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Data in a human context March 6, 2012 to Data Art  •  Comments (3)  •  Share on Twitter Jer Thorp, a data artist in residence at The New York Times, shows off some of his work (like this and this) and speaks about the connection between the real world and the mechanical bits we know as data. Worth your 17 minutes.

a data artist in residence at The New York Times, shows off some of his work (like this and this) and speaks about the connection between the real world and the mechanical bits we know as data.

Up to now, the focus on the power and implications of Big Data technology has been involved social media, business decision-making and online privacy. Those are big subjects in their own right. So it’s not surprising that the notion of a data-driven society has not been much considered.

"We already are seeing 'border war' with individual states passing major legislation that differs considerably from that in other places," says Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, and William Gale, a Brookings senior fellow in economic studies,

When and if the issue turns to violent confrontations between local citizens and federal officers, or between contentious groups of citizens, the clash might well take place far closer to home

America has an extraordinary number of guns and private militias," they write. How many? They cite the National Shooting Sports Foundation's estimate of 434 million firearms in civilian possession in the U.S. right now. That would be 1.3 guns per person.