I have 581 Facebook friends.  I have Tweeted 154 times.  I am 5 foot six inches.  I have a driver's license # and a Social Security #.  These facts are just a tiny amount of data that supposedly "comprise" me. But the idea that you can count something, and call it "data," and feel that it is "factual" is extremely misleading. My numerical attributes are not only the ones that I am aware of (# of lovers, calories consumed today) but also numbers I am not aware of (or aware others are aware of) such as how long it took me to write this post, and how much I spent last year … [Read more...]