If finding useful pieces of information from huge databases was really hard search engines would advertise smaller databases. But, fear of large numbers makes a far better story.
PS: The only way a scientist is overwhelmed with information is when they need to do something by hand. It's hard to guess how a scientist would like to collect less information. Worst case you ignore it because you can't process it yet.
>> If finding useful pieces of information from huge databases was really hard search engines would advertise smaller databases.
Some do. See http://alltop.com for example. But the bigger point (and see Google as the case study for this) -- the fact that it's hard is what makes it valuable.
> PS: The only way a scientist is overwhelmed with information is when they need to do something by hand. It's hard to guess how a scientist would like to collect less information. Worst case you ignore it because you can't process it yet.
I am still trying to parse that statement. 12 years ago we needed a 250 node cluster to get anything done with all the data that was presented to us and that's a fraction of what's being generated today
PS: The only way a scientist is overwhelmed with information is when they need to do something by hand. It's hard to guess how a scientist would like to collect less information. Worst case you ignore it because you can't process it yet.