Some random items of interest:
- Copenhagen collapse. Note the role/roll of financial capitalism in this article.
- Advanced topic: Darknet economics: Radu Privantu has some well articulated tips on growing an MMO economy from 2007. Still valid. It's really not a stretch at all to apply these to constructing a virtual corporation or tribal economy that operates in (or in parallel to, but still deals in tangible wealth) the existing global economy. More at wikipedia.
- Mexican military adopts gang PR techniques. It has already generated a backlash. Remember Van Creveld's maxim: He who fights against the weak and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses.
- Unrest in China is heating up. Basically, the government has zero to negative (given the perks it provides its members) legitimacy other than its ability to deliver fast growth. Given that the 'fast follower' mercantilist strategy that focused on US markets has evaporated, the only thing that is left is a bubble strategy (ala Japan). When that pops...
- Guerrillas are starting to regularly sabotage Kurdish/Turkish oil pipelines again. Last time this heated up, there was nearly a 100% downtime.
- Kahn Academy. Free education for everyone..
- US: 1 millions homes in foreclosure in Q3 2009. A new record, even though most potential foreclosures are being held by banks to prevent a realization of losses. Bye bye middle class.
- Mathematics of war. More data on the new study in Nature magazine on open source warfare. US spy agencies appear to be completely clueless in what to do with this (unable to make the transition to 21st Century warfare): I'm underwhelmed. Seems like an awful lot of number-crunching for a meager output," says former CIA counterterrorism analysis chief Paul Pillar of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C."The chief output is the finding that violent incidents in insurgencies tend to come in bunches rather than reflecting a random distribution," he said by e-mail. "I don't see how that points to any one model of the internal shape of insurgencies, or how it constitutes a challenge to models that posit hierarchies or networks (guiding insurgencies). Frankly, I don't see how this approach would be of use to counterinsurgency planners or policymakers." Good thing he's at a cushy job at Georgetown now.
- Russian gang hacks Citibank (the tip of the iceberg): The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing a computer-security breach targeting Citigroup Inc. that resulted in a theft of tens of millions of dollars by computer hackers who appear linked to a Russian cyber gang, according to government officials. Parasite vs. parasite predation.