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Analyst's Notebook - Your Link to the Solution |
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| Topic: Society |
11:51 am EDT, May 1, 2004 |
Investigations involve vast amounts of raw data gathered from a wide variety of sources. Somewhere in this data lies the key to your investigation but it remains obscured by the volume and apparent randomness of individual facts. Analyst's Notebook 6 is the worlds most powerful visual investigative analysis software which brings clarity to complex investigations and intelligence analysis. It enables investigators and analysts to turn large volumes of disparate data into actionable intelligence. Links, and patterns, and graphs, oh my! Analyst's Notebook - Your Link to the Solution |
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| Topic: Society |
11:45 am EDT, Apr 17, 2004 |
For years I had been borrowing this particular piece of sartorial equipment. Now I felt that I had reached the stage in life where I needed something that fit right, set the appropriate tone, and was hanging in my own closet ready for use. I am not talking about a tuxedo. ... All right, I thought. I'll buy polyethylene. There were other decisions, too. I also had to choose a color. Did I want groin protection? Well, why not? A friend with a lifetime of experience warned, "Don't just go buy something over the Internet." How Do I Look? |
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| Topic: Society |
9:35 am EDT, Apr 12, 2004 |
After more than six years of planning, Coastal Grand Myrtle Beach mall opened Wednesday to shoppers who bombarded its more than 1 million square feet of retail space, snapping up coupons and filling out every raffle ticket in sight. "This is the essence of a great physical monument to the importance of tourism to the entire state," said the Governor. At the mall's grand opening Wednesday were students who skipped school and workers who took the morning off. "They have stores I've never been in before. We're excited like little kids." This is oddly fascinating. Birth of a Mall |
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| Topic: Society |
8:21 pm EDT, Apr 10, 2004 |
On July 8, 1853, residents of Uraga on the outskirts of Edo, the sprawling capital of feudal Japan, beheld an astonishing sight. Four foreign warships had entered their harbor under a cloud of black smoke, not a sail visible among them. They were, startled observers quickly learned, two coal-burning steamships towing two sloops under the command of a dour and imperious American. Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry had arrived to force the long-secluded country to open its doors to the outside world. This initial encounter between the United States and Japan was eye-opening for all concerned, involving a dramatic confrontation between peoples of different racial, cultural, and historical backgrounds. We can literally see this encounter of "East" and "West" unfold through the splendid, yet little known, artwork produced by each side at the time. "Black Ships and Samurai" is, of course, not merely about the United States and Japan at a time long ago. It is offered as a model for beginning to understand how we visualize both ourselves and others. After being introduced to the Perry unit, students in MITs "Visualizing Cultures" course develop individual or collaborative projects on subjects of their own choosing. As yet, no student-created projects are available on the OCW web site. Black Ships & Samurai |
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| Topic: Society |
10:02 pm EDT, Apr 8, 2004 |
As the mouthpiece of global capitalism, The Economist might be expected to rejoice at the [anti-globalisation] movement's discomfort. Not at all. Everybody needs an opponent to keep him on his toes. The sight of nose-studded mohican-haired louts who hadn't seen a bath in a month wreaking havoc in the City served to remind the foot-soldiers of capitalism of the chaos that their daily grind was helping to hold back. Well, it gave them something to talk about, at least. There are plenty of modern management techniques which the movement could employ to reinvigorate itself. Has, it, for instance, tried benchmarking itself against comparable movements? If street protest is too arduous for the membership, should it not think of outsourcing its more strenuous activities to the immigrants who already do most of Britain's tougher jobs? Taking that argument further, if domestic apathy is the problem, perhaps the answer is offshoring. A Mayday protest organised in, say, Libya or North Korea would really make a splash. The finest in British wit, now available worldwide. And it goes hand in hand with my recent suggestion that the Democrats hire a Bangalore call center to conduct a get-out-the-vote campaign. From anarchy to apathy |
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Putting 40,000 Readers, One by One, on a Cover |
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| Topic: Society |
9:32 pm EDT, Apr 5, 2004 |
When the 40,000 subscribers to Reason, the monthly libertarian magazine, receive a copy of the June issue, they will see on the cover a satellite photo of a neighborhood -- their own neighborhood. And their house will be graphically circled. I was at least slightly surprised to find that Reason has only 40,000 subscribers. (Recall Elonka's post from last month, highlighting the top 100 magazines.) For every subscriber to Reason, there are 24 subscribers to Soap Opera Digest. One wonders how often the 24 includes the one. You see, with TIA, I could ask that sort of question, and get an answer, pronto. Wouldn't that be great? Putting 40,000 Readers, One by One, on a Cover |
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| Topic: Society |
4:21 pm EDT, Apr 4, 2004 |
This new book by David Brooks will be published next month by Simon & Schuster. Included below are comments on the book, found online at WritersReps.com. "On Paradise Drive" is a work of comic sociology, describing how Americans actually live and behave, and how our odd behaviors have deep cultural roots that define us. The central joke in the book is that the US is a nation of people driven so hard to achieve and improve that they end up continually thrusting themselves into the realm of absurdity by overdoing it, overenthusing, and losing all sense of balance and proportion. Brooks' previous book, "Bobos in Paradise", described a slice of America. This new book will describe the essence of America. On Paradise Drive |
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Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia |
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| Topic: Society |
4:12 pm EDT, Apr 4, 2004 |
Exurbia is the New Cyberspace, the virtual has become physical, and David Brooks is a genius. You will laugh (repeatedly), you will cry, you will be inspired, and you may even see a bit of yourself in the story. Ultimately, his purpose is to motivate your inner consumer to buy his new book. We're living in the age of the great dispersal. The population of Atlanta increased by 22,000 during the 90's, but the expanding suburbs grew by 2.1 million. The geography of work has been turned upside down. In these new, expanding suburbs, life is different in ways big and small. When the New Jersey Devils won the Stanley Cup, they had their victory parade in a parking lot. In the age of the great dispersal, it becomes much easier to search out and congregate with people who are basically like yourself. Society becomes more segmented, and everything that was hierarchical turns granular. Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia |
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| Topic: Society |
12:23 pm EST, Apr 3, 2004 |
Even the professional puzzle makers, magicians and mathematicians seem to walk around the rooms slack jawed, gazing at walls of display cases of antique puzzles, bingo sets, dexterity tricks, impossible objects. Forget ships in bottles -- how did the inventor Harry Eng get a tennis ball, two sneakers, a deck of cards, a pack of cigarettes and a dictionary into a narrow necked-jug that seems locked from the inside? Devotees of mathematics, magic and games come together for three days every two years, sharing their analyses and inventions, paying tribute to the man who inspired them all: the one-time columnist for Scientific American, Martin Gardner. Some are professionals at play, others have professions that actually are play. The mathematician and puzzler dissent, of course, insisting that the best experience is in knowing. The goal is not illusion, but disillusion. The truth, they believe, is its own magic. Be sure to check out the slide show. Puzzles + Math = Magic |
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China Moves Toward Another West: Central Asia |
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| Topic: Society |
12:23 pm EST, Mar 28, 2004 |
With its dozen blue-roofed villas, a brand-new sauna house, casino and three-star hotel constituting the heart of what this frigid outpost at the border of Central Asia fancies as downtown, Alashankou would seem an unlikely spot for the economic and political reordering of an entire region. A booming China looms as the economic locomotive, and even the model, for the entire region. That means China finds itself in a position to call the tune ... Increasingly, there are signs that Chinese influence is spreading. Meanwhile, China has been busily building new security relationships. "Central Asia is a fantastic lens, or model for what China is trying to do all over its periphery: reaching out and settling old scores, and trying to establish a benign kind of hegemony." "We are destined to become a very important region. Our neighbors love Chinese money, Chinese products, Chinese expertise and Chinese technology." China Moves Toward Another West: Central Asia |
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