An honest question: where are you at? Northeast? West Coast? Seattle? The South (Austin)?

I'm trying to find talent in the Southeast...I'm willing to pay well. I haven't found anyone I would consider acceptable (trainable maybe). And I've seriously been searching for over 6 months.

I really wonder if geographic location plays one of the most significant roles in all this, and most people overlook that.

The solution I recommend, which is how my desk is setup, is incredibly simple. A USB keyboard and mouse. Less than $50. Now make the big monitor your main desktop. Piece of cake.

I'm trying to understand this question. It seems really simple. Is there something I'm missing here?

Well, maybe, except that the second sentence in the article states she's the OTHER kind of anthropologist that you mentioned.

"Coleman, an anthropologist who teaches at McGill University"

This is why I love Slashdot. This comment right here.

I learned something new just now. I had no idea that "limnology" meant "the study of lakes". To me, that is actually fascinating and I'm glad I learned that fact.

But if you look at the GP post, you'll note....the parent comment (while intellectually interesting) missed the entire dang point the GP was trying to make!

Yes! You are awesome! Books (IMHO) are meant to be shared. And like you said, nowadays with amazon et al are usually easily replaced.

In fact, if I read a really good book I will write my name on the inside cover, then send it to someone and tell them when they are done to write their name under mine and give it to someone else and so on. I've done this with 5 or 6 books so far this year. I happily wonder sometimes how far they've (the books) made it and how many people got the chance to read it for free.

I guess for my kids, 9 hours is a week. HOw many hours do you let your kids play with a tablet every day? maybe 2 hours each on fri, sat, sun, then 1 hour some schooldays, and some schooldays not at all.

There's already other products on the market in this space. But I guess this one is interesting because it runs android?

So I'm not a shill, but my kids both have a Leappad. http://www.leapfrog.com/leappad2/ They are very nice...run off 4 AAs for a week or two, and seem pretty indestructible. And its only $100. PRoprietary walled garden, I know, but the apps come either downloadable or via a dedicated SIM-like card. Works well enough for me.

I guess my point is...I don't know what my point is. Maybe the Toysrus one is interesting because its Android? So it can run any android app? But although my kids prefer my iPad I much rather they use a kid-proofed tablet.

Holy crap! This is a tearjerker horror story right there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Solon/

I really wish I had mod points...this is seriously one of the best slashdot posts I've ever read.

I was going to post a reply but you are spot-on. The REAL Big Data folks I've seen...no, this wouldn't work. You can't just write a python script and send to to a single graphics package.

Because as you said...1TB isn't just a single box. Its a cluster of SAN arrays spread out over an entire datacenter. Simply getting a look at the entire dataset is a challenge in itself.

Many, many more than you realize.

I'm only just this year moving into this industry (after being in IT for 15 years) and I'm constantly amazed at the size of this market sector. There are WAY, way more companies out there than I realized with at least 1PB of data. Its kind of mind-boggling and insane, when you stop and think about it. Especially if you've been in the industry more than 10 years or so.