In hopes of capturing the power of this new platform while avoiding potentially embarrassing incidents, IBM is taking the unusual step of establishing official guidelines for its more than 5,000 employees who inhabit "Second Life" and other online universes.

"Building a reputation of trust within a virtual world represents a commitment to be truthful and accountable with fellow digital citizens," IBM states. "Dramatically altering, splitting or abandoning your digital persona may be a violation of that trust. ... In the case of a digital persona used for IBM business purposes, it may violate your obligations to IBM."

"We don't want to be sheriff."

Intel also is drafting a tip sheet and plans to offer a voluntary course this year for employees who use blogs, social media sites and virtual worlds.

IBM guidelines govern workers' avatars

What might happen if we repurpose biology to our own ends?

Our Synthetic Futures, by Rudy Rucker

Louis Menand calls "The Manchurian Candidate" "tony pulp," an echo of Time magazine's book critic, who in 1959 said it could qualify as one of the Ten Best Bad Books. "Condon distributes his sour, malicious humor with such vigor and impartiality that the novel is certain to be read and enjoyed," the critic wrote.

I think there's something to be said for regularly revisiting the topic of brainwashing, even in such an exaggerated form as Mr. Condon's. Today, persuasive language is shoveled into our ears and eyes every minute we're awake. Ray Shaw didn't know he was brainwashed. He just knew what he wanted.

Revisiting Classic Thrillers

Jared Diamond is wrong. Human civilization and the world’s ecosystems will not collapse in this century. This presentation looks at the emerging positive ecological trends that will dominate the next hundred years. It features scientific and economic analyses showing how humanity will increasingly withdraw its productive activities from wild nature enabling ecosystems to heal themselves and to thrive. Trends that will be highlighted include: human population growth, urbanization, dematerialization, agricultural and energy efficiency, forest growth, global temperature, and overall economic growth. More than 80% of the world’s wealth is intangible and that percentage will increase throughout the 21st century.

Attendees will realize that global ecological trends are not nearly as dire as they are often portrayed. Of course, there are still major ecological problems -- declining fisheries, shrinking tropical forests, growing scarcity of fresh water -- but these problems are transitory. Come learn what policies and institutions are necessary to hasten the Great Restoration!

This presentation is not available online, but you can check out the author's book, Liberation Biology: The Scientific And Moral Case For The Biotech Revolution:

A positive, optimistic, and convincing case that the biotechnology revolution will improve our lives and the future of our children The 21st century will undoubtedly witness unprecedented advances in understanding the mechanisms of the human body and in developing biotechnology. With the mapping of the human genome, the pace of discovery is now on the fast track. By the middle of the century we can expect that the rapid progress in biology and biotechnology will utterly transform human life. What was once the stuff of science fiction may now be within reach in the not-too-distant future: 20-to-40-year leaps in average life spans, enhanced human bodies, drugs and therapies to boost memory and speed up mental processing, and a genetic science that allows parents to ensure that their children will have stronger immune systems, more athletic bodies, and cleverer brains. Even the prospect of human immortality beckons.

Such scenarios excite many people and frighten or appall many others. Already biotechnology opponents are organizing political movements aimed at restricting scientific research, banning the development and commercialization of various products and technologies, and limiting citizens’ access to the fruits of the biotech revolution.

In this forward-looking book Ronald Bailey, science writer for Reason magazine, argues that the coming biotechnology revolution, far from endangering human dignity, will liberate human beings to achieve their full potentials by enabling more of us to live flourishing lives free of disease, disability, and the threat of early death. Bailey covers the full range of the coming biotechnology breakthroughs, from stem-cell research to third-world farming, from brain-enhancing neuropharmaceuticals to designer babies. Against critics of these trends, who forecast the nightmare society of Huxley’s Brave New World, Bailey persuasively shows in lucid and well-argued prose that the health, safety, and ethical concerns raised by worried citizens and policymakers are misplaced.

Liberation Biology makes a positive, optimistic, and convincing case that the biotechnology revolution will improve our lives and the future of our children, while preserving and enhancing the natural environment.

The Great Ecological Restoration Begins

"New technologies are becoming so complex that many are beyond the possibility of democracy playing a role in their development," said Thomas P. Hughes.

The cliché that committees can’t create great ideas, or art, still seems to be true -- though whether or not that is the best way to innovate remains an open question. Who knows how much longer?

In a Highly Complex World, Innovation From the Top Down

In every age, taboo questions raise our blood pressure and threaten moral panic. But we cannot be afraid to answer them.

In defense of dangerous ideas

If you are planning (you should) to go see Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary "Manufactured landscapes", which opened last week in theaters across the US after spending a year mesmerizing film festivals audiences and will soon arrive in Europe, make sure you get there in time, for nothing describes the scale and essence of today's globalized industry more tellingly than the opening scene: a seven-minutes tracking shot of the floor of a boundless Chinese factory, row after row after row of disciplined workers and efficient repetition that Stanley Kubrick could have filmed.

Ed Burtynsky's beautifully monstrous 'Manufactured landscapes'

Rumsfeld was right?

The intervention in Afghanistan has gone far better than that in Iraq largely because the American-led coalition has limited its ambitions and kept a light footprint, leaving the Afghans to run their own affairs.

We need a new strategy that can be applied not only in Iraq but also in Pakistan and wherever else these threats emerge. It should not rely on large amounts of troops and money but on intelligence, pragmatic politics, savvy use of our development assistance and on special forces operations. Rather than throwing more troops at Afghanistan and turning it into a second Iraq, we should use it as a model for a lighter, smarter approach.

See also:

Building hope: An old Etonian in Afghanistan:

Dressed in a Savile Row blazer, Rory Stewart cuts an unlikely figure in the streets of Kabul. But his efforts to restore part of a historical city devastated by war seem to be working.

Where Less Is More, By RORY STEWART

As the arc of chaos grows from Afghanistan to Somalia by way of the Middle East, the region’s states are growing weaker and their armed groups gaining in power. But in this battle for competing visions between the US and al-Qaida, the Sunni resistance is now opposing al-Qaida in Iraq, as are the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaida: the unwanted guests

Pakistani and Taliban officials interviewed by Newsweek say the Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Al-Zawahiri is behind the wave of retaliatory attacks launched after Pakistani troops overran the Red Mosque in Islamabad, which have killed more than 150 people. While Osama bin Laden has been keeping a low profile, Zawahiri has moved aggressively to take operational control of the group. In so doing, Zawahiri has provoked a potentially serious ideological split within Al Qaeda over whether he is growing too powerful and has become obsessed with toppling Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, according to two jihadists interviewed by Newsweek last week.

See also, Al-Qaeda at war over plan to oust Musharraf:

A DEEP split has emerged within al-Qaeda over the wisdom of the terrorist network's drive to overthrow and kill Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf, according to radical Pakistani Islamists allied to the terror network.

Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the Qaeda No. 2, Has Provoked a Potentially Serious Ideological Split Within Al Qaeda