In The Beginning Was the Word

In the beginning was the word, and the word was Job. The mighty Job took the cards fed to it and spewed out answers...

This blog is a running rant about the world of information technology and its denizens. The natural audience are those in the field, though anyone with a prurient interest in the inner working of the geek brain should tune in. This is not a technology blog. It will not discuss the latest AJAX library or the coolness of substituting LINQ for standard data layer calls. It is a philosophy blog. We are surrounded and inundated by technology, and as many people exist who lament on the need to escape it as those who worship its latest incarnation. We consume it and are consumed by it. The younger you are (past the age of 12), and assuming you live in modern, non-3rd world culture, the more likely you are to have no frame of reference outside the devices that shape your world. The older you are, the more likely you are to wonder just what in the hell has happened.

I work in the world of IT (or at least I used to until I was laid off) and have been immersed in it for the last 20 plus years, living through the transformation from a main-frame centric, TSO, flat file, batch job world to the Twit that consumes us today.

The one truth that has not changed in all that time is the title of this blog, which is "Data In, Data Out". This is still what drives all the technology around you. But each day the "data in" comes from more and richer sources, and the "data out" is transformed in more and richer ways. Actually, "rich" may be the wrong word, since most of what is coming in and out is garbage. Perhaps "dense" is the better description. We have tweets, messages, emails, blogs, subscriptions and the ability to pro-actively hunt through the billions of terabytes of information at our disposal. But in our daily life we also have a great deal of natural noise in our surroundings, most of which we filter out so that we can focus on what is important. This is how the brain is wired. If it wasn't wired this way, we would all be schizophrenic. Which may be what is slowly happening in the wired world where many have trouble filtering.

In the beginning was a single source (some punch cards) and a single output and it was focused. Modern business is still looking for focus though from a myriad of sources. Modern people are still looking for a focus though they are stimulated beyond a point that allows for that sort of focus.

Thus is born this blog - seemingly adding to that noise, yet trying to filter it. Entries will be short so they are easy to consume, but hopefully regular so there is some continuity. The ultimate goal is to stimulate discussion, though a forum in which to rant is in itself a release. This could be the proverbial tree falling in a forest that no one hears...