For old timers who remember when getting data into a computer meant punching holes in paper tape or cards & getting it out via clunking teleprinters, it comes as a timely reminder to read that even in the electronic age ‘writing data to disks will always be a serious bottleneck’
To read that LINX carries 365 petabytes (?) of data a year just boggles the mind. Can it really be true that the first micro computer which we bought had an impressive 20k of hard disk, or is my memory playing tricks?
These musings prompted by the announcement that the government is planning a giant communications database to keep track of our phone calls, texts & emails, & comments made on this by Phil Hendren
My own first reaction had been to remember the Korean passenger plane shot down in 1978 after it had been flying for some time through Russian airspace
One of the questions asked was: Why did not the Americans, with their spy satellites, warn the pilot that he had strayed off course? The answer, in part, was that it took human agents far too long to recognise a single aberration in the mass of data produced
My second thought however was that, for such a monitoring system to work at all, they must have some very sophisticated mathematics to analyse, essentially, patterns of connection.
If so, can this be applied to the development of social networks, for current or historical analysis?
A proper axiomatic superstructure on 6 degrees of separation
