The experiences of the reponses to Hurricane Katrina and 9-11 show what can happen when there are massive failures of communications between military and civilian authorities and agencies: hardware failures, incompatibility, system overload, interference, and other factors that vastly complicated a coordinated response.

FORBES: Connect

My colleague William Pentland writes about another consequence of excess hydropower: wind farms in the Pacific Northwest are being forced to disconnect from the power grid out of concern their added electrons with overload the system.

FORBES: Record Snowfall To Bring Lower Natural Gas Prices

To tackle image overload, the HP system captures information about images, called metadata, too.

BBC: NEWS | Technology | Camera specs take candid snaps

Such a requirement "has the potential to overload the health care system that will likely be stressed during this year's flu season, " he said.

CNN: Obama administration urges employer flexibility in H1N1 fight

Without this system, we'd be drowned in a sensory overload.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR