Over the past two years I have noticed that there seemed to be a lot of vehicles running into homes, apartments, and businesses. It was as if the newest form of accident was the assault on buildings. But, perhaps it was a local phenomena, so I began looking around for information. This really began when the local news was reporting at least one of these accidents each week. Perhaps it was just here that this was occurring, but no, it is everywhere. But I soon discovered that although it is happening across the country, there was very little good data to support any acceptable hypothesis. So, despite the fact that I don't like to use anecdotal information, it is the best that I can do at the moment.
After doing a search, I found that most reports were coming from local news organizations from across the country. They tended to be tailored to local interest and there were few, if any explanations. There were the usual suspects; elderly drivers, intoxicated operators, and distracted drivers. There was one explanation that was simply that the brake and accelerator were closer together and smaller and that resulted in "accidental acceleration". So, I searched for hard data and have so far found only a small pool of information.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has information on fatalities caused by running into buildings, but no other hard data. The most recent from 2009 reported 53 fatal accidents involving buildings. Even the US DOT,(Department of Transportation) through NHTSA, (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), does not record this type of accident. However, they did have an interesting survey on distracted drivers here. This, coupled with excessive speed, seems to be the most reasonable explanation for the increase in these types of accidents.
If any readers have similar observations or can either broaden or narrow the reasons, please comment. I certainly could have missed something important. Until then, please use the door...

While watching the local news I noticed that the understanding of the story line required somewhat of a leap of faith on my part. It was impossible to know exactly what was fact and what was shear guesswork on the part of the reporter. And, I realize that it is the media's responsibility to report the news and at the same time engage the reader/viewer. But, it became clear that I really could not tell fact from speculation. The story was simple in that a car had been located along the side of a back road and it contained a body. Although the reporter stated that she had limited information about what had happened, she went on with the story anyway. "Police will not say whether or not it was a suicide, accidental death, or some other cause for the mysterious death". So, with this tragic story, I had to ask some questions about what I should know to watch this kind of reporting which seems fairly typical.
First, there is an observation which is defined as information gained through some or all of the five senses. It can be qualitative, "there is a body in the car here on the back road " or quantitative, "there is a male body in a blue sedan, located on Green street one mile from the Watson bridge. From there, I can make an inference, about several possibilities including murder. For example, if I step outside my front door and the grass is wet, I can infer that it had rained, the sprinklers had been on, there was dew on the grass, or other reasons. An inference is a possibility based on information and prior background knowledge. But, it does not allow certainty without more information and context.
The reporter then went on to really add fluff to the story by interviewing a neighbor who did not see the car or the body, and had no valid information. "There are a lot of hunters around here and cars are always going too fast. This never happens around here". It would have been better for the reporter to have simply said that a car had been found with a body inside and we have no further information. Then tell me tomorrow what happened with certainty.
It seems that we have become familiar with, and comfortable living in a world filled with ambiguity. I believe that we could live as well with less, speculation, rumor, and guesswork. As Yogi Berra said "You can observe a lot by just watching".

_  I am not sure if anyone really knows how big the Internet is or what the potential for growth is in the future. But, Cisco has an interest in knowing, since they provide networking services to providers and base their sales strategy on using reasonable numbers.
They recently released their Visual Networking Index forecast and suggest that by 2015 the amount of Internet traffic will quadruple. They estimate that the annual consumption will be about 966 exabytes! For context, recall that 1 byte is 8 bits, the space needed to encode 1 text character. Although historical in nature, it provides a gauge for the progression of byte nomenclature. We are most familiar with kilobyte, 1000 bytes or 1 with 3 zeros. An exabyte is 1 with 17 zeros. Then, it is zettabyte, 1 with 20 zeros, and yottabyte, 1 with 23 zeros.
On an hourly basis, the amount of data consumed will fill 28 million DVDs. All of the data consumed in 2010 was less than 200 exabytes.
It seems that the big increase will come from all of the new wireless devices connecting everyday and the demand for video services. Consumers, rather than business will be responsible for the bulk of the increase, constituting 87% of the jump. In the United States alone, home users will consume 100 gigabytes per month, 1 with 8 zeros. And, I thought that a billion was a large number…