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| compos mentis. Concision. Media. Clarity. Memes. Context. Melange. Confluence. Mishmash. Conflation. Mellifluous. Conviviality. Miscellany. Confelicity. Milieu. Cogent. Minty. Concoction. |
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The New Face of Another Gilded Age |
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| Topic: Society |
9:09 am EDT, May 28, 2002 |
We have just witnessed, in the spectacular growth of U.S. fortunes over the past two decades, a once-in-a-century phenomenon. Puffed up by the boom in high-technology and finance, a select group of Americans has accumulated an even larger boodle in an even shorter period of time than the titans of the Gilded Age amassed 100 years ago. The numbers almost defy belief. ... If the recent accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few resembles the Gilded Age, what about the politics? ... While history often repeats, it usually does so only in outline; ... politics today has a somewhat different cast. ... Money will keep talking, the public interest will keep walking. The great battles, in short, are still ahead. The New Face of Another Gilded Age |
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Losing the Intelligence War Overseas |
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| Topic: Current Events |
6:46 am EDT, May 28, 2002 |
The controversy over who knew what when before Sept. 11 reveals at least one thing clearly it is very easy to get lost in a side debate. While it is important to know whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation mishandled information, that inquiry should not keep us from having the far more important public inquiry into whether the Central Intelligence Agency has learned through failure how to collect information on Islamic terrorist groups. If Washington is going to win the war on terrorism, it will have to do so overseas. Losing the Intelligence War Overseas |
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From a Few Colored Lines Come the Sounds of Music |
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| Topic: Music |
6:44 am EDT, May 28, 2002 |
A music teacher / MIT Media Lab researcher has developed an innovative new tool for composing music on the computer. He calls it HyperScore, software that would convert expressive gestures -- lines, patterns, textures and colors -- made on the screen into pleasing and variable sounds. The goal, he said, is to let children have "the direct experience of translating their own thoughts and feelings into music." From a Few Colored Lines Come the Sounds of Music |
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A Sudden Host of Questions on Bell Labs Breakthroughs |
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| Topic: Science |
6:38 am EDT, May 28, 2002 |
A few more details about the Bell Labs brouhaha ... Nearly identical graphs appear in several of Dr. Schön's scientific papers, even though the graphs represent different data from different experiments. Bell Labs, part of Lucent Technologies, has convened an independent panel to investigate. A Sudden Host of Questions on Bell Labs Breakthroughs |
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Taliban and Qaeda Believed Plotting Within Pakistan |
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| Topic: Current Events |
6:33 am EDT, May 28, 2002 |
Virtually the entire senior leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been driven out of eastern Afghanistan and are now operating with as many as 1,000 non-Afghan fighters in the anarchic tribal areas of western Pakistan. Intelligence reports indicated that the Qaeda and Taliban leaders now in Pakistan were plotting terrorist attacks, including car and suicide bombings, to disrupt the selection of a new national government in Kabul next month. Taliban and Qaeda Believed Plotting Within Pakistan |
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Fact-Finding and Its Limits |
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| Topic: War on Terrorism |
6:35 am EDT, May 26, 2002 |
It's not surprising that many officials in Washington are talking about convening an independent panel to investigate the federal government's actions before the Sept. 11 attacks. ... Congressional investigations can calm public anxiety, push reforms upon government agencies and in some cases force out ineffective officials. What they are unlikely to do is give us the kind of understanding that normally comes only decades later from history, when we will have full access to information and the distance to judge it properly. Presidential historian Michael Beschloss explains it all. Fact-Finding and Its Limits |
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Digital Lock? Try a Hairpin |
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| Topic: Computer Security |
6:33 am EDT, May 26, 2002 |
Remember Angus MacGyver, the secret agent on TV who used household items like a paper clip and lapel pin to best bazooka-wielding bad guys? Well, he's met his match in the real world in the form of music fans toting felt-tip markers, some fellows in a lab with a flashbulb and a cryptographer innovating uses for melted gelatin. ... "Maybe they'll ban markers." Digital Lock? Try a Hairpin |
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Webbed, Wired and Worried |
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| Topic: High Tech Developments |
6:32 am EDT, May 26, 2002 |
Ever since I learned that Mohamed Atta made his reservation for Sept. 11 using his laptop and the American Airlines Web site, and that several of his colleagues used Travelocity.com, I've been wondering how the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley were looking at the 9/11 tragedy -- whether it was giving them any pause about the wired world they've been building and the assumptions they are building it upon. "The question `How can this technology be used against me?' is now a real R-and-D issue for companies, where in the past it wasn't really even being asked. People here always thought the enemy was Microsoft, not Mohamed Atta." Thomas Friedman on how Silicon Valley is finally waking up to the real world. Webbed, Wired and Worried |
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Talks Collapse on $750 Million Takeover of Global Crossing |
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| Topic: Economics |
9:59 pm EDT, May 25, 2002 |
Two Asian companies said yesterday that they had failed to reach an agreement in talks on acquiring the troubled fiber optic network operator Global Crossing. The collapse of the talks puts in doubt the ability of Global Crossing to continue in its current form, providing communications services to companies in 27 countries. So long, Global Crossing ... and off to the chopping block it goes. Talks Collapse on $750 Million Takeover of Global Crossing |
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| Topic: Current Events |
8:57 am EDT, May 25, 2002 |
Maybe it is a way to tame a fearsome subject by Hollywoodizing it, or maybe it is a way to drive home the dreadful stakes in the arid-sounding business of nonproliferation, but in several weeks of talking to specialists here and in Russia about the threats an amateur evildoer might pose to the homeland, I found an unnerving abundance of such morbid creativity. From the Sunday NYT Magazine. Here's the table of contents: Not If But When
25,000 Warheads, and It Only Takes One
The Garage Bomb
Weapons of Mass Disruption
The Peril of Power Plants
Being Afraid Nuclear Nightmares |
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