I never know how to actually enjoy art when walking through a museum. I’m not saying I am unable to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of a piece of art, but while walking through the many galleries of said museums, I often get lost in thought, without any hope of understanding exactly what it is I am looking it. The worst case of confusion is when visiting an aggressively contemporary museum where you have to watch where you sit, step, and put your hands because that bench that says, “please sit here,” might just be a metaphor for capitalist pigs taking everything they want and feeling no remorse, or that vending machine with delicious snacks could be a commentary on how unhealthy our food options are in the country. Forget not understanding art, contemporary museums are downright dangerous.
Having said all that, art is beautiful, and here’s what you missed in the news yesterday.
Roll (Blue) Wave
On Thursday, the 116th class of Congress will be sworn in, and that, in it of itself represents the most culturally, racially, and socioeconomically diverse convening of Congress in the history of the U.S. Our new Congress will feature incredible amounts of much-needed female representation, including Muslim women, as well as Native American women, both of which have yet to be represented in Congress to this point. Shockingly enough, the racial/cultural barriers broken by Thursday’s swearing-in of the 116th Congress were the work of both the Democratic and Republican parties. In addition to this, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will continue to serve as the first and only female Speaker of the House ever.
The 116th Congress, while celebrated for being incredible inclusive in terms of representing other cultures, genders, and races, will see itself in more headlines as the year roll along, because the Democrats now control the House of Representatives. House Democrats have said they hope to sit down with President Donald Trump work with him on two goals of his — passing of a massive infrastructure bill, and a bill bringing down prescription drug prices — even though he is currently under federal investigation for alleged collusion and corruptive acts. As far as their own collective priorities for the new House Democratic leadership, representatives from the Democratic Party plans on doing everything in their power to lower the cost of healthcare, tackle issues with the country’s roads and infrastructure, and most notably working on anti-corruption legislation, according to Vox.
Big Mama & Big Data
Cloudera (CLDR) and Hortwonworks, two major companies in the Hadoop big data game, today announced that have finalized their all-stock merger, according to TechCrunch. Per the announcement, the new company will retain the Cloudera brand and will continue to trade under the Company’s ticker symbol, as well as expect to generate more than $720 million in revenue from the new agreement.
“Today, we start an exciting new chapter for Cloudera as we become the leading enterprise data cloud provider. This combined time and technology portfolio establish the new Cloudera as a clear market leader with the scale and resources to drive continued innovation and growth. We will provide customers a comprehensive solution-set to bring the right data analytics to data anywhere the enterprise needs to work…”
–Tom Reilly, Chief Executive Officer, Cloudera
The merger deal between Cloudera and Hortonworks, while novel, indicates a greater trend for the future of the tech industry, as well as the fate of human existence. I know that’s a bold statement, but allow me to elaborate. As the world spins madly on, we will begin to look at other resources to commodify as traditional commodities become depleted. Access to consumer data and copious amounts of it is invaluable to companies because to have the ability to create a product that fits exactly what people expect and demand would allow for immense success.
