From the comfort of my desk, I can see it all. A series of webcam feeds show me the sun setting over Tel Aviv and southern Lebanon. A map of the world, flecked with red dots, indicates that most of Europe and the Middle East are on 'high alert.' I toggle a button on the map's control panel, and the globe is instantly latticed with the locations of undersea fiber-optic cables. Below the map, a live feed of Bloomberg TV is running with the chyron Oil Extends Rout on Stockpile Talks. I scroll down and am greeted by walls of headlines, grouped into categories such as 'World News' and 'Intel Feed.' A 'country instability' meter clocks Iran at 100 percent, while a different widget informs me that the world's 'strategic risk overview' remains 'stable' at 50, whatever that means. I am looking at World Monitor, a website that turns any browser into a makeshift situation room, and I love it. Built to look like a cross between a Bloomberg terminal and a big screen at U.S. Strategic Command,...
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