how the information is going to be used, rather than on the nationality of the subject or the location of collection. The report also proposes a new risk management approach to sharing classified information that balances the risk of compromising classified information with the security risk that can come from failing to share information with those who need it to understand the threats to national security. Further, the report identifies examples of technology that can be used effectively to provide appropriate oversight and accountability.

Accelerating Development of a Trusted Information Sharing Environment

By now, I bet almost everybody knows somebody who has joined a social networking Web site ... Americans aren’t exactly suffering from anomie. If anything, a surfeit of connectivity is the curse of the moment ...

We have, in effect, defined intimacy up.

That is not exactly what you would expect in an era of constant communicating. Yet could it be precisely because we’re more plugged in to a disparate array of people who supply us with information when we need it, offer advice and keep us intermittent company, that our standard of genuine closeness has become more exacting? It’s not just that we’re too busy for more than a select few confidants. We may be choosier too.

When one-dimensional, functional relationships are ever more accessible, the desire to be known and to know another from all sides and from inside out may be lodged even deeper.

Confidant Crisis