This thread has mixed the technical question about defining 'big' with
a huge number of social and political issues. I agree that all these
issues are important, but it's also important to distinguish them. (01)
For the purely technical issues, the adjective 'big' can be defined
in a technology independent way as "too big" for polynomial-time
algorithms to process the data with existing technology -- except
at enormous expense. (02)
Phil
> What's prohibitively expensive depends on one's budget, business
> case, business model, etc. (03)
Yes, but polynomials quickly outrun anything that grows linearly,
such as budgets and server farms. (04)
John B
> To me Big Data is a successful marketing term with very little
> published rationale. (05)
I agree. That's why I prefer to deflate the hype bubble by shifting
the focus to something less sexy, such as (N log N) algorithms. (06)
John B
> Many systems can deal with large data by indexing dynamically across time. (07)
That's a good strategy. But the total time is the same whether you do
the computations piecemeal or in batches. (08)
Michael B
> In the context of personally identifiable information, Big Data
> is sometimes called "Soylent Green" [1]. It can be seen as the
> opposite of the basic principle of German privacy law... (09)
The requirements for privacy and security were not anticipated
by the designers of the "personal" computer or the designers
of a system for sharing research papers among academics. When
you design a sieve, it's hard to plug the gaps. (010)
Mainframe computers are more secure because they were designed
for bankers. But when the banks connect to a sieve, they leak.
Today, the worst bank robbers never leave home. (011)
John (012)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (013)
|