Out of over 200 Gigs of data (not counting OS and application files), I would be hard pressed to find a single file that is not in one way or another associated to someone other than me.
(Someone may represent a person, a group, a company, my company, me, a webservice, a bot... any entity with at least one interface I can communicate with.)
Not a SINGLE one.
Current filesystems were designed in the computing age. Whether mainframe or standalone, the idea was you create a file and store it. Filename, date created, date modified.
In the communication age, things have to change. I've heard alot of talk of next-generation filesystems which are coming up but not nearly fast enough. I, and many people I know, are literally drowning in data. Drowning because we do not have the tools to efficiently manage it. The malaise and disorientation are evident. Subdued, subtle, yet evident. (Yes I am referring to YOU. And me. We've been acting "strange" these past few years haven't we?)
Before computer networking, the computer was an extension of two things: memory and processing. Fifteen or so years ago we gave computers eyes, ears and mouths. Over the last 10 years we've been learning how to use those eyes, ears and mouths. But without context (metadata!), we merely swim in an ocean of information we are hard pressed to do anything with. (Mostly because through these extra eyes ears and mouths, we are exposed to and generate far more data than with just our own set, in the "real world".)
We have these external memory & processing devices which we can now use to communicate, but we do not yet use them to help us manage that communication.
A simile.
A newborn child discovers he has this sense that perceives light. It spends a few weeks learning how to use this organ of sight; learns how to focus, move that focus around, etc. Great! Lotsa neat globs of color! But then something better happens. Context. That familiar smell, that familiar sound... the scent, heartbeat, voice of someone... oh! those are near when this particular set of color blobs are near! They must be connected!
The memory and processing has kicked in and created an association. (The single strongest association in all of our minds; the bedrock of our perception of reality: the parent. But I digress.)
We have learnt to use our externalized eyes and ears and mouths, and we've tried to manage the data they perceive by trying to store and process as much of it in our internal minds. But it is too much. And it will get "worse". We NEED to have the external systems that are our computers, help us process some of it. With context and associations. Some requiring our intervention, some done programatically. A balance of logic and fancy.
To those who say "but we are externalizing too much!" I say: Sure. We've been doing it since we invented written languages. We then proceeded to create technologies to manage the effects of written language, which handle some of the information overflow for us. Hello, bookshelf and library index cards.
Now we have extended our senses, so we need to extend our processing of their perceptions.
