Data is invaluable for our continued advancement as a society. We use it to decide which hospitals to attend, which foods to eat, what career to take. We can learn incredible lessons from the past, and make vast sums of money from predicting future

trends.

As individuals, we are lucky to have access to more data than ever before, as data sets continue to be made available online for free.

Primarily as an excuse to let you know about the amazing Infochimps website (that catalogues datasets and makes them available), here are some interesting data sets that you might want to explore:

1. 500,000 email messages from Enron senior management
2. 500,000+ US pager intercepts from the 9/11
3. Frequency of Sex versus Satisfaction Levels
4. Meat Consumption by Type and Country
5. The Location of Michael Jackson’s White Glove in 10,000+ Video Frames
6. Drug Use by Arrestees in Major U.S. Cities
7. Characters from Baywatch
8. 1,000 Most Frequently Used English Words by Frequency
9. UFO Reports, by city, shape, duration