Please; everybody read this, now. And once again genuflect to the true alpha nerd of xkcd.
Ten years ago I wrote an article specifically for my father, explaining how much data I managed at a global entertainment company (4 petabytes, by the way). At the time I only had the ubiquitous compact disc as a reference for him. In the days before Randall Munroe and his What-If? and xkcd I had to paint the image of 6 million CDs all by myself. Unlike Randall, I can’t draw a stick figure to save my life. This veritable lake of CDs, I told my father, was even stranger: I could find any piece of information in that lake I desired in under 50 thousandths of a second.
He looked up long enough from his newspaper to hang up the corded phone on the wall and say “I’ve never sent an e-mail; is this about e-mail?” Sigh. Nevermind.
Ok, so my nerd interests are not universally shared in the family but I know they are in the blogosphere; enjoy.
Lot of smarts in that poisntg!