--- title: Environmental Scan Weblog :: Making sense of massive amounts of information author: Tris date: 2004-08-10 url: https://www.trishussey.com/environmental-scan-weblog-making-sense-of-massive-amounts-of-information/ --- With over 100 webfeeds that I track through [Newsgator](http://www.newsgator.com/" target="_blank) and probably 10 or so newsletters that I can't give up coming everyday, I can safely say I'm awash in information. Gillian's post on her blog talks about some of the stats and astounding developments (a 2 terrabyte flash card! Yikes!) in storage. I think that developments from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others is really starting to tackle this problem head-on. Myself I haven't tried [X1](http://www.x1.com/" target="_blank), but I use [Lookout](http://www.lookoutsoft.com/Lookout/" target="_blank) several times a day. I haven't set Lookout to index my My Document dir, but I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea. I did try Blinkx, and that didn't last long. But all of these are trying to deal with one problem. We are bombarded with information and our brains just haven't evolved or adapted to handle it yet. I know I can absorb more information on the screen than my parents could, I'm sure my kids will feel disconnected if their (to be invented, of course) holo-glasses aren't displaying information 24/7.So I guess until the neural interface for XP is developed, I think we're all going to have to muddle through with good search tools.On point I don't agree with is file systems disappearing. I think what will happen first is people won't feel the need to have folders and such, because they can search faster than organise. I know since Lookout I'm not as fastidious about clearing out my inbox in Outlook. It just doesn't matter as much. I do file important things like receipts, but messages are sitting pretty until I clean house (read delete).[*Environmental Scan Weblog :: Making sense of massive amounts of information*](http://blog.realworldsystems.net/blog/_archives/2004/8/9/121419.html)*"The vast corpus of human knowledge could soon be published on the Internet. The problem now is how to wade through it."*