Virginia Lunsford:

As the rest of the world considers what to do about the increasingly problematic modern Somali pirates, it would behoove us to think beyond superficial and simple naval solutions on the high seas and consider the five factors underlying the long and productive careers of the Mediterranean corsairs. To analyze Somali piracy more deeply and ultimately suppress it, we must ask ourselves these vital questions:

* Who are these Somali pirates?
* Where do they find recruits, and how many of them are available?
* Why do they take up piratical activities?
* Do we know the exact number, character, and location of all of their havens?
* Are these pirates organized, and if so, how are they organized, and is this organization strong and effective?
* Do the Somali pirates enjoy any outside sources of support?states or groups (including terrorist groups) that are providing money, goods, weapons, intelligence, or other help to their cause?
* Do these pirates maintain close bonds between one another with a keen sense of solidarity and cohesion, and if so what is the nature of this solidarity, from where does it come, and is it powerful and abiding?

From the archive:

Arrrrg, Mateys! Ye can be the captain of the seven seas of your tub! Shiver me timbers!

See also:

“It was wonderful,” said Ms. Fatuma, 21. “I’m now dating a pirate.”

What Makes Piracy Work?

Hendrik Hertzberg:

What is a “Clinton person”?

People Who Need People

Ira Glass:

"We tell ourselves that everything is in bad shape. But the opposite is true. There’s an abundance of really interesting things going on all around us."

From the archive, Ira Glass:

"Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap."

"If you're not failing all the time, you're not creating a situation where you can get super-lucky."

Have you seen Happy-Go-Lucky?

The Age of Mass Intelligence

The Pentagon this week approved a major policy directive that elevates the military's mission of "irregular warfare" -- the increasingly prevalent campaigns to battle insurgents and terrorists, often with foreign partners and sometimes clandestinely -- to an equal footing with traditional combat.

For example, see the recent solicitation for Combatives Training:

Course instruction will include Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Thai Kickboxing, Mix Martial Arts, and Modern Army Combative training.

From the archive:

War may be hell, but infowar is making a bid for heaven.

'Irregular Warfare' Will Get Same Attention as Traditional Combat

INRIA:

Peer-to-peer locality has recently raised a lot of interest in the community.

Indeed, whereas peer-to-peer content distribution enables financial saving for the content providers who do not have to maintain a dedicated infrastructure, it dramatically increases the traffic on inter-ISP links. To solve this issue, the idea to keep a fraction of the peer-to-peer traffic local to each ISP was introduced a few years ago. Since then, peer-to-peer solutions exploiting locality have been introduced. However, several fundamental issues on locality still need to be explored. For instance, how far can we push locality for a peer-to-peer distribution without impacting its robustness?

In this paper, we perform extensive experiments on a controlled environment with up to 10,000 peers to evaluate the impact of locality on inter-ISP links traffic and peers download completion time.

In particular, we show that high locality values enable up to two orders of magnitude saving on inter-ISP links without any significant impact on peers download completion time.

Pushing BitTorrent Locality to the Limit

Paul Graham:

Even if Internet-related applications only become a tenth of the world's economy, this component will set the tone for the rest. The most dynamic part of the economy always does, in everything from salaries to standards of dress. Not just because of its prestige, but because the principles underlying the most dynamic part of the economy tend to be ones that work.

For the future, the trend to bet on seems to be networks of small, autonomous groups whose performance is measured individually. And the societies that win will be the ones with the least impedance.

The High-Res Society

IBM:

Unveiled today, the third annual "IBM Next Five in Five" is a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years:

* Energy saving solar technology will be built into asphalt, paint and windows
* You will have a crystal ball for your health
* You will talk to the Web ... and the Web will talk back
* You will have your own digital shopping assistants
* Forgetting will become a distant memory

The Next Five in Five is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s Labs around the world that can make these innovations possible.

From the archive:

Forget, for a second, the image of fat-cat plutocrats walking away with taxpayer money.

Also:

Forgetting, or willed ignorance, is the preferred strategy of many beef eaters.

From way back:

Presumably man’s spirit should be elevated if he can better review his shady past and analyze more completely and objectively his present problems. He has built a civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance that he can find them again if they prove important.

Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives in the Next Five Years

The Economist:

The World in 2009 is the 23rd edition of The Economist's annual collection of predictions for the year ahead -- with views from journalists, politicians and business people.

The World in 2009

I figured I'd start compiling a list of 1,001 things to do with bacon, and I invite -- or, rather, challenge -- you to join along.

1,001 things to do with bacon

Graeme Wood:

“Is the boy a Talib?” I asked. “Future Talib,” he said.

Recently:

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."

Letter from Pashmul: Policing Afghanistan