Fun With Stats And Why MySpace is the Fifth Largest Country
While statistics are easy to play with and manipulate to suit a particular argument, this video from Did You Know 3.0 offers up some stunning stats.
To the tune of Fat Boy Slim's Right Here Right Now, we are told tidbits such as the top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004; by age 28, people will have had 10-14 different jobs; one out of eight couples who married last year met online; if MySpace were a country it'd be the 5th largest; Bermuda has the deepest broadband penetration; the number of text messages sent and received each day exceeds the total population of the planet; the mount of information generated this year will exceed all that was generated of the past 5,000 years; an NTT fiber optic cable is capable of pushing through 2,660 CDs in one second; by 2013 supercomputers will exceed the computational capabilities of the human brain; by 2049, a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the entire human species.
Hmm. So maybe by 2013 contextual advertising will finally become "intelligent" enough to stop placing ads for turpentine next to stories about girls who drank the stuff to induce an abortion?
Comments
On a more sober note:
4,100 people die of Aids-related conditions every day;
70% of people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $2 a day which is why they cannot afford the 50 cents a day required for 2 antiretroviral pills.
I'm pretty sure physicians, nurses, and teachers were all around in 2004. And I'm pretty sure demand won't decrease anytime soon.
I'm sure that I too could pull together some dubiously-sourced Wiki-style facts to create an awesome presentation to wow the gullible. Nice video, but anything that makes planet-changing predictions like this ought to at least support its claims by including checkable sources.
Sorry but my 2009 resolution is to be more sceptical.
4,100 people die of Aids-related conditions every day is quite scary statistic. I think each and everyone in the world have to be careful on the modern disease.
I agree with Fish that these stats are "dubiously-sourced" at best. but I still really like this video because its a great demonstration of how are world is changing, and while every number may not be factual, they sure make you step back and say, wow, this kind of stuff is coming.
How's the old saying go "the more things change, the more they remain the same". Technology advances rapidly but we are still just silly apes.