Category Archives: The world

Researchers Study the World’s Information Explosion – The Numbers Guy – WSJ

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Arguments over what information to measure, and how are fundamentally irresolvable. There are too many good answers, and for most purposes measurement problems make it impossible to measure exactly what we want, in any case. The WSJ’s “numbers guy” collects some views on this, related to the new USC/Science article on the world’s computation.

My print column this week examines a recent paper in Science and other research efforts that attempt to quantify the world’s information. The studies generally compile dozens of pieces of data, such as hard-drive production and sales, and put all information into a single unit, such as bytes or words. “We can say things like ‘a 6 square-cm newspaper image is worth a 1000 words,’ ” the Science study’s authors, Martin Hilbert and Priscila López, wrote.

via Researchers Study the World’s Information Explosion – The Numbers Guy – WSJ.

Your Brain on Computers – NYTimes.com

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Article yesterday on the brain-altering effects of constant computer use. It’s a complex topic and I think a lot more research is needed, but there is certainly something going on. The reporter, Matt Richtel, won a Pulitzer last year for his series on distracted driving while using cellphones. (I’m quoted in the article, but not by name.)

Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement — a dopamine squirt — that researchers say can be addictive.

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Re-using CIA photos for research

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The world is awash in data…. a lot of it can be re-used for other purposes. (Anecdote: Much of the early data on sea temperatures comes from the British Navy, whose ships routinely measured  a bucket of seawater every morning. Not exactly precise data, and using it requires estimates of things like how long the bucket sat on deck before being measured, and the accuracy of thermometers in the British Navy in 1800.)

The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.

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The trove of images is “really useful,” said Norbert Untersteiner, a professor at the University of Washington who specializes in polar ice and is a member of the team of spies and scientists behind the effort.

via C.I.A. Revives Data-Sharing Program With Environmental Scientists – NYTimes.com.

Query: What is Google doing to archive its maps and satellite imagery? I can’t imagine they get thrown away, but keeping full resolution versions of everything would be expensive.

American history repeats…

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We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.

Franklin Roosevelt re-election speech.  Speech at Madison Square Garden (October 31, 1936) – Miller Center of Public Affairs.

Was the vitriol against FDR (who started Social Security, threatened to pack the Supreme Court, and was “radical” by most definitions) greater than the vitriol against Obama? Probably, but with modern communications media it’s easier to see it today. And I can’t imagine Obama saying “and I welcome their hatred!” It’s too much like “Bring it on!”

Why should the “real” economy be affected by chaos in the financial sector?

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Brad DeLong on the linkage between the real world (where people make things and provide services) and the financial world (where people move pieces of paper around). The linkage has always struck me as overly strong, although intellectually I understand it. (I studied economics at MIT when Bob Merton and Fisher Black were active instructors there. I was required to believe it makes sense.) He provides a good reminder of why the linkage exists, and its effects in setting off the current recession. An excerpt:

This crash in prices of risky financial assets would not overly concern the rest of us were it not for the havoc that it has wrought on the price system, which is sending a peculiar message to the real economy. The price system is saying: shut down risky production activities and don’t undertake any new activities that might be risky.

But there aren’t enough safe, secure, and sound enterprises to absorb all the workers laid off from risky enterprises. And if the decline in nominal wages signals that there is an excess supply of labor, matters only get worse. General deflation eliminates the capital of yet more financial intermediaries, and makes risky an even larger share of assets that had previously been regarded as safe.

via Project Syndicate – The Fairness of Financial Rescue.

(More discussion in DeLong’s blog

Climate promises are easy to make, but hard to keep

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My upcoming BGGE course will have some major projects on climate change negotiation, so I’ve been reading about recent developments more than usual. As usual,  Bjørn Lomborg has some intriguing ways of slicing the numbers. Unlike the old days, GCC deniers won’t get much comfort from him, though.

To be sure, Europe has made some progress towards reducing its carbon-dioxide emissions. But, of the 15 European Union countries represented at the Kyoto summit, 10 have still not meet the targets agreed there. Neither will Japan or Canada. And the United States never even ratified the agreement. In all, we are likely to achieve barely 5% of the promised Kyoto reduction.

To put it another way, let’s say we index 1990 global emissions at 100. If there were no Kyoto at all, the 2010 level would have been 142.7. With full Kyoto implementation, it would have been 133. In fact, the actual outcome of Kyoto is likely to be a 2010 level of 142.2 – virtually the same as if we had done nothing at all. Given 12 years of continuous talks and praise for Kyoto, this is not much of an accomplishment.

The Kyoto Protocol did not fail because any one nation let the rest of the world down. It failed because making quick, drastic cuts in carbon emissions is extremely expensive. Whether or not Copenhagen is declared a political victory, that inescapable fact of economic life will once again prevail – and grand promises will once again go unfulfilled.

via Project Syndicate – Climate Change and “Climategate”.

How to lie with statistics – example 322

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Paul Kedrosky reproduces some data on supposedly  fast growth industries:

According to a new study, here are the best and worst performing industries of the last decade as measured in revenue percentage change terms. Here are the leaders:

source: http://www.ibisworld.com/

Some of these are doubtless valid, but the top 4 are all industries that had virtually no revenue at all in the 1990s, since they basically did not exist were not measured until Internet companies started to go public.  It’s easy to have an astronomical growth rate if you make the base number small enough. Startups do this a lot – “our revenue grew 1500% in our first 2 years.” That could mean they had $1000 of revenue in year 1, and $15000 in year 3!