Saturday, March 27, 2010

The Ironic Departure of Data-overload

Pick o' the Post: "Time of the Season" by The Zombies on Odessey and Oracle 

"... actually - it's the opposite.  The more data you have the clearer you see."

I've been noticing the new IBM adds lately, and they really give me a sense of satisfaction about how we are starting to think, and where we are heading as a people.



15 Pb => 15,000,000 Gb => 15,000,000,000 megs... per day.  And that number is not getting smaller.  Also, they don't really make a distinction about what kind of data that is... I would imagine they mean the parts of society that we observably alter.  There's also a whole world of data that is seemingly useless.  For example, what if I chose a spot on my white kitchen wall, and measured the "whiteness" of that spot every day... valid data, but useless - until someone comes up with a meaningful reason, aside from pure data collection.

I was just considering what data can do for us and how we get to that point.  My roommate used an interesting phrase: "life-stream."  This almost fits the breadth of what I think we are starting to understand.  Beyond the "paper-trail" of data we generate every day, we probably want to know many things that may not be directly observable from our life-streams, but do still affect them.  Earthquakes or volcanos, perhaps, or species migrations.  It also seems that, of the data that might first come across as useless, we may not understand the value in certain, seemingly negligible, datasets... similar to my most interesting kitchen wall spot.  It's still white.

The mission is a higher standard of living, which includes all conservatory topics, as well as industrial/infrastructural topics, and any other areas that would seem deserve attention and resources to better our industry and creativity.

For about 1.5 years now, I've held the belief that when the first generation emerges from such a connected and informed upbringing, our world will really begin to see what our informed world has to offer.  The first generation to not know a world without the internet.

I wish there was another word for "the internet" ... sounds cliche.

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