Reports are out that reality is, well, really weird--in a way that raises interesting questions about quantum theory.  Why is this important to the CTC community?  Well, it's the process--the data collection process--that is interesting.  (Hint:  Use the concept for data mining and data analysis.)  And, anyway, it is kinda cool.  Even if some people say "Well, duh." Sometimes, science has to catch up with common sense.

Depending on how you phrase it, quantum theory tells us that you cannot know everything about the world;  that you can know the position or the speed but not both of certain subatomic particles, for example; and that observation mucks things up.  So, someone thought up a way about finding out if reality exists if it is not observed--sort of answering the question as to whether a falling tree makes a sound if no one hears it.

And what did they do?  They didn't observe the reality they created.  At least not directly.

There is a thought experiment about matter meeting anti-matter and cancelling each other out.  In this case, they used light particles and, essentially, turned their heads.  They found out that the particles did not cancel each other out but ended up with a world where, in some parts of it, there were fewer than zero light particles remaining.  

I wish I had the scientific chops and the space here to talk about the data they collected but, basically, they collected a lot of secondary data, indirectly generated data.  They used these data as proxies for their observation.  That is the genius of the approach.  That is also where some of you might say "Duh" (and not "Doh"), because proxies are used all the time in data.

But the problem, with Internet advertising metrics, is that in fact they are not used all the time--or more precisely, they are not accepted by the advertisers.  someone has to figure it out.  someone has to educate the advertisers as to why mountains of proxy information, if sliced and diced in a proper fashion, will be vastly more valuable than PII.  

And, just in case, you think this entry is off-point:  Those data are the lifeblood of most Internet advertising models.  Reporting interesting implications of the mountains of data you can mine will generate large fortunes.  In other words, stop looking directly at something:  Look at it sideways.