Big data is people

[Secular Sanity]

Useful development paths? Yes and no.  I'm about to do a runner again now, but it's nothing unusual. There was a time before my last job I only ever lasted two years in the same position at a time before moving on (usually interstate). This last one has been nearly eight years, which is something of a record for me. I'm a ghost, most of the time.
That's actually a very tough question to answer. I have no idea, really. What's "useful" anyway?

As far as the propinquity goes, yes I do the same thing - but I'd imagine less than other folks. To be honest, I'll usually have a couple of drinks, then wander off and hang over a balcony or something and wait to see who comes to me. If no one, or uninteresting people, I'll usually go home after a couple of hours. 
To be even more honest, most by far tend to fall into the 'uninteresting" category.

I suspect my "development" is fairly retarded by normal social standards, if that means anything. But I'd say the lack of social interest (or skills) has led me to be more able to see things sans emotion. Gives me a less-clouded outlook on life and events.

Life; I love it and it sounds like you just exist.    I’m not saying that I’m right in doing so, but I can find something of interest in almost anyone. 
 
Cyril Connolly said that he’d call romanticism the refusal to face certain truths about the world and ourselves, and the consequences of that refusal, knowing what we know about the nature of man and his place in the universe, is the mark of a willful astigmatism, a confession of cowardice and immaturity.  I’ve face it, dissected it, taken it apart, zoomed in on the details, the inner workings, but any knowledge always adds to the beauty.  I can’t help but love it.  Do you think that my romanticism is a form of escapism?
 
He also said that the only truths that appeal to us are the ones that have been extracted under mental torture and to those we are most loyal.  Everything external, the separateness; you patrol the borders of self-hood.  If it wasn’t useful, you wouldn’t do it.  How is it useful?  Does it really give you a clearer picture?  Do you think that apathy could be a form of learned helplessness? 
 
What does interest you, Ben?

[stryder]

Some quote I remember from a few years ago (but from who I don't think was never originally known)

If it doesn't exist in triplicate, then it doesn't exist

The quote was actually in relationship to data management practices.  It's in reference to the concept that if data wasn't stored in at least three different locations then data can actually be lost for ever.  For instance if you have your personal photo's on your home computer and your house burns down, you lose your computer with those photo's on.  If you had a backup of those photo's on an external drive or usb stick, they should be kept some place else (another family members house) to keep the chances of them being lost entirely reduced, further still placing a copy into storage online or safety deposit is a further way to decrease chances of data loss.

This was of course early 00's. 

In recent years though people with their mobile devices storing their photo's and other data directly to the "cloud" have increased the amount of data stored online.  In fact this website while existing on just one server is still going to have cache's for traffic, cache's produced by search engines, copy produced by scrapers, copies kept by governments (for both data assessment and for the concern as to *if* the internet was taken down by a terrorist attack.)   The running of such cloud systems would again require something similar to that triplicate rule by making sure that any and all data is stored in at least three different locations at the same time, so should there be an outtage caused by events or hardware failure, that the information isn't lost.

This also causes other problems however, when someone asks to be omitted from search engine results, they aren't removing the data from the backups, they are just removing the publication from that particular website of that data.  The data can still pop up elsewhere from other caches.

[Ben the Donkey]

And then there is this:
http://www.theloop.ca/dead-facebook-user...he-living/

Everyone with a facebook account has a memorial of some sort. We'll know in many cases what they looked like, what they did for a living, where they lived and what their interests were.
This age is one of the best for histoical data purposes; no more scrubbing around in the dirt to find out how these generations lived. 

Trooper: You're a pushy one, aren't you

[Secular Sanity]

This also causes other problems however, when someone asks to be omitted from search engine results, they aren't removing the data from the backups, they are just removing the publication from that particular website of that data.  The data can still pop up elsewhere from other caches.

The Secretary of State should have been aware of this, eh?  No indictment but lots of fodder.

Trooper: You're a pushy one, aren't you?

Ill-mannered?  Could we go with inquisitive and direct?

[Ben the Donkey]

Trooper: You're a pushy one, aren't you?

Ill-mannered?  Could we go with inquisitive and direct?

I didn't say ill-mannered, but sure.
I actually don't mind talking about myself too much. Obviously. 
But where I end up is entirely dependent upon one of my particular interests. I'll let you know if it works out. Being in Darwin and living less than a hundred meters from the beach but being unable to actually swim in it makes me feel like a fly in a toilet bowl.