IT Insights Blog — certification

Show of hands, who has ever taken a long road trip, say, 10 hours or longer by vehicle to some far-off destination? (On a related note: The IT Insights blog squad was driving home after work last night and saw a service station signboard advertising regular unleaded gas for — wait for it — $1.99/gallon. Shiver me timbers, lads, $1.99! The price of gas hasn't been that low in at least 20 years.)

For a variety of reasons, human societies have long had an interest in gathering and analyzing data. Ancient Rome, during both its republican and imperial phases, used census data extensively. One of the first things that the United States did after concluding its war of independence from the British crown was to conduct a nationwide census. The parameters of the census were even written into the U.S. Constitution.

It's possible that one of more members of the TestOut Continuing Education Blog Squad has (or have) recently been watching old episodes of Friday Night Lights, the pigskin-powered TV drama that originally aired on NBC and ran for five season (the last three on DirecTV). The series follows the ups and down of small-town Texas football coach Eric Taylor and the Dillon High School Panthers football team under his supervision.

If you follow the National Basketball Association (NBA), as several of us here at TestOut Continuing Education do, then you've probably been a little bit dizzied already by the flurry of trade activity among teams in the league. The league-imposed deadline to complete trades for the current season is tomorrow afternoon, so we've officially entered the window during which a flurry can blow up into a blizzard literally overnight. Of course, just like in the real world, a few flakes is no guarantee of a major dump.

Here we are in the last few days of January and winter, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, is about as cold as it's going to get. Although according to the people in charge of forecasting the weather, that could be about to change — and not for the better. (Topic: Would you enjoy working as a weather forecaster? You'd get a lot of ridicule for all those time when projections don't pan out. On the other hand, algorithms and databases would do most of your job for you.)