Edition 124

I have been quite all over the place, trying to deal with multiple failures in the domestic help system - absentee nanny, sick cook, etc over the past week, while running ~90km/week, staying healthy and tending to some personal commitments.

I love it when someone challenges some existing opinions I have. So this writeup on Big Data was sobering to say the least. I have found a variant of that in my own stored data. For years now, I have barely gone back to the multiple hard disks on which I have data from older computers. Most of my personal data as of date is photos/videos, music, some reading material and assorted other stuff.

While the thrust of the above article is how the hype around Big Data is perhaps not justified, one personal takeaway is also to consider how much of what we collect and store we actually need. Last week, I had the good fortune to meet Derek Sivers, who surprised us (the assorted people who came to meet him) by telling us that he doesn’t even have spare copies of his own books, much less other stuff. He just doesn’t keep what he doesn’t immediately use/need. That’s quite some food for thought