Tag Archives: data

2 Gigs of Data

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Interesting data point on whether 2 GB / month of data is enough on cell plans. At our MHVLUG meeting the local wireless wasn’t working, so I instead just turned on the wifi access point on my phone for my laptop and tablet so I could do a little bit of live demo. It was on for 2.5 hours, with a total data usage of 46MB (which is about 15% of what I’ve used total this month).

Yes, bandwidth caps basically kill mobile streaming as a business (mobile pandora, hulu, netflix, are definitely being hurt by this), but for non streaming interactions, 2GB is way more than I’ll use in a month.

Mashable: Who Owns Your Data?

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But as we use the Internet for “free,” we have to remember that if we’re not paying for something, we’re not the customer. We are in fact the product being sold — or, more specifically, our data is.

So here’s a tricky question: Who owns all that data?

While nothing ground breaking is in this article, it’s probably one of the better summaries of the complex space around that question.

Maybe it’s time to take a statistics class

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From Wired’s Why We Should Learn the Language of Data:

Statistics is hard. But that’s not just an issue of individual understanding; it’s also becoming one of the nation’s biggest political problems. We live in a world where the thorniest policy issues increasingly boil down to arguments over what the data mean. If you don’t understand statistics, you don’t know what’s going on — and you can’t tell when you’re being lied to. Statistics should now be a core part of general education. You shouldn’t finish high school without understanding it reasonably well — as well, say, as you can compose an essay.

It goes on to explain a whole number of policy issues that are being argued with badly understood data.

On a related note: It’s dark out, that is proof the Sun has been destroyed.

The importance of getting government data online

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Wired has a great interview with the Federal Gov CIO, which actually dates back just prior to data.gov‘s launch.  It’s definitely worth a read.

I firmly believe that this is the most important change that the current administration can make.  The Federal government did a tail spin into secrecy over the past couple of decades, and while I believe the previous administration took this to a new height, it seems like it was part of a trend that definitely predates them.  Secrecy breeds distrust in government, as well as bad decisions, as people don’t have access to all the facts.

Sunlight is definitely the best disinfectant, and nothing has quite the same power of light as the whole of the internet gazing in.