Big Data and its Scarcity

I’ve been slowly getting more and more disturbed at the frequency in which words and thought get lost in a digital world. A pure fact of digital data is that once power goes out, all information is lost. What would this mean for all of us, if the power went off? It’s also quite wide open thinking about perhaps a shift in society that leads us away from our hyper data collection state that we’re in right now into some other sphere, perhaps a hybrid state with smart plasma bubbles that morph our reality as we step into them.

Something I definitely see happening is massive amount of data migration. I just can’t comprehend losing data, it’s so strongly ingrained in my psyche, but I do see it shifting from it’s current state to smaller and perhaps more resistant to loss / redundant mediums.

A word has stuck with me that a friend said of me the other day: pastoral. In my reality I value a melding of the romantic history and modern good things. I pause when I see the natural way of things overtaking the fabricated madness sprouting everywhere almost overnight. Things like moss, rain, or fallen logs all come to mind. Recently I read this fascinating bit of innovation where a scientist had figured out a way to store information in a plants DNA itself. This enabled data to be stored into something one can grow from seed. This means you could walk up to a tree, and with the right reader in your hand, you could download a book from that tree, or a list of names of humans who have ever touched the tree, or the words of a sweet poem a romantic passer-by decided to share with it.

overdamped-oscillation

My belief is always that with innovation there is a fluctuation of hyper-usage and then reflection, which eventually flat lines into a understandable usage pattern. Much like data. I think it’s safe to say that the plethora of people suddenly taking photographs at every instant and situation has dwindled compared to five or ten years ago when digital phones and cameras enabled us to do such a thing, mindlessly.

All this rambling aside, I’m going to help ease my worried mind by posting my words on here, my blog, as I feel they fit here. After doing my Self Exploration project, I have learned that I do not want to share images without putting effort and meaning into what it is that I’m sharing, you may have noticed this on any one of my social media channels. I hope you will stay with me on this journey.

20151125-vancouver-island-victoria-port-renfrew-trestle-ned-tobin-76
Trestle in Goldstream Provincial Park, Vancouver Island

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