Less than Lord of the Rings

Asked by Google to estimate the size of the world's publicly available economic statistics, Rosling came up with an estimate of 1.5 terabytes-- less than one episode of Lord of the Rings.
"...Democracy is taking a new phase in modern times..."
-- Hans Rosling at the OECD World Forum in Istanbul

Some of what Rosling is jarring for me. What does he mean that the Philippines has the same economic status as the U.S. in 1971? He had just been talking about infant mortality. Whatever, his basic thesis that web 2.0 level technology, including the long tail, allow a revolution in human understanding of what is happening on the planet is sound.

Rosling points out that the gamers have the technology to present statistics in a meaningful manner. His son produced an amazing site on world income distribution. Check it out. If you think this is esoteric stuff, google "world income distribution". His son has not one day of computer science education. His son: "Education too often hampers learning."[ Full disclosure: I can't claim such fine credentials, but I did drop out of CS at Berkeley after two years, sort of, -- plus I skipped the entire calculus sequence and dove into statistics w/o guidance from Jerzy Neyman.]

"I can walkup to the door of the New York Stock Exchange on tax financed sidewalks..."





Thanks to Unveiling the Beauty of Statistics:: Jesse Robbins @ O'Reilly radar