The November Popular Science is absolutely fascinating. One particular article, called The Glory of Big Data is particularly compelling. For instance, it reveals that approximately 600 million minutes of downloading is equal to 13 petabytes. The human brain stores 2.5 petabytes. 600 million minutes of downloading equals less than 6 humans. This tells me stronger than anything ever has, how much data storage is going to be needed. We truly have only scratched the surface. Google’s total catalog is only worth about 40 humans.
Basically, humans brains are computing monsters – both processing power and storage. If machines are going to surpass humans in computing power, which they are, the amount of chips and storage that will be required is going to be absurd.
The recorded life is a theme I’ve been talking about for quite sometime. Ever since I heard about that nut over at Microsoft – Gordon Bell – I’ve been obsessed with the concept. (I think it’s completely possible Bell earns a solid place in history. Gutenberg, who?)
But I used to think about the recorded life in terms of one person. It was hard to get my head around the record of all people and all things. But it’s becoming clearer. Recording everything. Analyzing the data to determine the patterns in the world and in a life will be part of everyone’s business. I’m not sure whether I’m early to this story or late.
But I do know that I’m putting up a recorded life category on my blog.
And I’m really going to encourage my kids to be math superstars. It will take deep understanding of general math and statistics to excel in this world.