The Curious Case Of Big Data Definition

The Curious Case Of Big Data Definition
By Fari Payandeh

 

Most technical people I have talked to think that Big Data is nothing new. They seem to be proceeding on the premise that Big Data's sole purpose in life is to serve business intelligence. As someone said to me the other day, "Walmart has been enjoying the fruit of their investment in data warehousing/business intelligence for years; way before there was a Hadoop or NoSql in existence". True, but Big Data is not about "What". It's about "How". How long does Walmart's nightly jobs run to transform the raw data into meaningful data (business data) that can be used by its BI tools? Moreover, is Walmart currently processing its unstructured data to add value to its BI strategy?

I watched Werner Vogels, the CTO of Amazon elaborate on what is today called "Big Data" back in 2006. He was talking about how Amazon had made a radical shift from Relational Databases to flat files to store its customer data. He said that Relational Databases weren't able to meet Amazon's requirements. What is interesting is that Werner Vogel was referring to the difficulties they were facing in processing the OLTP portion of their business and not DSS. However, today, Big Data encompasses OLTP, DSS, and real-time BI.

Let's balance the myth against the facts: What is not Big Data? Big Data is not attached to a set of technologies nor is it applicable to every single company that sits on top of huge amounts of data. It is true that the IT industry has made great strides in data caching, I/O throughput, scalability, availability, consistency, real-time data processing, and working with unstructured data. However, those enhancements could have come to life organically by the invisible hands of market dynamics to support the evolution of business intelligence. Where facts and myth deviate is that the myth fails to take account of the likelihood that we would have been where we are today even if there were no likes of Amazon around.

In conclusion, the term "Big Data", although legitimate in that it is referring to new ways of processing large amounts of data, is misleading due to the fact that "size" is part of the name, but size types (small, medium, large) are not constants and they change overtime. What was considered a large data set twenty years ago may fall into small category today. I personally would rather refer to it as "Net Data", alluding to the way the data is spread across many servers on disk files as opposed to Databases.

Please visit http://www.BigDataStudio.com

Digital Devices As a Human Enhancement and Extension of the Human Mind

Digital Devices As a Human Enhancement and Extension of the Human Mind
By Isaac C Kimsey

 

Human 2.0

When I think of human enhancement, the first thing that pops into my head is the Bionic Woman quickly followed by Robocop. Now these are definitely enhanced humans, one could even go so far as to say they are superhumans, and they are cool! Granted, not very realistic, but cool all the same. But when our image of human enhancement is an image of a super being, we tend to pass over the fact that in today's modern society most of us are enhanced.

Bionic Man

The definition of human enhancement is something that enhances or improves human characteristics of capacities. Something that makes us smarter. Something that makes us more than we are. What if I had a device implanted that gave me the ability to never get lost, something that could always give me the information that I was looking for, something that could connect me to the entire world at all times, would that be human enhancement? No reason to really ask that question. It would most definitely would.

The Revolution will be Broadcast!

I don't have an implant like that, but I carry around a device that does all of these things and many, many more everyday and everywhere, as do most of us. I don't even think about how amazing our phones are a majority of the time. The sole difference between the device I described and my phone is that the device would be inside my body (kind of hard to upgrade something like that I would think). These devices give us abilities we did not have. At their best they complement and enhance our minds in degrees that have not been available before. They are so pervasive that we don't even think about them.

Where is the Line?

The more we use technology, the more it becomes a part of us, an extension. We as humans are constantly looking for tools to enhance our lives. We embrace these. We internalize them until the line blurs. Where do we begin and our devices end? Where is the barrier? These and questions like these will come up again and again in the years to come. As our technology becomes smaller, more personalized and ever so much more intimate. Our mind reaches outward toward the device, through the device, toward that great well of humanity that the internet represents - the ultimate connection.

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Starting Out As a Affordable Free-Lance Web Developer and Creating the Foundation for Business

Starting Out As a Affordable Free-Lance Web Developer and Creating the Foundation for Business
by Jason E Lowry

 

Ever since I was younger I had the dream of starting and running my own business. It took me 25 years to figure out where I wanted to start and I would literally beat myself up everyday for not knowing what I was going to do for a living. I have been working in a restaurant for the last 4 years and everyday I look at the people that have been there for 10 years serving people, making the same money and then blowing it at the bars. Some with dreams, some with out dreams but which ever way you look at it, neither side is pursuing that dream. This was one of my many motivations to get the ball rolling early in the right direction.

After I graduated high school I went straight to a community college because I had no idea where I wanted to begin but I always had this burning fire under me to help motivate me and point me in the right direction. I took some random "easy A" classes so I could make it into the biggest school in my home town, Virginia Commonwealth University. This school is one of the best schools around and I decided to pursue a degree in Business Management because everything is business and I can apply this degree to everything in life. I was so sure that this was the degree I should be in until I read in an article that 85 percent of all businesses fail in the beginning years. I am not one to ever quit on something so I took a semester off and thought about how I could fix this, how can I help people? My answer, computers and technology.

Information Systems is a degree that colleges offer, which is networking and basic computer knowledge on a business level. When I found this program I immediately changed degrees and knew that I made the right decision. Through all the computer classes, I found a world in which would push businesses to the top, give them edge, and also allow me to put a little bit of my style into each business. That information systems part was web design.

With out web design and web development where would the internet be? There wouldn't be one, well there would be the "internet" but everything would be plain black and white text. Could you imagine Facebook with no pictures, no color, just Arial text with someones name and information. There would be no face in book, the site would simply be Book.com. If that was the case, you may as well just be searching randomly through the white pages for someone to date. Web development has made everything you see and read online possible and people view the web in different aspects. Take this example: Have you ever worked in a restaurant and eaten in that same restaurant? There are two different worlds. When you sit down in the restaurant you are enjoying yourself and relaxing, not thinking about much. Working in that same restaurant you are constantly running, stressing, and worrying about which table needs what. What I am saying is that there are two sides to everything especially web design. Before I realized that I wanted to build websites, I would just browse the web searching for the latest skate or surf video with nothing else on my mind. Now I browse the web and I look at different color schemes, the format, the body, and the style of each website. I bookmark sites I like, not just because I enjoy the content, but because I enjoy the layout of the site.

The hardest thing about starting a business is getting your foot in the door, but the most important thing is to never quit, even if your foot gets slammed in the door numerous amounts of times. The classic "word of mouth" to me, is still the best way to get anything started. The whole concept of face to face is rare nowadays because everyone likes to hide behind a computer screen or even the phone for that matter to do business. I have been visiting different businesses around my area, handing out business cards, meeting everyone, informing them of who I am, what I do, and how I can help. I have had 90 percent more success from the people I visited face to face than the ads I have posted on Craigslist, reddit, or any other social network.

I am in the beginning stages of development but my knowledge and artistic way of creating websites has been long in the making. Staying positive, having a good mindset, being fully motivated, meeting people, and knowing the right people are some of the most important factors to turning that 85 percent failure rate into a 0 percent failure rate. Failure is not an option and it shouldn't be in anyone's mind. Start small, think big, keep your feet on the ground and head in the clouds are the keys to success.

Visit LWD Projects today to get a quote on a project, view my portfolio, or just see what I have been doing for the past couple of months. Cant wait to do business with you.