Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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Stephen E. Arnold: Google Trends Fail Badly — Algorithms Get Lost and Are No Substitute for Humans with Intelligence and Integrity

IO Impotency
Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

Google Flu Trends: How Algorithms Get Lost

March 15, 2014

Run a query for Google Flu Trends on Google. The results point to the Google Flu Trends Web site at http://bit.ly/1ny9j58. The graphs and charts seem authoritative. I find the colors and legends difficult to figure out, but Google knows best. Or does it?

A spate of stories have appeared in New Scientist, Smithsonian, and Time that pick up the threat that Google Flu Trends does not work particularly well. The Science Magazine podcast presents a quite interesting interview with David Lazar, one of the authors of “The Parable of Google Flu: Traps in Big Data Analysis.”

The point of the Lazar article and the greedy recycling of the analysis is that algorithms can be incorrect. What is interesting is the surprise that creeps into the reports of Google’s infallible system being dead wrong.

For example, Smithsonian Magazine’s “Why Google Flu Trends Can’t Track the Flu (Yet)” states, “The vaunted big data project falls victim to periodic tweaks in Google’s own search algorithms.” The write continues:

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Google Trends Fail Badly — Algorithms Get Lost and Are No Substitute for Humans with Intelligence and Integrity”

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SchwartzReport: USAF Totals a Stealth Fighter — Poof Goes a Billion Dollars Plus (Write Off Plus Replacement Cost)

Corruption, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Military
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

Another Day, Another $678 Million Stealth Jet Wrecked
DAVID AXE – WIRED

This is where our money goes. We don't have money to feed kids, educate them, or run public libraries. But another 100 million for a new weapon… sure, no problem.

Read full article.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: USAF Totals a Stealth Fighter — Poof Goes a Billion Dollars Plus (Write Off Plus Replacement Cost)”

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Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed: NASA Models Collapse of Western Civilization — Concentration of Wealth and Cascade of Critical Break-Downs

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

NASA-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse'?

Natural and social scientists develop new model of how ‘perfect storm' of crises could unravel global system

A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

Noting that warnings of ‘collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that “the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.” Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to “precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common.”

The research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary ‘Human And Nature DYnamical' (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharri of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed: NASA Models Collapse of Western Civilization — Concentration of Wealth and Cascade of Critical Break-Downs”

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Owl: Crimean Tatars — Long Genocided by Russia — Threaten Jihad

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Genocide, 09 Terrorism, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Military
Who? Who?
Who? Who?

Tatars comprise 12% of Crimean population, and they are are real badasses with a lot of jihadis, and will be a major component in a volatile mix over there.

Phi Beta Iota: Tatars have been subject to genocide by the Russians for a very long time. They are a wild card, but the Russians have probably planned for this minority as a  threat.

See Also:

Ukraine @ Phi Beta Iota

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Berto Jongman: Sorcha Fall on Malaysian Airlines & Possible Cloaking of Aircraft As Used to Fake 9/11

Government, Law Enforcement, Military
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

We know this person as David Booth and a regular enhancer often accused of fabrication, but his thinking is worth considering and he generally adds value to any topic.

Russia “Puzzled” Over Malaysia Airlines “Capture” By US Navy

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

hijack plane to diego garciaA new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces (GRU) states that Aerospace Defence Forces (VKO) experts remain “puzzled” as to why the United States Navy “captured and then diverted” a Malaysia Airlines civilian aircraft from its intended flight-path to their vast and highly-secretive Indian Ocean base located on the Diego Garcia atoll.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Sorcha Fall on Malaysian Airlines & Possible Cloaking of Aircraft As Used to Fake 9/11”

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Mini-Me: Growing Evidence That Autism Is Linked to Pollution – True Cost Economics Could Be On Verge of a Break-Out

03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime
Who? Mini-Me?
Who? Mini-Me?

Growing Evidence That Autism Is Linked to Pollution

A new study offers strong evidence that environmental toxins play a role in the disorder

Several studies have shown a link between air pollution and autism, but a new study published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology is one of the largest to put the two together.

Researchers studied insurance claims from around 100 million people in the U.S., and used congenital malformations in boys as an indictor for parental exposure to environmental toxins. “Autism appears to be strongly correlated with rate of congenital malformations of the genitals in males across the country. This gives an indicator of environmental load and the effect is surprisingly strong,” study author Andrey Rzhetsky from the University of Chicago said in a statement.

Every 1% increase in malformations corresponded to a 283% increase in autism in the same county.

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Continue reading “Mini-Me: Growing Evidence That Autism Is Linked to Pollution – True Cost Economics Could Be On Verge of a Break-Out”

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