It’s a trap!

In response to a previous comment:

Always check the Executive Summary. He who writes the Executive Summary controls the message.

Do not ever join a panel to work on a report, especially a political report ,without having a say in the final Executive Summary. Even then you can still be screwed

The discussion is on the Interior report recommending a moratorium on oil rigs in the Gulf. The researchers that were asked to vet the safety recommendations in the report are upset because they feel that the way it is written makes it seem as though they approve of the moratorium, which most do not.

Anyone can read the report. The problem is really not the report and its safety recommendations, which the reviewers have no problem with.

The problem comes from the Executive Summary, the only place where the Secretary adds his own recommendations, outside of the ones the reviewers examined. The Secretary’s recommendations are found nowhere in the report. They do not need to be put into the Executive Summary. I think the reviewers would not be upset if the Secretary had not put any of his recommendations in the Executive Summary but had included them in a separate letter.

It is the cloaking of a political decision in a lot of scientific material that upsets them.

There appears to have been a change from the draft which called for a moratorium on floating rigs deeper than 1000 feet. This was changed in the final to all floating rigs. This is actually a bug change since floating rigs are also used from below 500 feet.

They are correct to be upset, especially if they were not given a chance to see the final Executive Summary.

But what happened is actually not something that is unique at all.

The researchers were not asked to write the report as much as to make sure its safety recommendations made sense. The report never uses the words moratorium. They are only found in the Executive Summary.

Who writes the Executive Summary? Well, in my experience it is never the guys who are on a review panel. It is written by someone who sometimes has very different goals than the reviewers.

This is a standard event. Ask experts to work on a report and then add an Executive Summary that really does not summarize the report at all but adds new stuff for political purposes.

No one reads reports – well I do but I am really unusual. People read the Executive Summary, which is where all the important policy material is often put. This is where politicians put their political points, trying to wrap them up in the rest of the report, making people think that the report really supports these political choices.

These guys are rightly ticked if they were never given the ability to see the final Executive Summary. But it seems that there is a big difference in what happens when we are asked to write a report and when we are just asked to vet one.

The main reason for scientists to be asked to vet is to mix a political document with scientific-laden report. Otherwise they should write the report, especially the Executive Summary.

Any report can be made into utter crap simply by what the Executive Summary says. Politicians use the report for cover but put into the Executive Summary what they really want to include.

If you are every asked to sign off on a government report, state that you will be happy to as long as you see the final Executive Summary. Of course, the final Executive Summary can always be rewritten. So always have that angry letter ready if things progress

Remember Admiral Ackbar:

I would disagree that they are now complicit or even shown to be. They did a good job getting out the letter that shows their areas of disagreement. They are still working to get things changed. In addition, the reviewers are still part of the process and may yet have something more to say about what happens next.

Canary in a coal mine?

by laszlo-photo

Mass Murder of Sea Cucumbers near the Deepwater Site
[Via Deep Sea News]

The ‘hidden’ ecological catastrophe is manifesting itself…. Starting yesterday night we have been seeing a large number of dead sea cucumbers floating on the surface. These animals live on the bottom of the ocean where they feed on sediment and suspended organic matter. I would estimate the number of dead sea cucumbers to be . . . → Read More: Mass Murder of Sea Cucumbers near the Deepwater Site

[More]

The death of large numbers of sea cucumbers is very worrisome. They are often the most prevalent of animals in the deep ocean. The video here gives you an idea of how richly populated deep water is.

The Census of Marine Life seems to be in a race against time with our destructive actions. There will be a discussion on the Deepwater Oil Spill by members of the Census on Friday. May be worth watching to hear some scientists involved.

Refuting the Jones Act meme

The Jones Act and the Oil Spill…Not What You Think
[Via Deep Sea News]

gCaptain beat me to the punch on writing about the Jones Act as it relates to the oil spill. The Jones Act, actually Section 27 of the Merchant Marine Act of 192o, has come under criticism for potentially curtailing the United State’s oil spill response.

In short, US Maritime shipping has the following requirements:

• US Owned
• US Flagged
• US Built
• Crewed by Americans

So, unless your vessel meets all of the above requirements, you are not able to ship cargo between US Ports. Looking to ship US-made BMWs from Charleston to New York by sea, then you need to ship on a Jones Act complaint vessel. And given that building a ship in the US is extremely expensive, your choices are limited.

[More]

There has been a lot of discussion about the effect of the Jones act on the cleanup. This post demonstrates, by bringing together several different threads, it is having no effect at all.

Fifteen foreign-flagged ships are currently involved in the response. Deepwater Enterprise, a non-US flagged ship was built in Spain, is soaking up and burning much of the oil and gas from the well.

These ships can do what they need to without getting a waiver as they are operating more than 3 miles from shore. If they needed to work closer, waives have been fast-tracked to allow them. But there has been no need.

We can armchair quarterback the level of response but the Jones act does not appear to be one of the things hampering the effort

They should never win

Creationists suffer another legal defeat
[Via Bad Astronomy]

Some good news from Texas! Yeehaw!

The Institute for Creation Research — one of the biggest nonsense-peddlers in the 6000 year history of the world — was handed a nice defeat this week. That link to the National Center for Science Education (the good guys) has all the info you need, but to summarize: the ICR moved from California to Texas. In the previous state, for reasons beyond understanding, they were able to grant Master’s degrees in their graduate school. But Texas didn’t recognize their accreditation, so they filed to get it approved.

Not so surprisingly, scientists and educators rose in protest, and in 2008 the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board — the organization that grants accreditation — denied the ICR. The creationists appealed. In the meantime, they also tried to extend their ability to grant degrees temporarily while the lawsuit continued. What happened this week is that the extension as denied.

[More]

A nice but small victory for rationality. Let’s hope it continues and they are denied accreditation. That is what denialists deserve.

Lower barriers to entry applies almost everywhere

[Crossposted at SpreadingScience]

by Donald Macleod

iPhone economics and lower barriers to entry
[Via O'Reilly Radar]

Tomi Ahonen at Communities Dominate Brands has an interesting analysis on iPhone economics. It’s a substantial piece with a lot of good stats, and his key conclusion is:

… don’t invest in [app development] today … Put your creativity and investment into the real money opportunities, remember Pop Idol simple SMS votes earning half a billion dollars in USA this year alone …

He comes to this conclusion after observing that the vast majority of apps will lose money, while only a tiny handful generate significant revenue. Consequently, the logical response is for developers (and businesses) to instead focus their attentions on more lucrative opportunities. In other words, the only way to win is not to play the game.

While his numbers are sobering, they’re not all that surprising. Consider publishing — people have long known that the vast majority of authors slave away on projects that will never make any money, while a very few stars (think J.K. Rowling) make a killing. Whatever you call it — the long tail, the Pareto principle, the 80/20 rule — this simply appears to be the brutal truth of most media industries, from publishing to movies to music.

What I think he overlooks — or is bemoaning — is the important role the App store is playing in lowering the barriers to market entry for developers. He cites the big money opportunities as “SMS, MMS, and WAP” (seriously, WAP?). But, good luck trying to get a biz dev deal there. Only a few, really well-connected organizations are going to get those. When you compare the costs of hiring some kid out of college who can’t believe he’s actually getting paid to write apps to the cost of building the kind of highly skilled (and highly compensated!) sales force required to put these deals together, an app investment suddenly doesn’t look so bad.

[More]

Why industries are being overturned comes down to one simple fact – work that used to require years of training and a tremendous expense to accomplish can be done by someone in their basement. It is true in software development, in music, in books, etc.

While it may be difficult to be a superstar here, it does make it easier for creative people to actually make more money, since they can reproduce their work so easily.

I first heard about this new economy two years ago at an O’Reilly meeting. A class at Stanford was devoted to understanding how people choose apps. Breaking into small teams, they worked on developing apps that people would use. They discovered that you can learn what makes a winning app.

In 10 weeks, they had created apps with a possible yearly revenue of $10 million dollars. Some students left school to run the companies that created the best apps, which were bringing in close to $1 million.

The faster they could run their test cycle, the faster they could create a winning app.

The key is low barriers. This allows people to rapidly produce a variety of apps, with the focus then going to those with the best results. This way, instead of having to hit some grand slams in order to pay for overhead, a bunch of singles can give one a comfortable amount of money.

It’s the battery, stupid

by scalespeeder

Feature: Ars reviews the HTC EVO 4G

[Via Ars Technica]

The HTC EVO 4G is arguably one of the most ambitious smartphones ever to ship with Google’s Android mobile operating system. Exclusive to Sprint, the device is one of the first to deliver 4G network connectivity. Its appeal is boosted by impressive hardware specs and a roster of outstanding capabilities, like support for high-definition video capture. It comes loaded with HTC’s unique user interface enhancements and custom applications, which round out its feature set nicely.

Despite its strong assortment of merits, the device falls short of greatness due to mediocre battery life and a handful of other limitations. In this review, we’ll take a close hands-on look at the EVO 4G.

[More]

With a hat tip to James Carville, the single most important thing for a mobile device if how low it will sustain itself when not plugged in. A device is not very mobile if tethered to a plug.

The EVO 4G falls down heavily here, with a very short battery life. As this article states, the workaround is to turn off everything that makes the phone worth buying, such as 4G. It is easy to see why Jobs is fanatical about anything that reduces battery life.

A phone without any juice is worthless as a mobile device. People should not have to deal with workarounds just to use the phone for its primary purpose.

Finally made it to 75

Yesterday, the temperature in Seattle finally cracked 75 °F, reaching 77 °F. This is the latest date this has happened. The Dew Point still only ht 54 °F, still well in the comfortable range. It is supposed to cool of quite a bit today, with a high of 62 °F forecast.

Houston, on the other hand, had a high of 91 °F with a Dew Point that got to 76 °F. I don’t mind a 22 ° difference in our summer temperatures. One reason why we can live without air conditioning, in contrast to my old home town.