Being "always on" is being always off, to something.
The Future Is So Yesterday
Topic: Society
8:17 am EDT, Jul 22, 2008
What's interesting about Tomorrowland's newest future is its focus on what doesn't change. This Dream Home future at 360 Tomorrowland Way in Disney's original California park is intentionally reassuring. The cast evokes a multigenerational intact nuclear family, the Eliases, which includes one daughter ("Princess") and two sons and two vigorous grandparents who live so close as to routinely drop by. This future has the sound of crickets outside the front door, and a light breeze forever blowing through its flowering vines. This future, in Dad's room, has Lionel trains.
Quantum mechanics is the girl you meet at the poetry reading. Everyone thinks she's really interesting and people you don't know are obsessed about her. You go out. It turns out that she's pretty complicated and has some issues. Later, after you've broken up, you wonder if her aura of mystery is actually just confusion.
As the nation's unprecedented jump in gas prices takes a toll across the region, many teenagers say they, too, are feeling the pinch. Some have a harder time wresting car keys from their parents. Others are looking for second part-time jobs to help foot the bill. Some are using Metro more often or getting around in other gas-saving ways.
This reality check comes at a time in their lives when many think of driving as exciting: a symbol of age and hard-won freedom, a rite of passage, an escape. But the price of gas has tempered the thrill for many teens, especially those who use their own money to fill up.
They talk of fewer evenings out. Less cruising around. More riding together and pitching in to buy a few gallons.
On a conference call, J.P. Morgan chief executive Jamie Dimon said he expects the credit market to potentially weaken further and that J.P. Morgan's portfolio of prime loans "looks terrible." J.P. Morgan's shares climbed 14 percent.
The NeoCube is composed of 216 individual high-energy sphere magnets, which can be formed into BILLIONS of shapes and patterns. It is highly addictive and only available at www.Shop.TheNeoCube.com
CBP Releases Intellectual Property Rights Seizure Statistics for Mid-FY2008
Topic: Intellectual Property
7:17 am EDT, Jul 21, 2008
U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of International Trade announced today that the domestic value of counterfeit and pirated products seized by CBP and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement increased by 2.7 percent in mid-fiscal year 2008 to $113.2 million compared to $110.1 million in mid-FY 2007.
The number of large-scale seizures also increased: rising from 296 IPR seizures with a domestic value equal to or greater than $100,000 in 2008 compared to 266 such seizures in mid-FY 2007. The first half of the fiscal year extends from Oct. 1 to March 28.
They're encapsulated in an annoying Flash app, but they're worth a look if you haven't seen them before. (We've talked about these on MemeStreams in the past.)
H. R. McMaster is a humanist, with a doctorate in history, who is allergic to the military’s culture of PowerPoint presentations where the jargon and diagrams do the thinking for you. He once told me that if an idea couldn’t be put in paragraph form, it didn’t deserve consideration.
Annual Report to the Congress on the Information Sharing Environment
Topic: Politics and Law
7:17 am EDT, Jul 21, 2008
On behalf of the President and the Director of National Intelligence, I am pleased to present this second Annual Report to the Congress on the Information Sharing Environment (ISE). We believe it demonstrates a solid record of accomplishment by the Office of the Program Manager, the many agencies represented on the Information Sharing Council, and our partners in State, local, and tribal (SLT) governments. In the past year we have made significant progress in a number of important areas of information sharing. Issuance of a new framework for marking and handling Controlled Unclassified Information, establishment of the Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group at the National Counterterrorism Center, completion of a functional standard for terrorism-related suspicious activity reporting, and publication of the first version of an enterprise architecture framework for the ISE are only a few of the important achievements.
Notwithstanding these achievements, there is still much more to be done. In particular, Information Sharing Council (ISC) member agencies must work to fully implement the ISE; assure full participation by our SLT partners; and help secure and make safe our communities and nation by effectively sharing information. So, in addition to describing 2007-08 accomplishments, the Report outlines the status, outcomes and activities that are needed to continue to improve information sharing.
