UN Dispatch

In trying to appease my interest in international relations, I try to follow news out of the United Nations as much as possible.  But instead of reading vague wire stories and boring reports, I keep up with the UN by following UN Dispatch, a blog funded by the UN Foundation.  UND writers offer their thoughts on UN-related news/actions and, in doing so, provide me with a place to get both UN news and UN commentary.  The blog features a powerful search engine, archives dating back to 2005, regular features, and a long list of tags to use to sort the archive's stories.  Some recent highlights:  the antics of Evo Morales, Ban's visit to Washington, and more arguing over the ICC.

Arts & Letters Daily

Arts & Letters Daily is a news and commentary aggregator owned by The Chronicle of Higher Education.  ALD's editors trawl the Internet for links related to the ALD theme, which is pretty broad.  The masthead describes the site's breadth: "philosophy, aesthetics, literature, language, ideas, criticism, culture, history, music, art, trends, breakthroughs, disputes, gossip."  It's pretty wide, and it's right up my alley (and very similar that of 3QuarksDaily).  I love this stuff, and I spend an inappropriate amount of time reading a lot of it. 

Which is why I'm up this late cramming out Assemblage posts.

FP Passport

In endeavoring to further expand upon the number of different topics that can totally consume my thinking for days on end, I subscribed to FP Passport about six months ago.  The blog is published by the editors of Foreign Policy Magazine, a bi-monthly publication that proclaims itself to be "the premier, award-winning magazine of global politics, economics, and ideas."  FPM's stated mission is "to explain how the world works—in particular, how the process of globalization is reshaping nations, institutions, cultures, and, more fundamentally, our daily lives."

The FP Passport, then, is a part of the FP website, which itself is more than just an online archive of print articles.  While the full website features unprinted long-form articles and academic papers, the FP Passport blog acts as a clearinghouse for all things foreign policy, an eclectic mix the editors describe as "our arguments hashed out at the coffee machine, insights on the news, story tips buried on our desks, things we hear from our friends abroad, and interesting links that circulated through our inboxes."  Some recent highlights:  breaking news, insider information, gossip, and, one of my favorite segments, What We're Reading, which, of course, leads me to spending even more time reading about foreign policy.  Also of note: my contribution to FP.  Note the attribution in the nut graph (back story here).  And yes, I actually do monitor the Getty image wire, because I am a huge nerd.

3quarksdaily

3quarksdaily is a blog, similar to Boing Boing and Fark, in which an editor (or a group of editors) trawls the Internet for interesting links, articles, etc. 3QD is different, though, in that its content is rather high-minded and interdisciplinary. As its masthead proclaims, the blog features articles related to science, arts, literature, politics, gossip, and philosophy. In my experience, the articles that the editors feature are usually complex and detailed--this is certainly not a place for mainstream media consumers. Some recent highlights (which were hard to select because I love most of what 3QD publishes): We Cannot Live By Skepticism Alone, Philosophy's Great Experiment, Is Time An Illusion?, and Her Morning Elegance by Oren Lavie. Goooood stuff.

3QD is my favorite blog, but I do have one complaint. Often, the titles the editors choose for their posts are not clear and/or descriptive, so I am forced to read much of the entry just to see what the related article is about. I already have enough trouble with RSS addiction; Now that 3QD's ambiguous headlines have joined my flow of articles, I've had to cut out some other--less amazing--subscriptions.

I've got a fever, and the only prescription...is more aXXo

It has never been easier to remotely share digital data. We have come a long way from the days of FTP-run central servers, transfers coordinated through messenger software, and peer to peer file sharing applications like Napster and WinMX. The BitTorrent protocol (BTP) is the new standard, as it has masterfully outperformed all other protocols. Instead of facilitating a transfer of data between two users, the BTP works to allow all users possessing the same file to share parts of the file with those who wish to obtain it. One can download many small parts of a file from many different users at the same time.

While this latest protocol has exhibited lofty new standards of efficiency and security, it is not without flaws. Because the files are not regulated (seeing as how the very existence of most torrents constitutes a violation of intellectual property laws) one can never be sure of a file's true content until it has been completely downloaded, thereby exposing one to a plethora of malicious attacks. It is this climate, a climate (both humorously and seriously) comparable to that of the illegal drug trade, that has produced the need for a reliable source of digital files, just as a drug addict would hope to find a reliable source of "safe" drugs (in both cases, you want to be sure that the product is what the vendor says it is).

As the article describes, aXXo's files are the gold-standard of the torrent world. His emergence is an interesting product of the new online behaviors dictated by advances in file-sharing tech. Just as aXXo's emergence was a result of a demand for his services (an uploader who consistently provides reliable, quality files), his emergence set off other behaviors.

Let's examine Mininova's dedicated aXXo page. It lists only those torrents uploaded by the user registered on the Mininova website as "aXXo". Therefore, the uploader of these files, needing aXXo's password to access his account, is mostly likely the real guy (or guys. or girls, for that matter). It is safe to assume, then, that all of these files are safe and of good quality, because they were almost positively uploaded by the real aXXo, not some imitator harboring bad intentions.

Next, examine the Mininova search results for the query "axxo". There are two important points to consider regarding evolved online behaviors.

1. Those files ending with the familiar "-aXXo" may not be genuine aXXo files, because anyone can affix that text to the end of a file name. This is an obvious hole in Mininova's search infrastructure, but they have remedied the problem by creating the dedicated aXXo page mentioned above.
2. Now notice the other files from the search results. Many end with the notation "KLAXXON". This is an instance of a user taking advantage of the public furor for aXXo files. As you can see, "KLAXXON" actually contains the string "AXXO". This is not a coincidence. In wanting to increase the popularity of his torrents, the user behind the "KLAXXON" handle decided to create a handle that would be returned by the ever-popular "axxo" search query. (Also of note...this point indicates that the Mininova search engine is not case-sensitive. This, of course, is by design, and should not be considered a weakness. A case-sensitive search engine, in this environment, would be too specific.)

So that's about as nerdy (and as long) as my posts will get. But I thought this was a pretty interesting example of evolved behavior at the confluence of technology, law, and the concept of supply-and-demand.