So, lock the door, purge your inbox, turn off the phone. Become unreachable, beyond judgment from without, and then return to the couch or hammock to again deny the world its purchase, and to control time that is suddenly yours alone.

Summer Time | The Walrus Magazine

The author discusses several types of wars of ideas in an effort to achieve a better understanding of what wars of ideas are. That knowledge, in turn, can help inform strategy. It is important to note, for instance, that because ideas are interpreted subjectively, it is not likely that opposing parties will “win” each other over by means of an ideational campaign alone. Hence, physical events, whether intended or incidental, typically play determining roles in the ways wars of ideas unfold, and how (or whether) they are end. Thus, while the act of communicating strategically remains a vital part of any war of ideas, we need to manage our expectations as far as what it can accomplish.

Wars of Ideas and the War of Ideas

Laminated cards were made up announcing “quiet time” and attached to cubicles. But within a few weeks the workers found the system too restrictive, and the cards seemed like something from grade school.

The cards came down, and some employees started to use e-mail messages, though judiciously and with more awareness of their habits, while others continued the stricter regimen, said Brad Beavers, the Austin site manager.

In a survey, nearly three-quarters of participants said the quiet time routine should be extended to the rest of the company.

“It’s huge. We were expecting less,” said Nathan Zeldes, an Intel engineer who led the experiments and who for a decade has been studying the impact of technology on productivity. “When people are uninterrupted, they can sit back and design chips and really think.”

In the other experiment, called “zero e-mail Fridays,” the goal was to encourage employees to favor face-to-face communication. Mr. Beavers said employees liked the idea in theory, but they continued to send e-mail messages, finding them essential.

Just 30 percent of employees endorsed the program, but 60 percent recommended it for wider use at Intel, with modifications.

“We’re trying to address the problem that people get so addicted to e-mail that they will send an e-mail across an aisle, across a partition, and that’s not a good thing,” he said.

Lost in E-Mail, Tech Firms Face Self-Made Beast

This visualization, called code_swarm, shows the history of commits in a software project. A commit happens when a developer makes changes to the code or documents and transfers them into the central project repository. Both developers and files are represented as moving elements. When a developer commits a file, it lights up and flies towards that developer. Files are colored according to their purpose, such as whether they are source code or a document. If files or developers have not been active for a while, they will fade away. A histogram at the bottom keeps a reminder of what has come before.

code_swarm, an experiment in organic software visualization

A building or town will only be alive to the extent that it is governed by the timeless way.

It is a process which brings order out of nothing but ourselves; it cannot be attained, but it will happen of its own accord, if we will only let it in.

There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit in a man, a town, a building, or a wilderness. This quality is objective and precise, but it cannot be named.

The search which we make for this quality, in our own lives, is the central search of any person ... It is the search for those moments and situations when we are most alive.

The more living patterns there are in a place, the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name.

... Like ocean waves, or blades of grass, its parts are governed by the endless play of repetition and variety created in the presence of the fact that all things pass. This is the quality itself.

... language, and the processes which stem from it, merely release the fundamental order which is native to us. They do not teach us, they only remind us of what we know already and of what we shall discover time and time again, when we give up our ideas and opinions, and do exactly what emerges from ourselves.

The Timeless Way of Building, by Christopher Alexander

Having recently watched the BD release of Blade Runner: The Final Cut [2], and with the observation that this film is among the favorite films of ubernoir [2], flynn23 [2], Jello, Hijexx, Wraith, and Bob the Great (among many others, likely), I note that even Deckard doesn't realize he's a replicant, and Rachael has a hard time believing this about herself even after Deckard explains how her memories have been implanted.

I quote, from a reviewer who disagrees with Scott's Final Cut but summarizes nicely:

Deckard is greeted by a young woman named Rachael (Sean Young), who visibly resents his occupation. At first, Deckard doesn’t understand why Tyrell insists on having him administer the test to Rachael before trying it out on a Replicant, but eventually it dawns on him that Rachael herself is a Nexus 6. In fact, she’s an experimental second-generation model, equipped with a lifetime’s worth of implanted memories borrowed from her creator’s niece. She’s so close to human that even she doesn’t know she’s a robot. The rationale behind the experiment is that reports from the field indicate that ordinary Nexus 6’s frequently do develop considerable emotional capacities even despite their short lifespans, but of a strangely stunted and unhealthy type.

...

Ever since Blade Runner first appeared, observant viewers have been arguing over whether or not Rick Deckard was supposed to have been a Replicant himself. Even the original theatrical version contains plenty of subtle clues to that effect. Like the Replicants he hunts, Deckard keeps a collection of photos which have no apparent connection to his own life. He is as emotionally flattened as any android, and at one point, Rachael asks him bitterly whether he had ever taken the Voigt-Kampf test himself.

If this review is representative, then it seems that even the declarations of the Creator himself cannot satisfactorily end the debate.

Did the idea for the car bombs and suicide attacks in the game really come from Osama bin Laden?

Some counterpoints to this 'theory':

Gillo Pontecorvo's 1965 film The Battle of Algiers portrays the urban warfare between Algerians and the French troops occupying their country.

"How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas," read the flier.

Modern urban terrorism began in Algiers, and one result of that development was France's creation of a monstrous, chaotic, military apparatus of torture to use any means necessary to dismantle the terrorist cells. Did torture succeed in Algiers because the paras were dealing with a small population in a cordoned-off area?

One wonders.

Gillo Pontecorvo, the Italian filmmaker who explored terrorism and torture in colonial Algeria in the powerful and influential 1965 classic, “The Battle of Algiers,” died here on Thursday. He was 86.

The parallels between the Algerian war and modern warfare are striking, and lessons can be extracted from French successes and failures in its drive to contain and manage the Algerian uprising.

RE: Was Grand Theft Auto IV Inspired by Al-Qaida?

Islamist forums are abuzz with a new theory: The designers of the video game Grand Theft Auto IV, they say, were inspired by killing methods developed by al-Qaida. But did the idea for the car bombs and suicide attacks in the game really come from Osama bin Laden?

YouTube doesn't lie.

Was Grand Theft Auto IV Inspired by Al-Qaida?

Kevin Kelly:

Scenius is like genius, only embedded in a scene rather than in genes.

Scenius can erupt almost anywhere, and at different scales: in a corner of a company, in a neighborhood, or in an entire region.

Although many have tried many times, it is not really possible to command scenius into being.

When it happens, honor and protect it.

Decius, from the archive:

Al Qaeda is not an organization. It is a scene.

Scenius, or Communal Genius

"It was the peak. It was the embodiment of business success," Connelly said. "We underestimated the bubble, even though deep down, we knew it couldn't last forever."

Seen in the best possible light, the housing bubble that began inflating in the mid-1990s was "a great national experiment," as one prominent economist put it -- a way to harness the inventiveness of the capitalist system to give low-income families, minorities and immigrants a chance to own their homes. But it also is a classic story of boom, excess and bust, of homeowners, speculators and Wall Street dealmakers happy to ride the wave of easy money even though many knew a crash was inevitable.

From the archive:

The bubble cycle has replaced the business cycle.

And also:

If Schnabel is a surfer in the sense of knowing how to skim existence for its wonders, he is also a surfer in the more challenging sense of wanting to see where something bigger than himself, or the unknown, will take him, even with the knowledge that he might not come back from the trip.

Finally:

What the company is trying to do is prevent the passengers who can pay the second-class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants to hurt them, but to frighten the rich ...

The Bubble