The world-famous high jumper Dick Fosbury, for instance, developed his revolutionary technique known as the Fosbury Flop in defiance of his coaches.

NEWYORKER: Personal Best

The software lets the fire brigade use a technique known as modelling regression to target places that register as at high risk for fire.

BBC: Can big data help fight fires and save lives?

So far, the cost of synthesizing and sequencing such very long strands of data-rich DNA as from the book remains too high to make the technique a practical commercial data-storage medium for the foreseeable future.

WSJ: Harvard Researchers Turn Book Into DNA Code

But the third precautionary technique, for both lenders and borrowers, is to hang fire while uncertainty is so high.

ECONOMIST: Europe in limbo: Home and dry | The

Far more common--but still damaging--are the high-volume crime spikes, spam e-mail distribution and "phishing, " a pernicious technique for stealing credit-card information. (For more on online scams, check out "Where The Scammers Are".) The carnage is hard to pin down in dollar terms, but Marcus Ranum, chief security officer of Tenable Security, says it's "billions upon billions"--far more than all "major" hacking incidents combined.

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