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Free Text Information Retrieval Philosophy

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     I want omniscience.  Until then, I build tools for people to use on massive collections of free-text information.  "Free Text" is the latest of those tools.  All conventional database systems (that I know of)  fall short in one or more ways:
 
  • they require “clean” input data, in highly structured formats;
  • they break down if applied to files larger than a few megabytes;
  • they are intolerably slow in answering simple queries;
  • they do not allow easy, interactive free-association and browsing;
  • they are not integrated with writing or programming tools;
  • they demand too much work to get data into the system;
  • they lack a user interface fit for an intelligent being;
  • they cost too much, or only run on expensive/exotic hardware.