Not to mention the metadata of
all that info together. You can see the structure of a society, who the leaders are and their sphere of influence. In his talk he also mentions the berlin wall and how differently that might've worked out if everybody had a mobile phone att...
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On a much much brighter note:
Coursera!
You can follow entire university courses (Princeton, Stanford et al), including assignments and exams (and a place to ask questions) on a wide range of wildly interesting topics (algorithms, cryptography, machine learning, parralel programming etc etc). Found it through another
TED talk.
Free education FTW!
