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A review by jozi_girl
Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
3.0
3.5 stars
You may come across as liberal to the world but secretly google racist jokes…..
Although you may spill your deepest darkest secrets to Google, make no mistake this data sits somewhere ready to be analysed.
I work with big data every day, so I was immediately drawn to this book. But you really don’t need to be in the data industry to appreciate the book. It is written for the layman with humour and interesting titbits sprinkled throughout the book.
The first 3rd of the book gives a notable amount of space to data on sex, politics and racism. These are things we are not always honest about with our friends (or even ourselves).
The one downside for me was that the data was very USA centric so some of the case studies dealing with baseball or basketball was just not very interesting to me. There were also one or two graphs that were not properly explained. The author is also very passionate about this subject matter which means he sometimes flinted around from one topic to another in such quick succession that you almost lose the point he is trying to make
But there were sections that I also found fascinating. The explanation of doppelganger search algorithms (this is how Amazon and Netflix suggest books/movies you may like) and its applications across various industries. The case study on how race horses were chosen and how new data also has its limitations were just as great.
This is a little like Freakonomics for Big Data and the author himself is clearly a HUGE fan of Steven Levitt as the conclusion read like an ode to his idol.
And finally, last week the world got its first glimpse of a black hole, only possible due to the crunching of HUGE data using sophisticated algorithms. Thanks Katie Bouman! This shows just how powerful the application of big data can be.
The big questions and mysteries of our time may very well be answered one data set at a time.
Recommended
You may come across as liberal to the world but secretly google racist jokes…..
Although you may spill your deepest darkest secrets to Google, make no mistake this data sits somewhere ready to be analysed.
I work with big data every day, so I was immediately drawn to this book. But you really don’t need to be in the data industry to appreciate the book. It is written for the layman with humour and interesting titbits sprinkled throughout the book.
The first 3rd of the book gives a notable amount of space to data on sex, politics and racism. These are things we are not always honest about with our friends (or even ourselves).
The one downside for me was that the data was very USA centric so some of the case studies dealing with baseball or basketball was just not very interesting to me. There were also one or two graphs that were not properly explained. The author is also very passionate about this subject matter which means he sometimes flinted around from one topic to another in such quick succession that you almost lose the point he is trying to make
But there were sections that I also found fascinating. The explanation of doppelganger search algorithms (this is how Amazon and Netflix suggest books/movies you may like) and its applications across various industries. The case study on how race horses were chosen and how new data also has its limitations were just as great.
This is a little like Freakonomics for Big Data and the author himself is clearly a HUGE fan of Steven Levitt as the conclusion read like an ode to his idol.
And finally, last week the world got its first glimpse of a black hole, only possible due to the crunching of HUGE data using sophisticated algorithms. Thanks Katie Bouman! This shows just how powerful the application of big data can be.
The big questions and mysteries of our time may very well be answered one data set at a time.
Recommended