I quite enjoyed the Wired cover story this month, which begins by arguing that a surfeit of data is rendering the notion of scientific modeling basically obsolete, and continues by walking through several ways in which this phenomenon has manifested itself out in the world. I especially enjoyed this mini-essay about the Europe Media Monitor, which looks like a useful potential news source to scan to see what the world is talking about. You can see, for example, that it identified the pre-election violence in Zimbabwe as the biggest story of the day yesterday, and pulls together reports from all over the global press on the subject.
2 comments
I thought it was interesting too, but it doesn’t quite live up to the hype of obviating the need for psychology,poly sci, biology, and drinking 8 glasses of water a day. Isn’t it just a Google Alert?
Ha hahahaha — that just became my favorite retort ever! Next time I see one of those crazy meta-aggro-meme-tracker sites, I’m going to say, “Isn’t that just a Google Alert?”
The snarkmatrix awaits you