Eideard

La Cieneguilla

There’s an old Stephen Wright joke that goes something like, “I have a map of the U.S. Scale 1:1. I spent all last summer folding it.”

Now Google Maps is seeking to make its map approach that scale by launching a tool called Map Maker in the U.S. that lets users correct and add to Google’s map of the United States.

The tool is already available in 183 countries, where the lack of good maps made it impossible for the search giant to create a useful online mapping service. The user-generated maps quickly became good enough for driving directions in India, according to Google MapMaker tech lead Lalitesh Katragadda…

Now Google wants to have its U.S. users tweak its U.S. maps to make them even more detailed, into what Katragadda calls a “living, breathing map and canvas for the people who live there.”

For example, Google imagines college students including campus shortcuts or annotating the names of dorms. Suburbanites might annotate the map to indicate which parks have soccer fields or to add a new coffee shop. To make those processes simpler, Google is also rolling out new tools for editors. One lets MapMaker users see StreetView photos to help with their edits. Another is an advanced search function that lets you search the map for things like “all chinese restaurants in San Francisco,” to make it easy to see which ones are missing and which have incomplete data…

“Local information is the final frontier,” product manager Manik Gupta said. Still, only 30% of the world is well mapped by Google’s estimation, though every time fiber lands in a country, the Map Maker tool begins to take off.

I’ve gone through a much more complicated procedure a few times – just to straighten out mistakes entered when the Google StreetView car passed through La Cieneguilla. “Moved” my home twice and it’s still one lot off from the platt.

This will be a piece of cake – fun to boot – and a bit constructive. Can’t hope for much more than that.

Would you buy a used car from either of these clowns?

Denmark, Singapore and New Zealand formed a three-way tie as the least corrupt countries in the 2010 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index, while Somalia was rated the most corrupt and the U.S score declined.

Those three countries were the leaders last year as well, though in 2009 New Zealand was first, with Denmark and Singapore closely behind. The index, developed for at least the last 15 years by the Berlin-based international anti-corruption group, is widely used by business, civil society groups and others when determining corruption risk across the globe.

This year, the index found that three-quarters of the 178 countries scored below 5 on a Zero-to-10 scale, indicating serious corruption problems. A country’s perceived corruption decreases as its score increases. Denmark, Singapore and New Zealand each scored a 9.3, whereas Somalia scored a 1.1 and the U.S. saw its score drop to 7.1 in 2010 from 7.5 a year ago…

“We need to see more enforcement of existing rules and laws. There should be nowhere to hide for the corrupt or their money,” said Huguette Labelle, chair of Transparency International, in the statement.

Of the hundreds of sources covering the release of this report, I chose the Wall Street Journal – just to peep the conservative moneyboys perception of corruption. The result was predictable – scant mention that the United States continues in decline. BTW, the USA was 14th before George W’s election. Now, we’re 22nd.

Wow. What a wonderful world of choice. Here in New Mexico we have one reasonably courageous senator and one matching congressman [not in my district - so, I don't get to vote for him]. The rest are the same old, lame old story – running against a stereotypical slate of Republicans whose only claim to fame is that they’re presently unemployed in government.

America continues to lag behind other nations when it comes to gains in life expectancy, and commonly cited causes for our poor performance—obesity, smoking, traffic fatalities and homicide—are not to blame, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

The study looked at health spending; behavioral risk factors like obesity and smoking; and 15-year survival rates for men and women ages 45 and 65 in the U.S. and 12 other nations — Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

While the U.S. has achieved gains in 15-year survival rates decade by decade between 1975 and 2005, the researchers discovered that other countries have experienced even greater gains, leading the U.S. to slip in country ranking, even as per capita health care spending in the U.S. increased at more than twice the rate of the comparison countries.

Fifteen-year survival rates for men and women ages 45 and 65 in the U.S. have fallen relative to the other 12 countries over the past 30 years. Forty-five year old U.S. white women fared the worst—by 2005 their 15-year survival rates were lower than that of all the other countries. Moreover, the survival rates of this group in 2005 had not even surpassed the 1975 15-year survival rates for Swiss, Swedish, Dutch or Japanese women. The U.S. ranking for 15-year life expectancy for 45-year-old men also declined, falling from 3rd in 1975 to 12th in 2005.

When the researchers compared risk factors among the 13 countries, they found very little difference in smoking habits between the U.S. and the comparison countries—in fact, the U.S. had faster declines in smoking between 1975 and 2005 than almost all of the other countries. In terms of obesity, researchers found that, while people in the U.S. are more likely to be obese, this was also the case in 1975, when the U.S. was not so far behind in life expectancy.

In fact, even as the comparison countries pulled ahead of the U.S. in terms of survival, the percentage of obese men and women actually grew faster in most of those countries between 1975 and 2005. Finally, examining homicide and traffic fatalities, the researchers found that they have accounted for a stable share of U.S. deaths over time, and would not account for the significant change in 15-year life expectancy the study identified.

The researchers say that the failure of the U.S. to make greater gains in survival rates with its greater spending on health care may be attributable to flaws in the overall health care system. Specifically, they point to the role of unregulated fee-for-service payments and our reliance on specialty care as possible drivers of high spending without commensurate gains in life expectancy.

“This study provides stark evidence that the U.S. health care system has been failing Americans for years,” said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis. “It is unacceptable that the U.S. obtains so much less than should be expected from its unusually high spending on health care relative to other countries.”

Hear, hear. Although I’m in comparatively good health for my age, etc. – actuarial tables still have me rolling along behind the hopes established for my kin up on PEI – 40 years ago!

I see no proof either for snow or beer accounting for the difference.

Sweden may be better known for cars and couches than computers, but when it comes to access to broadband and cellular networks, it’s tops. The Scandinavian country leads the world in “technological readiness,” according to the World Economic Forum…

Nordic countries in general did well this year, with Iceland finishing second and Denmark fifth. Like Sweden, they benefit from government support of technology and a strong focus on education and innovation. Education is both a precondition and an enabler for leveraging technology, notes Irene Mia. Both countries improved their showing this year – Iceland climbing from No. 4, Denmark from No. 10…

Two Asian countries made the top 10: Hong Kong at No. 6 and South Korea at No. 7. In contrast to Switzerland, the Korean government champions information and communication technologies (ICT) and has heavily subsidized broadband construction, notes the WEF. Hong Kong’s rank – its highest ever – reflects its increasingly wired citizenry and government. It got a further boost from its business-friendly policies.

Near the bottom: the United States, which scored well in ICT usage, but rated poorly on regulatory issues. After dominating the tech index for years, the U.S. dropped to No. 5 in 2006, No. 8 in 2007 and is currently No. 9.

Unlike the usual list of this type – constructed over coffee by an editor and three bored writers who need to fill white space – this annual effort is grounded in quantifiable parameters.

How much reality varies according to various estimates of the importance of “doing business” on a global scale. It’s a reasonable reflection of the state of communications in an information-dependent economy.