Rory Stewart:

President-elect Obama’s emphasis on Afghanistan and his desire to send more troops and money there is misguided. Overestimating its importance distracts us from higher priorities, creates an unhealthy dynamic with the government of Afghanistan and endangers the one thing it needs — the stability that might come from a patient, limited, long-term relationship with the international community.

Mr. Obama believes that sending even more troops and money will now bring “victory” in Afghanistan. Some of this may be politically driven: a pretense of future benefits appears better than admitting a loss; and because lives are involved, no one wants to write off sunk costs.

Nevertheless, these increases are not just wasteful, they are counterproductive.

We will not be able to eliminate the Taliban from the rural areas of Afghanistan’s south, so we will have to work with Afghans to contain the insurgency instead. All this is unpleasant for Western politicians who dream of solving the fundamental problems and getting out. They will soon be tempted to give up.

Recently:

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."

The ‘Good War’ Isn’t Worth Fighting

Kevin Kelly:

How can we browse a film the way we browse a book?

...

All these inventions (and more) permit any literate person to cut and paste ideas, annotate them with her own thoughts, link them to related ideas, search through vast libraries of work, browse subjects quickly, resequence texts, refind material, quote experts and sample bits of beloved artists. These tools, more than just reading, are the foundations of literacy.

From the archive:

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

How should I think about new technology when it comes along?

Five years is what any project worth doing will take. From moment of inception to the last good-riddance, a book, a campaign, a new job, a start-up will take 5 years to play through. So, how many 5 years do you have left? This clarifies your choices. What will they be?

Becoming Screen Literate

Before the election, In These Times published a version of Slavoj Žižek's Use Your Illusions essay.

To get the true Republican message, one should take into account not only what is said but what is implied.

"In a way, it’s better for you not to know."

Let us not be naïve here: Republican voters know there will be no real change. They know the same substance will go on with changes in style. This is part of the deal.

The Republicans’ between-the-lines message was this: We allow you to continue to dream.

The dream is over.

Through the Glasses Darkly

There is a commonly held belief that Helvetica is the signage typeface of the New York City subway system, a belief reinforced by Helvetica, Gary Hustwit’s popular 2007 documentary about the typeface. But it is not true—or rather, it is only somewhat true. Helvetica is the official typeface of the MTA today, but it was not the typeface specified by Unimark International when it created a new signage system at the end of the 1960s. Why was Helvetica not chosen originally? What was chosen in its place? Why is Helvetica used now, and when did the changeover occur? To answer those questions this essay explores several important histories: of the New York City subway system, transportation signage in the 1960s, Unimark International and, of course, Helvetica. These four strands are woven together, over nine pages, to tell a story that ultimately transcends the simple issue of Helvetica and the subway.

From the archive:

Helvetica essentially takes any word or phrase and pressure-washes it into sterility. I love it.

It sort of reeks of old thrift-shop, Danish furniture, and not in a good way.

Typography is not simply a frou-frou debate over aesthetics orchestrated by a hidden coterie of graphic-design nerds. You need only imagine a STOP sign that utilizes the heavy-metal typefaces favoured by bands Dokken or Krokus to realize that clear, clean and direct typography can save lives, or at the very least prevent drivers from prolonged bouts of confused squinting.

The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway

BusinessWeek Senior Writer Steve Hamm's new book, The Race for Perfect: Inside the Quest to Design the Ultimate Portable Computer, chronicles the four-decade history of mobile computing. This graphic adaptation explores the role of Alan Kay, whose ideas shaped the development of today’s laptops, handhelds, and smartphones.

From the archive, some bits of Kay:

If the children are being instructed in the pink plane, can we teach them to think in the blue plane and live in a pink-plane society?

Alan Kay is one of the most influential computer scientists of the modern era. His contributions, among many others, include the concept of the personal computer. We sat down with him to discuss his take on how innovations happen.

"Thinking" is a higher category than "just" math, science, and the arts. It represents a synthesis of intuitive and analytical approaches to understanding the world and dealing with it.

A bicycle for the mind, redux.

"I didn't know it was hard."

The Long Road To The Laptop

Be Like Virgil.

To help overcome differences in terminology used by researchers in various fields, plenary "tutorials" will be given by experts before the conference. Each expert provided an overview of his or her field in language that other researchers -- scientists, engineers, or medical researchers -- not familiar with the discipline can understand.

Recently:

The founder of a data-mining tool called WikiScanner, Griffith is also a visiting researcher at the mysterious Santa Fe Institute, where “complex systems” are studied.

From the archive:

If you haven't been personally denounced by Steven Colbert, you just aren't that important ...

Keck Futures: Complex Systems Webcasts

From a few weeks ago, a roundtable discussion:

Nouriel Roubini (NYU) was one of the earliest and most persistent economists warning us of the housing bubble leading to our present financial calamities. Jeffrey Sachs (Columbia) has dealt with financial crisis over a quarter century in all parts of the world. Felix Rohatyn is famed as the man who saved NYC from its financial crisis of the 1970s as well as a leading financier, diplomat, and voice for public responsibility. This conversation, moderated by Charlie Rose, among these three experts will enable the public to join in a unique reasoned and detailed discussion of the origins and perhaps solutions to the current upheaval.

Transcript and audio are available.

From the archive:

Roubini believes 50 percent might default.

Can The Economy Be Saved?

The perfect way to collaborate on a text document and keep everyone literally on the same page.

From the archive:

SubEthaEdit kicks ass, so pick it up if you can.

See also:

Jottit makes getting a website as easy as filling out a textbox.

EtherPad: Realtime Collaborative Text Editing

What is the relationship between wine varieties and flavor components? This visualization attempts to show the strength of these relationships. I culled descriptive flavor words from over 5,000 published wine tasting notes written between 1995-2000 in a major Australian wine magazine. Written by Carl Tashian for Visualizing the Five Senses, a class at ITP @ NYU.

See also, from the archive:

In 1991, Cisco's tendency to cause a temporary form of inebriated insanity led the Federal Trade Commission to require its bottlers to print a warning on the label.

How do different wines taste?

"Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" is the fourth unclassified report prepared by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in recent years that takes a long-term view of the future. It offers a fresh look at how key global trends might develop over the next 15 years to influence world events. Our report is not meant to be an exercise in prediction or crystal ball-gazing. Mindful that there are many possible "futures," we offer a range of possibilities and potential discontinuities, as a way of opening our minds to developments we might otherwise miss.

Some of our preliminary assessments are highlighted below:

* The whole international system—as constructed following WWII—will be revolutionized. Not only will new players—Brazil, Russia, India and China— have a seat at the international high table, they will bring new stakes and rules of the game.

* The unprecedented transfer of wealth roughly from West to East now under way will continue for the foreseeable future.

* Unprecedented economic growth, coupled with 1.5 billion more people, will put pressure on resources—particularly energy, food, and water—raising the specter of scarcities emerging as demand outstrips supply.

* The potential for conflict will increase owing partly to political turbulence in parts of the greater Middle East.

From the archive:

Any student of Chinese history will tell you that when ignorance gives way to hubris you're one step away from a revolution.

Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World