SYSTEMS: Modern computer nerds (especially those from Silicon Valley) can't take credit for every trend in technology, not least Big Data. In travel, for example, some argue that the original Big Data-esque companies are the GDSs, some of which have been number-crunching for the best part of half a century. But the application of Big Data-techniques has its origins in the most unlikely of places. Read more on New Yorker.
In June 1972, Chilean folksinger Ángel Parra wrote a song titled "Litany for a Computer and a Baby About to Be Born".
Computers are like children, he sang, and Chilean bureaucrats must not abandon them.
The song was prompted by a visit to Santiago from a British consultant who, with his ample beard and burly physique, reminded Parra of Santa Claus - a Santa bearing a "hidden gift, cybernetics".
This is just one of the many stories which are interwoven into the history of Big Data, some 40 years ago.
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NB:Red star image via Shutterstock.