It really has been a long time since I posted anything of value here. Yes, a lot of that is by my own choice and some of you might be wondering if I’ve given up on SQL Server. No, haven’t, it remains a vital tool for me. But I have become more of user of the product in last couple of years rather than somebody who is “internals guru.” To be frank, going from technical trainer to University professor has had a lot to do with that. I tend to caremuch less now about squeezing cycles out of execution times than I do about being able to produce meaningful work. Well, as meaningful as Academia is anyway.
Something happened yesterday that maybe you didn’t know about.You might be left saying “and I care why?” too. No, as far as I can tell, no new bits shipped. No, nobody has discovered a new way of using hash indexes to improve query performance. And no, those rumors SQL Server running on Linux didn't come true.
Microsoft Research simply published a research paper.
But this isn’t just a paper methinks. It is the paper myside of the world (the arcane place where statistics, geography and businessoverlap one another) needs the rest of world to really grok. I’ve been saying for years that “maps are data too” and reminding people of Tobler’s first law.The glassy eyed mouth breathing reception to it has been… less than inspiring.
A single paper may not change that much, but even if only afew of the folks that see this blog post spend the few minutes to takes readthe paper and consider the implications of it… I believe the results could really push forward acceptance of Spatial Business Intelligence and our economyalong with it. How? BI has already an even more essential part of how America leverages technology for competitive advantage today. We make more effective and efficient use of capital because of it. Adding a Spatial dimension to the mix can help us not only what consumers to, but also what factors arising from culture and clustering drive those processes.
Enough talk. Go. Read. Think. Innovate.
“Learning Location Correlation from GPS trajectories”: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=121308