New Global Map = A Game-Changer

See Every Piece of Earth’s Surface Change With New Satellite Map

A huge trove of constantly updated data is now available to the public.

By Betsy Mason PUBLISHED March 10, 2017

Source: National Geographic

A new global map made of more than two million satellite images, updated monthly, is now yours to explore. Starting today, Earth-imaging company Planet Labs is launching a web portal to its huge database of photos of Earth, giving the public an unprecedented view of the planet’s ever-changing surface.

Using Planet Explorer Beta, you can see how any swath of land has changed over the last year, at monthly intervals. The company has built an automated system that sifts through millions of images collected by its satellites, selects the best ones, and stitches them together into a mosaic.

The entire globe is available at a resolution of 30 to 40 meters. The United States is available at three- to five-meter resolution—fine enough to pick out buildings, roads, even individual cars.
“This base map is a game changer,” says National Geographic cartographer Rosemary Wardley. “Having access to up-to-date imagery at such a high resolution is a tremendous asset to not only the field of cartography but for science as a whole.

“The ability to toggle and compare dates and filter the imagery based on differing categories is an example of how far the world of GIS has come in the past decade. Image processing that used to take up the bulk of our time can now be done with the click of a mouse.”

Since its founding in 2010, San Francisco–based Planet Labs has aimed to capture a new image of Earth—every piece of it—every day.

After launching 88 new satellites last month on an Indian rocket, the company now has 149 satellites in orbit, each just one foot long.
In three or four months, when the new additions to its fleet are fully operational, the company says there will be enough eyes on the planet to meet the goal of daily global coverage.

                    

 

 

Hitting A Financial Wall > Here in Mesa?

The Shape of Things to Come
March 10, 2017 by Johnny Sanphillippo                                   
Source and taking-off point : Strong Towns
When is Mesa Mayor John Giles gonna realize that this could be what NextMesa really is?
Communities are hitting a financial wall.
Current tax revenue is entirely insufficient to cover the ongoing maintenance of municipal infrastructure – and by “infrastructure” the writer of the source article mean public services and staffing levels as well as the physical roads, pipes, and civic buildings.
There simply isn’t enough productive private economic activity to support the underlaying public chassis that’s been built since World War II.

So we’re in for a great deal of deferred maintenance, failed pension obligations, reductions in services, higher taxes (which will be called “user fees” and “code enforcement”) and ultimately default on public debt.
That’s already baked into the 'budget pies'.
Action to deal with the $20+ Million unfunded liabilities and skyrocketing costs of pensions/benefits is getting put off until later at the same time the city is asking for 5% cuts in all departments ....yet it can spend about $800,000 for khaki pants and polo shirts? ... nothing' wrong about that, right?

Giles thinks getting into political office is 'like a marathon' --- whether or not this practicing personal injury/accident law attorney [usually referred to as 'ambulance chasers'] for the last 20+ knows what's ahead is open to some doubt when he constantly says in public that "Everything is great ...."

 



 

Why Worry Re/ World Wide Web ??

Just minutes ago Rhett Jones published this on Gizmodo
The Father of the World Wide Web Has Some Worries About His Baby
Yesterday was the 28th anniversary of the day that Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal for what would become the World Wide Web. In honor of the occasion, he published a letter outlining the biggest areas of its development that are doing him a frighten and warping his original vision.

 

Berners-Lee still directs the World Wide Web Consortium which develops open standards for the web. That gives him a tremendous amount of influence. But now that the web truly is world wide, governments and multi-billion dollar corporations hold most of the power. While a lot of the problems he points out aren’t at all knew, he says that he’s become “increasingly worried about three new trends” over the last 12 months.

Things that Tim is worried about:
1. The loss of control over personal data
2. It’s too easy for misinformation to spread on the web
3. Political advertising online needs transparency and understanding
Those are some real problems, indeed. They’ve all been part of a heated discussion. But what do we do about them? Tim’s not totally sure either but at least he does us the service of outlining some vague solutions that he’s leaning towards.

Things that Tim thinks we could do to solve the problems:
1. “Data pods” might be one way to give people more control over their personal information
2. Subscriptions and micropayments as a solution for publications and other ad-driven businesses. The idea seemingly being to disconnect the gold rush for traffic and the use of personal data for targeted marketing.

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3. Fighting government overreach through the courts, if necessary. (hint: it is and will forever be necessary.)

4. Push gatekeepers like Facebook and Google to “continue their efforts” to fight fake news without forming centralized determination of what is or isn’t true.
5. Greater transparency in the ways that algorithms are being used to influence our lives. He cites the Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Machine Learning set of principles as an example of how new standards could be determined.
6. Increased regulation of political campaign ads online to bring them up to the same standards required for other mediums like television and radio

Unfortunately, its difficult to see how to persuade those with the power to implement these solutions. Governments will do what they want, though continuous legal battles may hold the beast at bay in some countries. And many internet-focused corporations have built their entire business model around having exclusive personal data and using it efficiently.

Berners-Lee doesn’t necessarily seem naive enough to believe these problems will be solved soon and he says he’ll continue to work on the World Web Web foundation’s five-year strategy as a way of finding solutions.

His access to the most powerful players in tech and his general level of influence will likely be his best weapon in the fight. Convincing the titans of tech that they should stick to the philosophy of not being evil is the best hope for keeping the web alive

Ready for This? Never-Ending War

Niall Ferguson

March 12 2017, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

Trump already has his war — it was started in Cyberia and will never end

Source: The Times London 

 Blogger's Note: Over-joyed that Niall Ferguson is my most frequent sender of tweets

To each American ad­ministration, its war.

For Truman and Eisen­hower, Korea.

For Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, Vietnam.

For Carter and Reagan, the culmination of the Cold War. For both Bushes, Iraq. For Clinton, ex-Yugoslavia.

For Obama, Afghanistan.

Which will be Donald Trump’s war?

There is good reason to fear it could be the Second Korean War. Or it could be yet another quagmire in the Middle East. His most excitable critics warn that the Third World War will happen on his watch. But I am more worried about the First Cyber War —because that war has already begun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pros & Cons: 50 Days of Trump > Fooling Some of The People All The Time

Counting-down the days

Published on Mar 12, 2017

Views: 3,269

Duration: 04:15

Some highlights from Trump's presidency.

STAT > Exercise Caution with 'WorkPlace Wellness'

That is the story in Politics from StatNews.com

House Republicans would let employers demand workers’ genetic test results

By Sharon Begley @sxbegle

March 10, 2017

A little-noticed bill moving through Congress would allow companies to require employees to undergo genetic testing or risk paying a penalty of thousands of dollars, and would let employers see that genetic and other health information.

Giving employers such power is now prohibited by legislation including the 2008 genetic privacy and nondiscrimination law known as GINA.

The new bill gets around that landmark law by stating explicitly that GINA and other protections do not apply when genetic tests are part of a “workplace wellness¹” program.

The bill, HR 1313, was approved by a House committee on Wednesday, with all 22 Republicans supporting it and all 17 Democrats opposed.

It has been overshadowed by the debate over the House GOP proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act², but the genetic testing bill is expected to be folded into a second ACA-related measure containing a grab-bag of provisions that do not affect federal spending, as the main bill does.

“What this bill would do is completely take away the protections of existing laws,” said Jennifer Mathis, director of policy and legal advocacy at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, a civil rights group. In particular, privacy and other protections for genetic and health information in GINA and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act “would be pretty much eviscerated,” she said.

Employers say they need the changes because those two landmark laws are “not aligned in a consistent manner” with laws about workplace wellness programs, as an employer group said in congressional testimony last week.
Employers got virtually everything they wanted for their workplace wellness programs during the Obama administration:
The ACA allowed them to charge employees 30 percent, and possibly 50 percent, more for health insurance if they declined to participate in the “voluntary” programs, which typically include cholesterol and other screenings; health questionnaires that ask about personal habits, including plans to get pregnant; and sometimes weight loss and smoking cessation classes.
And in rules that Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued last year, a workplace wellness program counts as “voluntary” even if workers have to pay thousands of dollars more in premiums and deductibles if they don’t participate.

Share your workplace wellness concerns

Do you have experience with a workplace wellness program that you feel has been coercive or unhelpful, or deprived you of privacy protections? Tell reporters from Stat News here

AbSciCon 2017 Here In Mesa April 24-28 2017

AbSciCon 2017 will provide a forum for reporting on new discoveries, sharing data and insights, advancing collaborative efforts and initiating new ones, planning new projects, and educating the next generation of astrobiologists.

The conference will feature plenary sessions on current and thought-provoking topics, topical sessions, evening programs, and public and educational events.

 

Meeting Location and Date

The Astrobiology Science Conference 2017 (AbSciCon 2017) will be held April 24–28, 2017 in Mesa, Arizona at the Mesa Convention Center (263 N Center Street, Mesa, AZ 85201) and the Phoenix Marriott Mesa (200 North Centennial Way, Mesa, Arizona 85201).

 

Purpose and Scope

AbSciCon 2017 is the next in a series of conferences organized by the astrobiology community.

The theme for AbSciCon 2017 is “Diverse Life and its Detection on Different Worlds.” Mars and icy worlds in our solar system are increasingly recognized as habitable, even as increasing numbers of exoplanets in their stars’ habitable zones have been discovered. The focus is shifting from identification of habitable worlds, to detection of life on them.

Among other topics, the conference will address:

• Setting the Stage for Geochemistry
• Setting the Stage for Biochemistry
• Biomarkers of Life in Anaerobic Ecosystems and Different Evolutionary Stages
• Biomarkers of Anaerobic Ecosystems
• Biogeochemical Cycles on Water Worlds Near and Far
• Biosignatures on Exoplanets
• Preparing for Life Detection:  Astrobiology Education and Public Outreach

More information > here

Organizers /Institutional Support

Lunar and Planetary Institute
Universities Space Research Association
National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA

 

Conference Chair

Steven Desch, Arizona State University

 

Science Organizing Committee

Ariel Anbar

Arizona State University

Linda Billings

George Washington University

David Catling

University of Washington

Mary Droser

University of California, Riverside

Hilairy Hartnett

Arizona State University

Nicholas Hud

Georgia Institute of Technology

Betul Kacar

Harvard University

Karen Meech

University of Hawaii

Daniella Scalice

NASA Astrobiology Institute

Britney Schmidt

Georgia Institute of Technology

Sara Imari Walker

Arizona State University

Paula Welander

Stanford University

Mary Voytek (ex officio)

NASA

Local Organizing Committee

Steve Desch (Chair)

Arizona State University

Hilairy Hartnett

Arizona State University

Liz McHugh

Arizona State University

Adam Monroe

Arizona State University

Daniella Scalice

NASA Astrobiology Institute

Sara Imari Walker

Arizona State University

Patrick Young

Arizona State University