Great post to get me thinking on a Sunday morning!I don’t think data is a parasite. Worrying about connectivity is something we must do these days.We are just experiencing the inconvenience of "the cusp." We want ubiquitous data and power, but we don’t have it yet. As data connections break free from geography (i.e. the local Starbucks) and battery life improves, we will start to achieve some of the "data future" that we have always dreamed about. We just haven’t arrived there….yet!We are close, though. With my iPhone I feel that I can be connected almost anywhere I go. This, of course, applies to any of the smartphones available today. I can be informed, educated and entertained in so many places where it was impossible before.If my son and I are out walking and we see some natural behavior, weather pattern, plant, etc. We can look up more information on that immediately. I believe that this "on the spot/at the moment" education is an amazingly important and useful byproduct of the connected Internet age. I think this ubiquitous data access could be one of the biggest leaps in education we have seen in a very long time.This is why i tend to dismiss doom and gloom reporting from mainstream media and their bemoaning the death of this or that. We aren’t all just out there playing Angry Birds. (Although we do play it sometimes) Technology and connectivity can be used in some amazing ways if we look beyond the mundane and the mindless.Sure, some people might be using it to hide from the world, but I, and many of the people I know, are using it to expand their minds, their productivity and their effect on the world. For me, this is directly analogous to the effect of the printing press, books, telegraph, radio and a host of other technologies that were feared at the time of their creation.
Douglas thanks for commenting. Your Sunday morning being my Sunday evening and It great to know my scrawl is not getting in the way of the thoughts. Quite possibly it was information ( or Data ) that prompted you to add the comment , can we have good parasites ?
If I try to handwrite a blog post, no one would be able to decipher it but me. I think way too fast for my hand and pen to keep up. Coupled with a bit of writers cramp.Symbiotic relationship does sound better, I don’t think data is a parasite, it’s what we do with it after we’ve turned it into something meaningful that it could do harm.I think we can have good parasites, take some marine species they have parasites that help remove impurities from their bodies. I think there are some species of fish that will attach themselves to whales that help keep them clean.
Blog of the Hand 
Great post to get me thinking on a Sunday morning!I don’t think data is a parasite. Worrying about connectivity is something we must do these days.We are just experiencing the inconvenience of "the cusp." We want ubiquitous data and power, but we don’t have it yet. As data connections break free from geography (i.e. the local Starbucks) and battery life improves, we will start to achieve some of the "data future" that we have always dreamed about. We just haven’t arrived there….yet!We are close, though. With my iPhone I feel that I can be connected almost anywhere I go. This, of course, applies to any of the smartphones available today. I can be informed, educated and entertained in so many places where it was impossible before.If my son and I are out walking and we see some natural behavior, weather pattern, plant, etc. We can look up more information on that immediately. I believe that this "on the spot/at the moment" education is an amazingly important and useful byproduct of the connected Internet age. I think this ubiquitous data access could be one of the biggest leaps in education we have seen in a very long time.This is why i tend to dismiss doom and gloom reporting from mainstream media and their bemoaning the death of this or that. We aren’t all just out there playing Angry Birds. (Although we do play it sometimes) Technology and connectivity can be used in some amazing ways if we look beyond the mundane and the mindless.Sure, some people might be using it to hide from the world, but I, and many of the people I know, are using it to expand their minds, their productivity and their effect on the world. For me, this is directly analogous to the effect of the printing press, books, telegraph, radio and a host of other technologies that were feared at the time of their creation.
Douglas thanks for commenting. Your Sunday morning being my Sunday evening and It great to know my scrawl is not getting in the way of the thoughts. Quite possibly it was information ( or Data ) that prompted you to add the comment , can we have good parasites ?
Perhaps those would be called symbiotes?I think since we both benefit (data and ourselves) it would be a symbiotic relationship.
If I try to handwrite a blog post, no one would be able to decipher it but me. I think way too fast for my hand and pen to keep up. Coupled with a bit of writers cramp.Symbiotic relationship does sound better, I don’t think data is a parasite, it’s what we do with it after we’ve turned it into something meaningful that it could do harm.I think we can have good parasites, take some marine species they have parasites that help remove impurities from their bodies. I think there are some species of fish that will attach themselves to whales that help keep them clean.