Timeline Of Virtual Worlds (Greenbush Labs)

A colleague just pointed out to me a very interesting product on the Greenbush Labs Blog -- a virtual worlds timeline. What makes this timeline (see below) enormously cool is the way in which multiple media products have been integrated into it. I could imagine uses for this type of product in law enforcement, business and national security; virtually any time sensitive document (Imagine a history book, for example, put together using Dipity's technology...). Even if you are not into virtual worlds, you have to be impressed with this specific example and the possibilities of this technology in general.

How Magicians Control Your Mind (Boston.com via AOC)

The always interesting Architectures Of Control blog points to an online Boston globe article on how magicians and cognitive psychologists "are getting at similar questions, but while neuroscientists have been looking at this for a few decades, magicians have been looking at this for centuries, millennia probably." Definitely worth reading. For a little bit of magic (just as an example) check out the video below from The Unpleasant World Of Penn And Teller.



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2008 College Salary Report (PayScale.com)

PayScale.com has just published its 2008 College Salary report. It really only covers the most popular diplomas at some of the most popular schools (nothing on intel studies) but I thought it was worth passing on. The chart below shows an interesting relationship between intelligence analysis and political science, however.

Popular Jobs for Political Science Majors

Methodology Jobs ranked by popularity among graduates. Annual pay for Bachelors graduates without higher degrees from all colleges. See full methodology for more.

Virtual Worlds And Cyberwarfare (Link List)

There have been a number of interesting articles in the news recently about the national security implications of virtual worlds and cyberwarfare. Start your reading with a couple of Danger Room articles, one on "Virtual World For Future Army Training" and an earlier article on "Army Wants 'First-Person Thinker' Video Game".

Next, stop over at Intelfusion for Jeff Carr's thoughts on cyberwarfare and the game of "Go". I have long thought that you can inform your understanding of a particular culture's strategic thinking by understanding the games people in that culture play. Go is a particularly good example of this, in my estimation, and Jeff's association of the game with cyberwarfare helped me think about the cyberwarfare issue in new ways.

Finally, if you want to understand where the future of virtual worlds might be, take a look at this chart on the KZERO website (KZERO is a research firm that covers virtual worlds). It doesn't take long to see that the millennial generation is growing up with virtual worlds and will likely drive their development. Finally, for an example of an existing virtual world targeted to this generation take a look at Club Penguin or, if you are more interested in the next generation of virtual worlds targeted at the millennials, see Gizmodo's coverage of Lego World.

Vision 2015 And The Definition Of Intelligence (DNI.gov)

The Director of National intelligence (DNI) has just released Vision 2015: A Globally Networked and Integrated Intelligence Enterprise. I am just now making my way through it and there seems to be much good thinking and an interesting vision articulated here. The first page, for example, states that the IC's mission is to "Create Decision Advantage". This, to me at least, seems to closely mirror my own thoughts that intelligence should reduce the level of uncertainty for a decisionmaker. I am not vain enough to think that anything I have ever written had any impact on anything in this document. I AM vain enough, however, to think that maybe this is a case of great minds thinking alike...

Other highlights include the Vision of a "globally networked and integrated intelligence enterprise" and the Strategy of integrating "foreign, military and domestic capabilities through policy, personnel and technology actions to provide decision advantage to policy makers, warfighters, homeland security officials and law enforcement personnel." All of this operates under the Values of "Commitment, Courage and Collaboration."

I intend to explore the document in a good bit more detail over the next several days but one final thing struck me in Mike McConnell's introductory letter to the document: "Our commitment to this Vision will be manifested in our budget priorities and implementation plans." Sounds like "get on board or get left behind" to me.

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