Michel Roland's Bookmarks

In one vital attribute, however, Israel is quite different from previous insecure, defensive microstates born of imperial collapse: it is a democracy. Hence its present dilemma. Thanks to its occupation of the lands conquered in 1967, Israel today faces three unattractive choices. It can dismantle the Jewish settlements in the territories, return to the 1967 state borders within which Jews constitute a clear majority, and thus remain both a Jewish state and a democracy, albeit one with a constitutionally anomalous community of second-class Arab citizens.

Alternatively, Israel can continue to occupy "Samaria," "Judea," and Gaza, whose Arab population—added to that of present-day Israel—will become the demographic majority within five to eight years: in which case Israel will be either a Jewish state (with an ever-larger majority of unenfranchised non-Jews) or it will be a democracy. But logically it cannot be both.

Or else Israel can keep control of the Occupied Territories but get rid of the overwhelming majority of the Arab population: either by forcible expulsion or else by starving them of land and livelihood, leaving them no option but to go into exile. In this way Israel could indeed remain both Jewish and at least formally democratic: but at the cost of becoming the first modern democracy to conduct full-scale ethnic cleansing as a state project, something which would condemn Israel forever to the status of an outlaw state, an international pariah.

Surveys conducted from 1977 through 2005 show that university science faculty on average:








1. read more in less time per reading,


2. rely less on browsing and more on searching,


3. rely more on library provided articles than from other sources,


4. and, because they make choices based on what helps them get their work done, will readily adapt to new technologies that are convenient to their information-seeking, reading, and work patterns.

While citing patterns may be narrowing, reading patterns are not. This is due to several differences between why scientists read and why they cite articles.







• Reading is done for many purposes: current awareness, teaching, and administrative in addition to research and writing. Only those readings for research and writing are cited.


• Scientists read many articles for every one that they cite. Choosing the best article to cite may be subject to peer pressure in the form of choosing more often to cite those that are cited by others. Following citation links in electronic journal articles may have proportionately more influence on citation behavior than reading behavior.

the non-fungible is the human relationships. That's where the talks come from, that's where the services and teaching come from, that's where the live performance for the musician comes from.

In some cases the spectacle is really the equivalent of the rock star live performance. It's not at all about the human relation, it's about the unique experience. Which in some sense is somewhere between the human connection and the artifact.

is the ocean of short writing the web has generated due to our minds are getting dumber and incapable of paying attention to long articles, as Carr worries, or is it because we finally have a new vehicle and market place for loads of short things, whereas in the past it short was unprofitable to produce in such quantity? I doubt the former and suspect the latter is the better explanation.

Carr begins his piece describing how smarter he is while using Google. What if Carr is right? What if we were getting dumber when we are off Google, but we were getting loads smarter while we were on Google?  That doesn't seem improbable, and in fact seems pretty likely.