Today's WSJ (subscription required) has a front page article on the boom in the need for digital storage. In 2004, corporate data systems absorbed 1.25 exabytes (one exabyte equals one billion gigabytes) of capacity, versus about 0.85 exabytes in 2003.

A big reason: "[O]ne good-quality digital photo occupies the storage space of about 400,000 words. A 90-minute movie chews up about 1,500 times that amount."

Someone once commented that the prolix 1930's novelist Thomas Wolfe "was cursed with total recall." This is now the pandemic condition of digital humanity.