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anonymous

Deletion as Death Performance - 0 views

www.playthepast.org/?p=1053

gaming

shared by anonymous on 10 Mar 11 - Cached
  • This performance of death is a ritual farewell to the world. Even when it happens that the player is not leaving the world completely, just that character, the performance of death in deletion severs their connection to the world through that avatar allowing them to fully re-enter the world in a new character. Giving the character a final end allows the player to move on from the experiences s/he shared with that avatar and experience closure to this kind of self-relationship. For some players though, this performance of death is too strong. Rather than actually delete the character, they just set it aside as ‘retired’. Avatars and the lives we live through them (they live through us) are meaningful. Sometimes, they’re just not ready to die.
  • anonymous on 10 Mar 11
     
    "A new game has hit the MMO scene in the last couple of weeks and is making waves. RIFT has managed to draw a sizeable portion of the community at least temporarily away from their current homes. Many players are excitedly moving house from Azeroth to Telara, saying goodbyes to old friends and making new ones."
anonymous

The European Perception of Biden's Russian Visit - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...erception-bidens-russian-visit

geopolitics russia

shared by anonymous on 10 Mar 11 - Cached
  • During Biden’s previous European visits, he concentrated on Washington’s relationship with its Central European allies. Europe, particularly Western Europe, does not play a minor role in the complex relationship between Washington and Moscow.
  • Despite this general preoccupation, France and Germany have increased their engagement with Russia in several ways.
  • First, Paris and Berlin lobbied for Moscow to be included as a “strategic partner”
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Second, France has stood firm regarding plans to sell Mistral helicopter-carrier amphibious assault ships to Russia
  • Third, Germany has in the last few weeks boosted its military relationship with Russia
  • From the perspective of Germany and France, Russia is no longer the existential threat that it was during the Cold War. Russia is in fact a lucrative business partner.
  • Europe should continue to engage Moscow, and the United States and Central Europe should not stand in its way, since aggression will only turn Russia inward.
  • Germany and France are not engaging Russia for the sake of transforming Russia into some sort of a liberal democracy — that is merely the explanation given to the United States and Central Europe — but because it is in their national and economic interests to do so.
  • Russia knows how to play the game with Western Europe. Specifically, it knows how to show hints of internal “reform” to satisfy the “soft power” complex of Europe. But at the same time, it is using its enhanced military relationship with France and Germany as a way to counter American influence in countries like Poland and Romania.
  • anonymous on 10 Mar 11
     
    "U.S. Vice President Joe Biden began his official visit to Russia on Wednesday by meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, to be followed by a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday. Prior to his visit, Biden made a half-day stopover in Helsinki, where he met with Finnish President Tarja Halonen and had a working lunch with Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi. "
anonymous

Dispatch: Implications of Biden's Visit to Moscow - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...visit-and-us-russian-relations

geopolitics russia

shared by anonymous on 09 Mar 11 - Cached
  • Russian-U.S. relations are pretty ambiguous after the so-called “reset” in 2009. All the hostilities and differences of years past still remain.
  • Vice President Biden is someone that Moscow watches very closely.
  • The main reasons for the so-called “reset” are:
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • first, Russia was becoming more comfortable in its dominance over the former Soviet states that it could change tactics.
  • At the same time, the United States was becoming dangerously entrenched in the Islamic theater to the point where it pretty much couldn’t give any focus or bandwidth into its relationship and issues in Eurasia.
  • The number one issue between Russia and the United States is the division of their power and dominance in Eurasia.
  • What happens to all the differences that have been put aside that will naturally lead to a conflict between the United States and Russia once again? This is the question which Biden is discussing with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
  • anonymous on 09 Mar 11
     
    "Analyst Lauren Goodrich examines the current state of Russian-U.S. relations and how Vice President Biden is using his Moscow visit to begin the critical and difficult negotiations about their competing interests in Eurasia."
anonymous

Rand and Aesthetics 1 - 0 views

aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/...rand-and-aesthetics-1.html

objectivism criticalthinking

shared by anonymous on 09 Mar 11 - Cached
  • Rand's foremost consideration in her aesthetics was to judge. She belonged to what I call the malicious school of aesthetic criticism: it was not enough for Rand merely to glorify her own preferences, she also had to denigrate the preferences of those with different aesthetic tastes.
  • The Objectivist aesthetics is largely a rationalization of Rand's own aesthetic prejudices and hatreds. Rand's actual doctrine is littered with overly vague generalizations, historical inaccuracies, false attributions, and a congenital incapacity to understand any work of art she failed to respond to.
  • Despite all her high talk about reason and objectivity, her aesthetics remains rooted in her own blatantly subjective feelings.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • six main prejudices:
  • (1) prejudice in favor of Rand's "ideal" man, i.e., the man who has "no inner conflicts," whose "mind and his emotions are integrated," and whose "consciousness is in perfect harmony"; (2) discomfort with tragedy; (3) mania for realistic description or literal representation; (4) strong preference for plot over character in literature; (4) indifference to most forms of beauty, particularly beauty of nature; (6) indiference, sometimes even hostility, to most aesthetic forms.
  • anonymous on 09 Mar 11
     
    "Intro. Aesthetics, if it aspires to be in the least rational, sane, and just, must seek to explain, rather than judge, personal responses to works of art. When aesthetics seeks to justify a specific set of preferences, it degenerates into mere special pleading and rationalization."
anonymous

How mainstream games butchered themselves and why it's my fault - 0 views

www.pcgamer.com/...hemselves-and-why-its-my-fault

gaming

shared by anonymous on 08 Mar 11 - Cached
  • Unskippable cut-scenes exist because idiots like me skip the skippable ones. There’s text on screen because idiots like me don’t listen to the characters, and the characters are repeating what the text says because idiots like me won’t read the text. Friendly characters are invincible because idiots like me would shoot them, and we’re not allowed to shoot them because idiots like me will try anyway.
  • For the most part, Half-Life and its sequel did it right: you could always look wherever you wanted, and after the intro you were usually free to move. You generally couldn’t interact with the scripted sequences, but for logical reasons – they happened out of reach or behind glass.
  • I don’t have Attention Deficit Disorder, designers – you do. Only one of us in this relationship is forcing the other to look at what they’re doing. We’re locked in a destructive cycle of dickification: I resent when you take control away from me, so I’m as much of a dick as the controls permit. You see dicks like me being dicks in your playtests, and you think of new ways to be bigger dicks back: to force me to watch your scenes, play out your script, follow your high-school reading level plot.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • But in a desperate, frantic attempt to engage disinterested jerks like me, it tried to shove its horrible characters, misjudged script and awkward on-rails sections down my throat before showing me what the game was really about. If it wasn’t for Rich’s review, I’d never have drudged through that miserable dross to the game I like beyond.
  • anonymous on 08 Mar 11
     
    "I'm a horrible gamer. Hopefully it doesn't show in ordinary conversation, but as soon as I start playing something, I become an asshole. The instant the first character speaks, I reflexively want them to shut up. If there's text on screen, I'm not reading it. If there's a cut-scene, I'm skipping it. If there are no enemies to shoot, I shoot my friends, and if I can't shoot my friends, I shoot just next to my friends and then swing my crosshair onto them as quickly as possible in a lame attempt to glance them with a bullet I know won't do anything. I thought that was normal."
anonymous

How a Libyan No-fly Zone Could Backfire - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...yan-no-fly-zone-could-backfire

geopolitics libya

shared by anonymous on 08 Mar 11 - Cached
  • Therefore, a no-fly zone would begin with airstrikes on known air defense sites. But it would likely continue with sustained patrols by SEAD aircraft armed with anti-radiation missiles poised to rapidly confront any subsequent threat that pops up.
  • That means there will be no opportunity to determine whether the sites are located in residential areas or close to public facilities such as schools or hospitals.
  • Previous regimes, hoping to garner international support, have deliberately placed their systems near such facilities to force what the international media would consider an atrocity. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi does not seem like someone who would hesitate to cause civilian casualties for political advantage. Thus, the imposition of a no-fly zone could rapidly deteriorate into condemnations for killing civilians of those enforcing the zone ostensibly for humanitarian purposes.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Indeed, attacks on air defenses could cause substantial casualties, turning a humanitarian action into one of considerable consequence in both humanitarian and political terms.
  • The more important question is what exactly a no-fly zone would achieve.
  • Even with a no-fly zone, Gadhafi would still be difficult for the rebels to defeat, and Gadhafi might still defeat the rebels.
  • The attractiveness of the no-fly zone in Iraq was that it provided the political illusion that steps were being taken, without creating substantial risks, or for that matter, actually doing substantial damage to Saddam Hussein’s control over Iraq.
  • The no-fly zone remained in place for about 12 years without forcing change in Saddam’s policies
  • It should also be remembered that the same international community that condemned Saddam Hussein as a brutal dictator quite easily turned to condemn the United States both for deposing him and for the steps its military took in trying to deal with the subsequent insurgency. It is not difficult to imagine a situation where there is extended Libyan resistance to the occupying force followed by international condemnation of the counterinsurgency effort.
  • anonymous on 08 Mar 11
     
    "Calls are growing for a no-fly zone over Libya, but a power or coalition of powers willing to enforce one remains elusive. In evaluating such calls, it is useful to remember that in war, Murphy's Law always lurks. What can go wrong will go wrong, in Libya as in Iraq or Afghanistan."
anonymous

Exploitation and Social Justice - 0 views

bhl.typepad.com/...tation-and-social-justice.html

libertarian

shared by anonymous on 08 Mar 11 - Cached
  • All else being equal, it is a good thing for governments to prohibit harmful exploitation - at least when the unfairness rises to a high enough level that we regard it as a violation of the victim's rights.  Taking someone’s labor without giving them the money you promised them is such a case.  It is harmful, and seriously so – they come away worse off (sans their labor and their wages), you come away better off.  Laws that prohibit this protect the vulnerable and are a value tool in the promotion of social justice.
  • anonymous on 08 Mar 11
     
    "The normal tendency of classical liberals is to recoil upon hearing the term "exploitation," especially when its invocation is tied the demand for increased powers for the government. At least since the time of Marx, talk of "exploitation" has mainly been the domain of the political left, especially in critique of the relationship between capital and labor. But it would be a rhetorical and philosophical mistake for classical liberals to concede this concept to the left. Marx was wrong to think that capitalism is inherently exploitative, a mistake grounded in both a theoretical error about the nature of value and various empirical errors about the nature of a market economy. But this does not mean that there is no such thing as exploitation, nor that exploitation is not a serious moral wrong, nor even that capitalism as it exists today is not very often wrongfully exploitative."
anonymous

Palmer's Revisionism - 0 views

bhl.typepad.com/...-ideological-revisionism-.html

libertarian

shared by anonymous on 08 Mar 11 - Cached
  • Palmer says Schmidtz and I conflate wealth with liberty. He says we think wealth just is a kind of liberty. A year later, I’m still not sure why he accused us of that. I met him two weeks before he wrote his response piece. He asked me for a free copy of A Brief History of Liberty, which I gave him, so he could read it before responding to us. In the book, Schmidtz and I explicitly state that when we say increased wealth promotes positive liberty, this is an empirical claim.
  • anonymous on 08 Mar 11
     
    " I'm a philosopher. I use the word "metaphysics" differently from many non-philosophers. My aunt Bonnie and most other Americans think the word "metaphysics" has to do with magic crystals, spiritual energies, and ley lines. I don't. The fact that these other people use the word differently from me gives me no reason to pause, because "metaphysics" is a philosopher's technical term. "Freedom" is not a philosopher's technical term, though. So we philosophers have to start with a presumption in favor of common English use. If we recommend revising language, we need good grounds for doing so."
anonymous

3 Media Narratives About The Middle East You Should Defend Against - 0 views

thelastpsychiatrist.com/...ia_narratives_about_the_m.html

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 08 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Of course the young(er) are looking for social changes and a better life.  And I don't doubt that they at least believe themselves to be earnest.  But the media narrative that it is they who are the force behind the acute changes is both wrong and manipulative.
  • It's manipulative because it is easy. 
  • Also, it's self-aggrandizing.  This is the folks at Time saying, "hey, man, we get this hip generation."  It makes them think they're young and in touch, ("they even figured out how to use the internet for something other than porn!") and I'd bet 10 piastres every guy working at Time thinks the girl in the bottom right would find them interesting.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • There are 80M people in Egypt, 10% unemployment and 40% in poverty, as defined as  less than $2/day.  About a third don't know how to read.  None of those people are in the picture.  None of those people want the same things as those in the picture.  None of them will ever listen to those in the picture.
  • "What's wrong with coming out in support?"  Well, go ahead and ask Time: "what's wrong with putting them front and center?"  Because if I was agnostic about unions, and interested in really deciding who I supported in this fight, one look at that picture guarantees I side with whoever they're yelling at.   If you want to know exactly what is wrong with the "political discourse in America today," it's that we are trained to pick a side against something we hate.
  • It's a narrative that existed long before the nights of Saddam, get rid of the dictator and things will get better.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and if your country has oil in it it usually doesn't.
  • It's so easy to get distracted by the Evil Despot that we aren't horrified that Egypt's chaperons of future democracy are the military.   Really?  "They didn't turn on their own people!"  Wow, that's your metric?  Do you think they're just going to step aside when the kids show up to sell off the tanks to pay for education?  
  • The media likes the Mad Despot narrative because, again, it's easy, but, again, it's wrong and manipulative. And it backfires.  When George Bush pulled the Mad Despot card, the media reacted against it-- but that was itself a manipulation, because they wanted the Mad Despot to be Bush himself.  Offered no other choices than "one of these guys is utterly, completely, evil," America was forced to choose who they thought was actually the Mad Despot; and-- tip for the media-- most Americans will think it's the foreign guy.
  • It's fairly obvious why media companies would push the idea that the media itself is responsible for puppies and Reese's Pieces cookies, but when the medium becomes the message, there's no message.
  • anonymous on 08 Mar 11
     
    The Last Psychiatrist
anonymous

China's 'Two Sessions' Event Begins at a Sensitive Time - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...-sessions-begin-sensitive-time

geopolitics china

shared by anonymous on 07 Mar 11 - Cached
  • The primary focus of the NPC this year will be launching the 12th Five Year Plan, the country’s comprehensive goals for 2011-15.
  • By this time next year, China will be in the thick of the leadership swap, and by 2013, a novice leadership will be in charge.
  • across the country there is a sense of rising dissatisfaction with social conditions that have not kept pace with economic improvements, and dismay at the threat of inflation.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Beijing has an eye on the Jasmine protests for their potentiality rather than their weak manifestations. It is wary of the Tiananmen model.
  • China is far more integrated in the global economy now, and is in a far more delicate position economically. It maintains the current status quo as long as foreign states tolerate it and do not block its trade.
  • anonymous on 07 Mar 11
     
    "China begins its annual "Two Sessions" on Thursday, starting with the Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress, an advisory body, and followed by the National People's Congress (NPC), the national legislature, on Saturday. The event has already elicited the usual calls for economic reform, improvement of governance, and alleviation of social problems. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao struck the tone in a recent speech by emphasizing that the country's foremost priority now belongs to improving people's living conditions - making people "happy," a new official buzzword - and correcting economic imbalances to benefit households even at the risk of slower growth in the coming years."
anonymous

Turkey's Moment of Reckoning - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...10303-turkeys-moment-reckoning

geopolitics turkey

shared by anonymous on 07 Mar 11 - Cached
  • With geopolitical opportunities presenting themselves on all of its borders, Turkey, having been out of the great power game for some 90-odd years, could afford some experimentation. In this geopolitical testing phase, Turkey could spread itself relatively far and wide in trying to reclaim influence, all under the Davutoglu-coined “zero problems with neighbors” strategy.
  • The invisible hand of geopolitics teaches that politicians, regardless of personality, ideology or anything else, will pursue strategic ends without being necessarily aware of their policies’ contributions to (or detractions from) national power. The gentle nudges guiding Turkey for most of the past decade are now transforming into a firm, unyielding push.
  • Whether Ankara is ready or not, the Middle East is accelerating Turkey’s rise.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • in Egypt (where the Turks ruled under the Ottoman Empire for 279 years from 1517-1796), there is not much Turkey can do or may even need to do.
  • The shaking out of Iraq’s Sunni-Shia balance (or imbalance, depending on how you view it) is the current pivot to Persian Gulf stability.
  • anonymous on 07 Mar 11
     
    "In a high-powered visit to Cairo, Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Thursday with the members of Egypt's ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF). In addition to meeting with the military elite, the Turkish leaders are also talking to the opposition forces. On Thursday, Gul and Davutoglu met with Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and over the course of the next three days they are expected to meet with opposition figures Mohamed ElBaradei and Arab League chief Amr Mousa, as well as the Jan. 25 Youth Coalition."
anonymous

The Evolving Modern Egyptian Republic: A Special Report - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...yptian-republic-special-report

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 01 Mar 11 - Cached
  • The modern Egyptian state is a new polity, founded a mere 60 years ago in the wake of a military coup organized by midranking officers under the leadership of Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser.
  • The provisional military authority, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, led by the country’s top general, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, will play the pivotal role in the post-Mubarak era. To understand what Egypt’s future holds, one must examine the evolution of the incumbent political arrangement, the central role played by the military in the formation of the state, previous transitions, and the reasons behind the regime’s need to oust one of its own.
  • anonymous on 01 Mar 11
     
    "The Egyptian establishment faced internal strife over the transition of power from President Hosni Mubarak even before massive public unrest demanding regime change erupted in mid-January. With Mubarak now out of office, some hope for democracy while others fear the rise of radical Islamist forces. Though neither outcome appears likely, the Egyptian state plainly is under a great deal of stress and is being forced to make changes to ensure its survival. "
anonymous

Never Fight a Land War in Asia - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...0228-never-fight-land-war-asia

shared by anonymous on 01 Mar 11 - Cached
  • First, why is fighting a land war in Asia a bad idea? Second, why does the United States seem compelled to fight these wars? And third, what is the alternative that protects U.S. interests in Asia without large-scale military land wars?
  • Let’s begin with the first question, the answer to which is rooted in demographics and space. The population of Iraq is currently about 32 million. Afghanistan has a population of less than 30 million. The U.S. military, all told, consists of about 1.5 million active-duty personnel (plus 980,000 in the reserves), of whom more than 550,000 belong to the Army and about 200,000 are part of the Marine Corps. Given this, it is important to note that the United States strains to deploy about 200,000 troops at any one time in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that many of these troops are in support rather than combat roles. The same was true in Vietnam, where the United States was challenged to field a maximum of about 550,000 troops (in a country much more populous than Iraq or Afghanistan) despite conscription and a larger standing army. Indeed, the same problem existed in World War II.
  • When the United States fights in the Eastern Hemisphere, it fights at great distances, and the greater the distance, the greater the logistical cost. More ships are needed to deliver the same amount of materiel, for example. That absorbs many troops. The logistical cost of fighting at a distance is that it diverts numbers of troops (or requires numbers of civilian personnel) disproportionate to the size of the combat force.
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • Regardless of the number of troops deployed, the U.S. military is always vastly outnumbered by the populations of the countries to which it is deployed. If parts of these populations resist as light-infantry guerrilla forces or employ terrorist tactics, the enemy rapidly swells to a size that can outnumber U.S. forces, as in Vietnam and Korea. At the same time, the enemy adopts strategies to take advantage of the core weakness of the United States — tactical intelligence. The resistance is fighting at home. It understands the terrain and the culture. The United States is fighting in an alien environment. It is constantly at an intelligence disadvantage. That means that the effectiveness of the native forces is multiplied by excellent intelligence, while the effectiveness of U.S. forces is divided by lack of intelligence.
  • The United States compensates with technology,
  • from space-based reconnaissance and air power to counter-battery systems and advanced communications. This can make up the deficit but only by massive diversions of manpower from ground-combat operations. Maintaining a helicopter requires dozens of ground-crew personnel. Where the enemy operates with minimal technology multiplied by intelligence, the United States compensates for lack of intelligence with massive technology that further reduces available combat personnel. Between logistics and technological force multipliers, the U.S. “point of the spear” shrinks. If you add the need to train, relieve, rest and recuperate the ground-combat forces, you are left with a small percentage available to fight.
  • The paradox of this is that American forces will win the engagements but may still lose the war.
  • the United States is well-suited for the initial phases of combat, when the task is to defeat a conventional force. But after the conventional force has been defeated, the resistance can switch to methods difficult for American intelligence to deal with.
  • The example of the capitulation of Germany and Japan in World War II is frequently cited
  • The back of the Wehrmacht was broken by the Soviets on their own soil with the logistical advantages of short supply lines.
  • The Germans had no appetite for continuing a resistance against the Russians and saw surrendering to the Americans and British as sanctuary from the Russians.
  • As for Japan, it was not ground forces but air power, submarine warfare and atomic bombs that finished them — and the emperor’s willingness to order a surrender.
  • Had the Japanese emperor been removed, I suspect that the occupation of Japan would have been much more costly.
  • Neither Germany nor Japan are examples in which U.S. land forces compelled capitulation and suppressed resistance.
  • The problem the United States has in the Eastern Hemisphere is that the size of the force needed to occupy a country initially is much smaller than the force needed to pacify the country.
  • Some people argue that the United States is insufficiently ruthless in prosecuting war, as if it would be more successful without political restraints at home.
  • The guerrilla has built-in advantages in warfare for which brutality cannot compensate.
  • Given all this, the question is why the United States has gotten involved in wars in Eurasia four times since World War II.
  • In each case it is obvious: for political reasons.
  • In each case, the military was given an ambiguous mission. This was because a clear outcome — defeating the enemy — was unattainable.
  • There are two problems with American strategy.
  • The first is using the appropriate force for the political mission.
  • Moreover, it requires an offensive mission. Defensive missions (such as Vietnam and Korea) by definition have no terminal point or any criteria for victory.
  • Having destroyed the conventional forces of Iraq, the United States was unprepared for the Iraqi response, which was guerrilla resistance on a wide scale.
  • The purpose of a military is to defeat enemy conventional forces. As an army of occupation against a hostile population, military forces are relatively weak.
  • By having an unclear mission, you have an uncertain terminal point. When does it end?
  • Donald Rumsfeld once said, “You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” I think that is a fundamental misunderstanding of war. You do not engage in war if the army you have is insufficient.
  • Diplomacy can find the common ground between nations. It can also be used to identify the hostility of nations and use that hostility to insulate the United States by diverting the attention of other nations from challenging the United States.
  • Diplomacy for the United States is about maintaining the balance of power and using and diverting conflict to manage the international system. Force is the last resort, and when it is used, it must be devastating.
  • The argument I have made, and which I think Gates is asserting, is that at a distance, the United States cannot be devastating in wars dependent on land power. That is the weakest aspect of American international power and the one the United States has resorted to all too often since World War II, with unacceptable results.
  • An elective war in which the criteria for success are unclear and for which the amount of land force is insufficient must be avoided. That is Gates’ message
  • As with the Monroe Doctrine, it should be elevated to a principle of U.S. foreign policy, not because it is a moral principle but because it is a very practical one.
  • anonymous on 01 Mar 11
     
    "U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking at West Point, said last week that "Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.""
anonymous

Dispatch: Why the Outcome of Bahrain's Unrest Matters - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...utcome-bahrains-unrest-matters

shared by anonymous on 24 Feb 11 - Cached
  • anonymous on 24 Feb 11
     
    "While the world is focusing on the fighting in Libya, there is a much more profound development taking place in the Persian Gulf, particularly in the country of Bahrain, where the government is negotiating with the opposition. And the outcome of those negotiations will be far more geopolitically relevant and significant than the fighting that is taking place in Libya."
anonymous

Cairo and Riyadh Working to Stem Regional Unrest - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...orking-to-Stem-Regional-Unrest

geopolitics stratfor

shared by anonymous on 24 Feb 11 - Cached
  • anonymous on 24 Feb 11
     
    "A stream of meetings and messages relayed in recent days illustrate a concerted effort by Egyptian and Saudi leaders to advise embattled Arab regimes on how to contain unrest in their countries. Saudi Arabia and the United States, in particular, appear to be attempting to create a strategy in an attempt to contain Shiite disturbances and thus deny Iran an opportunity to destabilize its Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf."
anonymous

Montgomery Ward Catalogue of 1895 - 0 views

store.doverpublications.com/0486223779.html

shared by anonymous on 24 Feb 11 - Cached
  • anonymous on 24 Feb 11
     
    "Tea gowns, yards of flannel and pillow-case lace, stereoscopes, books of gospel hymns, the New Improved Singer Sewing Machine, side saddles, milk skimmers, straight-edged razors, high-button shoes, spittoons - some 25,000 items in all, most illustrated. "A priceless resource." - Histor... read more"
anonymous

Tools Never Die, the Finale - 0 views

www.npr.org/...tools-never-die-the-finale

shared by anonymous on 24 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • So what Kevin found is not exactly what I asked him to find; the original tool is no longer being made, but the idea, the concept, lives on in new, adaptive forms. Was that our bet? "Remember," he wrote me a little defensively," I did not say 'no technological device' but rather 'no species of technology' [has disappeared] so my emphasis is on the underlying technology rather than the physical device."
  • But the deeper lesson of this whole exercise is that — to a degree I didn't appreciate until Kevin forced me to look — technology does indeed persist. Tools, machines, they change, they adapt, they morph, but they continue to be made. I hadn't noticed this tenaciousness before.
  • Kevin would go further. He has a radical notion, and he talks about it in his book What Technology Wants. He says most living things eventually go extinct. But technology, perhaps, is immortal.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Also when comparing tools to life, the time scales are ridiculously different. Trilobites ranged the Earth for 270 million years. The Paleolithic axe is an infant by comparison, merely 100,000 years old. The homo sapiens who made that axe are only a 200,000 years old. Who's to say that our ideas won't vanish long before the trilobites did?
  • Ideas, what do they use? Not chemicals. Richard Dawkins says they leap from, "brain to brain, via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation." People see a new invention, then they tell friends about it, or they put it onto a cave wall, papyrus, into song, or a book, newspaper, radio, TV, movies, poems, the internet. That way, the invention can be stored and copied.
  • Or is it possible that technology is inherently persistant, that it just won't be thrown out? That's what Kevin is suggesting. That's "What Technology Wants." It "wants" to be copied, to last. I find this idea a bit too mystical for my tastes.
  • "I don't know about you, but I am not initially attracted by the idea of my brain as a sort of dung heap in which the larvae of other people's ideas renew themselves, before sending out copies of themselves in an informational diaspora...Who's in charge, according to this vision — we or our memes?
  • anonymous on 24 Feb 11
     
    "A few weeks ago, Kevin, founding editor of Wired Magazine and world-class gadget geek, made me this bet: I bet, he said, "there is no species of technology that's gone globally extinct on this planet." By which he meant - or I took him to mean - there is no tool, no invention ever manufactured by humans that isn't still being made new today."
anonymous

Malta in the Mediterranean, or the Meaning of Maps - 0 views

historyandfutility.wordpress.com/...rranean-or-the-meaning-of-maps

shared by anonymous on 24 Feb 11 - Cached
  • But there are also subtler mental maps, predispositions to view the world in certain ways which predisposes the map user to see some patterns and not others, to identify certain relationships as important and to ignore altogether others.
  • anonymous on 24 Feb 11
     
    "I made two posts at Demography Matters about Malta, that Mediterranean archepelagic republic that has been ensconced since 2004 in the European Union and now finds itself identified as a southern bulwark of Europe against Africa. That's how it's seen now: my second post of the day related the story of how a century ago, a poor and overpopulated Malta provided large numbers of immigrants to the adjacent French-conquered territories of North Africa. One century, a source of migrants and a support of colonialism, the next, a destination of migrants and supposed target for empire; life changes."
anonymous

Upper Toronto - 0 views

quietbabylon.com/...upper-toronto

shared by anonymous on 24 Feb 11 - Cached
  • This is especially useful in the context of an administration that seems bent on stalling or preventing change at all. The current mayor is hard at work trying to undo an already-funded plan to develop a network of light rail. He characterizes that plan as part of a “war on the car”, a war he’s declared “over”. The cars won, apparently. In the mayor’s defence, he is proposing a new subway line, itself a project of massive cost and scale.
  • anonymous on 24 Feb 11
     
    "It's kind of late as I write this. I'm trying to get it done quickly because through my window I can see the dormant construction machinery that's going to be startling me awake in a few hours. Annoying? Yes, but a daily reminder that cities change. All the time."
anonymous

Is crime a virus or a beast? How metaphors shape our thoughts and decisions - 0 views

blogs.discovermagazine.com/...ape-our-thoughts-and-decisions

shared by anonymous on 24 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • As with all complex issues, crime is suffused with metaphors.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 24 Feb 11
       
      This is oddly understandable, and not hard for me to mentally extrapolate further: that our politics is swayed by our characterization of events.
  • In a series of five experiments, Paul Thibodeau and Lera Boroditsky from Stanford University have shown how influential metaphors can be.
  • First, Thibodeau and Boroditsky asked 1,482 students to read one of two reports about crime in the City of Addison.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The second report was exactly the same, except it described crime as a “virus infecting the city” and “plaguing” neighbourhoods.
  • After reading these words, 75% of the students put forward solutions that involved enforcement or punishment
  • After reading this version, only 56% opted for more enforcement, while 44% suggested social reforms.
  • But these words have no weight on their own; it’s their context that gives them power.
  • If the critical sentence came at the end of the report, it didn’t have any effect.
  • As you might expect, men and Republicans were more likely to emphasise enforcement, while women and Democrats leant towards social reforms. But these factors only created differences of around 8 to 9 percentage points. The metaphors, on the other hand, created shifts of between 18 to 22 percentage points!
  • I agree with Richard Dawkins that DNA is a recipe more than a blueprint
  • anonymous on 24 Feb 11
     
    In 1990, in a depressed area of Buffalo, New York, eleven schoolgirls were raped. According to George Kelling, a criminal justice scholar, eight of these incidents could have been prevented. After the third case, police knew that a serial rapist was on the loose but, even though they had a description and modus operandi, they issued no warning to local parents. They saw their job as catching the criminal rather than preventing more girls from being raped. Kelling argued that the cops hadn't wilfully neglected their duties. Their actions were swayed by their views of police-work, which were in turn affected by metaphors. They saw themselves as crime-fighters who trod the "thin blue line" protecting innocent civilians from criminal marauders. With this role entrenched in their minds, they saw their job as catching the rapist, even at the expense of preventing further crimes. As Kelling said, the eight Buffalo schoolgirls "were victims, though no one realized it at the time, not only of a rapist, but of a metaphor."
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