Updates... and numbers...

A quick post about something I just read about... Apparently, the NSA just put up a new datacenter, and the scale the NSA is using to measure the capacity of the datacenter's storage is in Yottabytes.  So, the order goes something like 1 Kilobyte is 1,000 bytes... then 1 Megabyte is 1,000 Kilobytes... then it goes Giga... Tera... Peta... Exa... Zetta... and now Yottabytes!

So, what can you store in a Yottabyte?  Well, the answer is somewhere along the lines of the capacity of every civilian hard drive ever purchased... and then some.  It's enough space to store about 166 Terabytes of information for every person on the planet...  or store about 2.38 Million hours of telephone conversations (at 128kbps... which phone could easily be recorded at 64kbps.) for every person on the planet.

And, now for a little speculation... I have a feeling the datacenter can store multiple Yottabytes of information.  Not to mention the datacenter is probably built to allow for expansion.

Here is a table to help visualize the size of a Yottabyte:

1,000 Bytes	= 1 KiloByte
1,000,000 Bytes	= 1 MegaByte
1,000,000,000 Bytes	= 1 GigaByte
1,000,000,000,000 Bytes	= 1 TeraByte
1,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes	= 1 PetaByte
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes	= 1 ExaByte
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes	= 1 ZettaByte
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes	= 1 YottaByte

  Also take note that the milky way galaxy is approximately 95 Yottameters across...

  Anyway... other than just being freaked out by the size of the newest NSA datacenter, I'm doing pretty good.

I want one.

I know it's $200,000... I just really want one.  Guess it's time to start saving.

The Weather has been great in Seattle.  I went and took this picture Sunday evening of the Sunset (as I saw it from Renton.)  it was a great weekend.  Jaani and I went to both the Marrymoor dog park and the Renton dog park.  Plus, Jaani met a little French Bulldog to play with.. .as well as Otis, my friends Pitt Bull, was there too.  They had fun running around and getting tired.  It was fun.

Lately I've started my T-SQL class, and it's going well.  The instructor wrote the text book we are using, and that has proven useful in the class.

Other than that, I've been working pretty hard.  We lost a team member, because he found a full time job at another company, which means that myself and the only remaining member of our team are the only ones left to run the test passes.  I guess it's a lot of work, but at least it keeps me occupied.

I also noticed how everyone seems to be freaking out about the Swine Flu.  At least it's all over the news.  I looked at Google Trends, and found that everyone is searching for flu related web sites.  Looking for at home treatments and countermeasures.

This is a map of the Flu Trends that I got off of Google.org.  Historical data has shown that the past flu trends (lighter blue) are fairly accurate.  My question is if the media hype built around people who will or will not receive the vaccine has altered this data.  Google gets the data from searches related to flu sickness (when you search for flu symptoms, home remedies, ect... Google counts it, and adjusts it based on things they find.)

As you can see, both Michigan and Washington have recently started to spike with Flu related web activity recently, but I think most of this is going to be related to the new vaccines that were released.  So, people are trying to learn what they can.

This data is available before the CDC is able to come up with their own statistics, based on people who go to the doctor and are diagnosed, however it is usually within the acceptable error rate allowed by the CDC statistics.  In other words, the CDC usually comes up with about the same numbers as Google for these sorts of things.

Anyway... if this data is right, then I'm happy I'm not in Texas!  Although I am pretty close to Idaho...

World Flu Trends suggest that Flu related web traffic is highest in the US.  Google recently just began tracking these trends in other countries.  As you can see, all of North America is at Merderate to High risk for the flu.

The thing that worries me, is that normally the Flu risk isn't this high until January or February, and the risk in the past few years has been the highest recorded.  With the exception of 1919.

Anyway... I'm not sure that this means you need to worry about getting the flu any more than normal, but in general more people are getting sick.  This current spike may turn out to be just a media  frenzy influencing web traffic, but at the same time, we could be on the verge of a real pandemic.  Who knows.

Anyway... just some food for thought.

Later,

     SteveO

Improv Everywhere is awesome

I remember these "invisible dog" leashes...

It would be fun to walk around with a group of 2000 people doing the same thing.

BigDog has a little brother... Little Dog (robots)

I think that big dog is a pretty cool robotics project. I don't know if I want one, but I think it's pretty cool. So, now there is a little dog robot too...

If you don't know what big dog is, take a look at the video below.



Alright, there's an update...

Later,

SteveO

Updating Google Latitude!

So, I've been complaining about the iPod Touch... and most of all the crappy iTunes Software. Which iTunes is the major reason I don't like the iPod. I made a list for Scott earlier today on Facebook, and I had to stop myself from commenting because the longer I thought about it, the more ways I would come up with that the Zune is so much better than iPod.

The one feature that the iPod Touch has that beats the ZuneHD is that it has a ton of apps. Anyone who has seen an iPhone commercial can tell you that, but I'm sure that will change soon. The funny part, is that Apple is following in the foot steps of Palm with the whole mobile platform you can install apps on, but the simple addition of a multi-touch capacitive touch screen (a touch screen you can accurately use with just your finger, and feels like glass) made all the difference. I guess it helps that Apple has a legion of (often fanatic) followers dedicated to everything Apple (because it's trendy to have an iPod... or as of lately, you can say followers of the Book of Jobs... AKA iPhone/JesusPhone user's manual.) I'm not saying all Apple users are fanatics or anything... not at all, but let's just say that with the exception of the once loyal Zune guy, Microsoft doesn't have nearly as many users dedicated to only use Apple products.

So, what does all this have to do with Google Latitude? Well, one nice thing about the iPod Touch is that it's a PDA that just happens to play music. It synchronizes all of my contacts, calendars, and mail from Google... Plus the Google App gives me easy access to Google Services (Search, Gmail, Calendar, Latitude, Docs, Talk, Tasks, Reader, News (including the new FastFlip), Book Reader, Notebook, Photos, Orkut, Translate, Maps, Youtube, and Earth...) Plus, if I actually had a Google Apps account (a paid intranet service Google offers for Governments, Schools, and Businesses.) I could sync up with that too! So I finally have a portable device that contains the same mail, contact list, to-do list, and calendar as all my home and work computers.

That was a mouth full... However I still haven't gotten to the point.

The point is that I can update Google Latitude with my iPod as long as I can find WiFi... Which there is an app for that. Actually I have a few cool apps for things like: Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, finding WiFi (now that I jailbroke it I can perform a diagnostic and pen test...), Last.fm (which I happen to like more than Pandora.) I've been installing many apps recently, however I'm cheap, and don't want to pay for any of them.

Oh yea, did I mention that it plays music? Yea, who would have thought that an iPod plays music and videos... huh.

Well, anyway. Over all, the iPod Touch is a cool device. I think I'd rather have a ZuneHD, but I can't really argue about a free device. The only thing I wish it had was more storage. I have run in to the problem of filling the dinky 8GB of storage every day, and I am getting more frustrated with trying to narrow my collection to the must have music. So far, I have narrowed my collection of over 30,000 songs down to 1,100 songs and five Video Podcasts. Now I just need to start converting my Video collection so next time I have to fly on a plane I can have my own movie to watch.

Speaking of which, I need to find a ticket to fly home in December... I should look for that.

So, there is an update. More will come soon.

Later,

SteveO

A random thought...

I just watched an awesome TED Talk: John Lloyd inventories the invisible.

I think I like the end, where Lloyd points out there are only two questions really worth asking:

• Why are we here?
• What should we do about it?

He finishes by quoting two philosophers.

"I am not sure why we are here, but I am pretty sure it's not to enjoy ourselves."
-- Ludwig Wittgenstein

"We are here on Earth to help others.  What the others are here for, I have no idea."
-- W.H. Auden