Military Deluged in Drone Intelligence – NYTimes.com

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By CHRISTOPHER DREW  Published: January 10, 2010

HAMPTON, Va. — As the military rushes to place more spy drones over Afghanistan, the remote-controlled planes are producing so much video intelligence that analysts are finding it more and more difficult to keep up.

Air Force drones collected nearly three times as much video over Afghanistan and Iraq last year as in 2007 — about 24 years’ worth if watched continuously. That volume is expected to multiply in the coming years as drones are added to the fleet and as some start using multiple cameras to shoot in many directions.

via Military Deluged in Drone Intelligence – NYTimes.com.

[Actually I’m surprised that the 24 multiplier is not higher, especially since some drones operate at night. On average, only 24 cameras are running.]

Airmen in air-conditioned rooms

HMI: Multitasking

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We document a huge amount of information in our report How Much Information 2009 . Personally I find the 100,000 words per day as startling as the 34 gigabytes. Our report does not go into it, but there is some literature on how constant streams of information affect people. I’ve asked Lin Ong (RA) to pull together some articles, but here is a recent publication about the myth of multitasking, i.e. the claim that people can do several things at once and do them all well.  The underlying research the BBC discusses is published here. (fee or license required)

The people who engage in media “multitasking” are those least able to do so well, according to researchers. A survey defined two groups: those who routinely consumed multiple media such as internet, television and mobile phones, and those who did not. In a series of three classic psychology tests for attention and memory, the “low multitaskers” consistently outdid their highly multitasking counterparts. The results are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

via BBC NEWS | Technology | Multitaskers bad at multitasking.

A Lifehacker column interviews another author on the subject. A psychiatrist with a book  on the human effects of overstimulation is discussed in a Business Week column for the frazzled.

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!”

Conflicts of interest in pharma research

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What’s interesting about this is not the limit to outside compensation (a  $5000 per day limit!), but how bad the conflicts have gotten. For a broader analysis of this, check out Beatrice Golomb’s research e.g. a talk she gave.

Harvard Teaching Hospitals Cap Outside Pay

By DUFF WILSON

Published: January 2, 2010

The owner of two research hospitals affiliated with the Harvard Medical School has imposed restrictions on outside pay for two dozen senior officials who also sit on the boards of pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies. The limits come in the wake of growing criticism of the ties between industry and academia.

Medical experts say they believe the conflict-of-interest rules at the institution, Partners HealthCare, go further than those of any other academic medical center in restricting outside pay from drug companies. The rules, which became effective on Friday, impose limits specifically on outside directors who guide some of the nation’s biggest companies.

via Harvard Teaching Hospitals Cap Outside Pay to Top Officials – NYTimes.com.

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”.