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Formula 1 teams are using microphones to spy on their competition during races:

By recording the sounds of the engines … engineers can relate the speed at a given point on the circuit to the revolutions per minute of the engine. They can then calculate the gear ratios from the changes in noise level when gears are changed. After that they can calculate the speed of the car at every point on the circuit.

This is a good reminder that there is far, far more information in the universe than we are currently capable of processing. Objects, machines, animals, and people are constantly spewing data into the physical world. Most of this data travels over exceptionally noisy media: the atmosphere, the EM spectrum. If I may momentarily try on an economist’s hat:

The high noise levels of these media make it difficult, and therefore expensive, to extract specific information from them. In this case, two factors combined to make it economically feasible to extract engine performance data from sound recordings of the cars:

1. The decreasing cost (in both time and money) of data collection (microphones, storage) and processing equipment (hardware & software), and
2. The increasing value of the extracted data¹ — a function of how high the monetary stakes are in F1.

The same thing (economically speaking) is currently happening in the oil industry:

1. We’re getting better at extracting oil from tar sands.
2. The price of oil is rising.

And voilà, the ecomony in Alberta is booming. Of course this is nothing new in economics. Production costs go down, demand goes up, and someone makes a killing selling widgets.

But applying this principle to information reminds us of what cryptographers have known for a while: there are no secrets. There’s only information whose ratio of extraction cost to value is high enough that no one will bother digging for it. And if we assume that extraction costs will always fall, then only worthless data can ever be safe.

¹This related article gives some insight into how valuable this particular information can be.

Despite a busy and exciting week, Teague still managed to have this article about Wikipedia published in today’s Baltimore Sun. It does a good job presenting Wikipedia — and surrounding issues — to a potentially unfamiliar audience:

Wikipedia is an interactive online encyclopedia that anyone can work with; you can create your own entries and edit existing ones.

For example, if you don’t agree with the statement in the Baltimore entry that Mayor Martin O’Malley “has maintained high approval ratings through both of his terms in office,” you can change it. But be warned that your change may be edited by anyone who disagrees or thinks you have erred.

(Read the whole thing.)

This is not a St. Patrick’s Day post.

Amanda returned from Arizona singing the praises of Fat Tire (made by the New Belgium Brewery), which she discovered she like despite disliking beer in general. Wired Magazine pointed out some other reasons for liking New Belgium’s beers (2nd half of the article). These guys are definitely smarter than the average brewer:

New Belgium completed installation of its own process water treatment facility … bacteria feed on the organic waste and leave the water clean enough to pump back into the building for reuse in cleaning… .

Another remarkable byproduct of this process is the production of methane … We then capture this methane and run it back into the building where it fires a co-generator… .

If a little brewery in Colorado can do this, why not Anheuser-Busch? Oh, right. I knew that. Thanks, Google.

More of a gallery proof-of-concept than a real post.

Here’s what I’m currently using to get around the cities: