Review: ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century:

I got this because I'm interested in the issue of identity both from an anthropological kind of view and also political (ID cards etc). I also have a long-standing interest in neuroscience as an ammateur onlooker and Susan Greenfield is a populariser of neuroscience -so just the kind of author I'm likely to find useful.

This book offers seeks to address the interfaces between IT, biotech and nanotech with a view to exploring what these things singly or together may do to human identity. To do this, there is a rather intriguing big picture approach to different forms of idenntity in different socio-cultural miliuex.

I found the Anyone, Someone, Nobody and Eureka typology interesting and worth funther reflection. 'Anyone' is about collective identities born of an extreme ideology where the individual is subsumed in the collective; 'Someone' is about identity formation of extreme individualism; Nobody is the danger of 'descent' into mere sensoriness and effectively losing or not activating the higher thinking capacities; Eureka is a creative identity which seems to synthesise the best of all and avoid the worst of each,

There are some interesting discussions of belief and a use of the seven deadly sins to think about the dangers of social identities. An interesting idea but needing more development and care to convince those of us who 'do religion' on a regular basis.
ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century: Amazon.co.uk: Susan Greenfield: Books

The question of being Trinity

Came across a really interesting quote here: Faith and Theology: Robert Jenson and the question of being:
“So what is it to be? … To be God is to anticipate a future self by an inexhaustible interpretive relation to an other that God himself is; to be a creature is to anticipate a future self, by a finite interpretive relation to an other that the creature is not…. Being is interpretive relatedness across time; that is, to be is to rise from the dead. Such is the description of reality that coheres with trinitarian doctrine of God."
I think that a couple of years or so back this was a book that was mentioned in an email group I was on debating outreach to Muslims, in particular explaining the Trinity; one poster was much caught up with the metaphor of identity (though that didn't necessarily preserve them from wandering from the path of trinitarian rectitude!). Hmmm maybe I should get hold of this book.
(From Robert W. Jenson, The Triune Identity: God according to the Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), p. 182.)

What's In A Name? Initials Linked To Success, Study Shows

I think that this may be further supportive evidence of the mimetic drive in humans affecting behaviours and achievements subconsciously. ". The result of the test confirmed that when people’s initials match negative performance outcomes, performance suffers. These results, appearing in the December issue of Psychological Science, provide striking evidence that unconscious wants can insidiously undermine conscious pursuits."
The other thing I'm wondering is whether this also may indicate a degree of corporate identity and feedback. After all these are totally humanly constructed environments in which these effects are taking place and depend, therefore, on our consensuses about alphabets and how they are used additionally in our signalling of social and related status. We already know that self-esteem relates to health outcomes ... (just plumb 'self esteem' into this blog's search bar).
What's In A Name? Initials Linked To Success, Study Shows:

Draw your password; more secure

Sometimes I have recommended using a pattern on a keypad as a password because it may be easier to remember and numerically more random and secure. But this is even better...

in the wake of growing concerns about traditional ‘weak’ passwords created from words and numbers, Newcastle University computer scientists have been developing alternative software which lets the user draw a picture password, known as a ‘graphical password’.
“Many people find it difficult to remember a password so choose words that are easy to remember and therefore more susceptible to hackers,” explained computer scientist Jeff Yan, a lecturer at Newcastle University.

And did you notice it's a British university not for from home?
Oh, and in case you're worried that it would have to be an exact replication:

if a person chooses a flower background and then draws a butterfly as their secret password image onto it, they have to remember where they began on the grid and the order of their pen strokes. It is recognised as identical if the encoding is the same, not the drawing itself, which allows for some margin of error as the drawing does not have to be re-created exactly.

So perhaps ATMs will end up with you drawing on their touch screen rather than entering a four-digit PIN.
Password Protection With Easy To Remember Drawings

Britishness and community cohesion

In this opinion-piece an intriguing thought reflecting on second gen children of immigrants from Pakistan: "They felt negligible pride in their Pakistani heritage but had never seen much reason to affirm their Britishness: after all, the people around them didn't seem so keen on it. 'If you denigrate your own culture you face the risk of newer arrivals looking for one elsewhere,' wrote Taseer. Into that hole where Britishness should be, an Islamist identity had flowed instead. The obvious contrast was with the United States, where Muslims felt both strongly Muslim and strongly American - and where there was no homegrown jihadist movement."
And a bit later, a wider contextual reflection: "Britons are retreating into niches, rather than spending time with those around them, the way they once did. Now a 14-year-old can play World of Warcraft with a pal in Seattle as easily as kicking a football with the kids next door. It's not so much Britishness which is fraying, but the very idea of a society defined by the place where we live."
Worth pondering.
OK, let's have a Britishness test. But it must be for everyone, migrant or not | Guardian daily comment | Guardian Unlimited: