This is Argyn's blog. I comment on topics of my interests such as software, math, finance, and music. Also, I write about local events in Northern Virginia, USA and all things related to Kazakhstan

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Letting Data Die A Natural Death

Washington Post: Letting Data Die A Natural Death
by Nik Cubrilovic,
TechCrunch.com
Saturday, October 10, 2009; 8:20 PM

He has a point here

Technology has spoiled us to the point where we feel nostalgic when we lose data that didn't really matter in the first place. If it did matter, a primal instinct would have driven us to do more to preserve, rather than rely on a sleep deprived sysadmin on the other side of the country. If you didn't care enough to take care of it yourself, then you didn't really need it. It is our misguided expectation of technology that causes us to panic when we lose data. The only people who have a larger incentive to preserve your data are those who are using it to target an advertisement at you, or sell you something.

Not only is a lot of this data not important, but do we really want to keep it? I certainly would not want a full account of everything I did in my youth sitting on a server somewhere. I am also certain that we do not want the record of our as a society time being documented and discovered by future civilizations based on Twitter messages.

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