[Sigia-l] Information Visualization

[Karl Fast]

> > But I *disagree* with the suggestion that (a) infoviz is a failure
> > unless it can deal with billions, and (b) that solving a problem
> > with a million records isn't really useful and represents trivial
> > problems.
> 
> This is *not* what I said, at all. 

Right, you didn't say that. But that is what I inferred from your
comments. Apparently I inferred wrong.


This is why I inferred that.

You wrote that:

  What's intellectually *and* commercially interesting are the
  datasets that are not only large but also difficult to make sense
  of using conventional/procedural means.

You also wrote that:

  Likewise, IV has a few technical barriers, chief among them is
  scalability. Looking at static IV samples is no fun. The real
  benefit is in IV interactivity, the ability to give the user
  instant feedback. Unfortunately, IV feedback on large data sets is
  impossible now and will remain so in the near future. I've written
  on this here before, but bandwidth, database access and app server
  latency are insurmountable barriers when serving IV in large
  numbers, with no solution in sight.
  
When I wrote about Authorlink and it's realtime visualization of
1.26 million author records (one of the largest author indexes in
the world), your response was:
         
  You gotta be kiddin'. This wouldn't even register on my
  'large-scale' radar screen. These are the puny DBs that one uses
  FileMaker or Access to handle. I was referring to datasets with
  BILLIONS of records, in the multiple terabyte range.

And in your last post you wrote:

  So to me, the *commercial* success of infoviz is directly
  proportional to its ability to deal with large datasets whose
  owners are, after all, in a unique position to pay for its
  development.


Help me out, cause I'd like to make sure I don't misunderstand your
comments.
  
My understanding of these comments is that commercial success for
infoviz is impossible, because:

  - huge datasets are "intellectually and commercially interesting"
  - huge datasets face scalability issues that are "insurmountable"
    with "no solution in sight"
  - commercial success is "directly proportional" to dataset size

That's why I thought you were suggesting infoviz was a failure
unless it would deal with billions of records.


You have also said that you the non-technical problems are of
greater interest. Great, cause that's what interests me too.

However, what I've been reading (apparently misreading) from your
posts is that size matters, infoviz won't succeed unless it deals
with the size issue, and yet it can't do that because it's basically
impossible or requires some unknown techno-magic.

Thus it seems that we can't even get to first base.



--karl