A FEW years ago a group of American educators got together to talk about a common problem. School systems were being swamped by data—like every other sector of the economy. And like other industries, they had no idea how to respond. But unlike businesses, most schools aren’t competitors. So they looked at how they could team up to solve their […]
“BOLLOCKS”, says a Cambridge professor. “Hubris,” write researchers at Harvard. “Big data is bullshit,” proclaims Obama’s reelection chief number-cruncher. A few years ago almost no one had heard of “big data”. Today it’s hard to avoid—and as a result, the digerati love to condemn it. Wired, Time, Harvard Business Review and other publications are falling over themselves to dance on […]
“BOLLOCKS”, says a Cambridge professor. “Hubris,” write researchers at Harvard. “Big data is bullshit,” proclaims Obama’s reelection chief number-cruncher. A few years ago almost no one had heard of “big data”. Today it’s hard to avoid—and as a result, the digerati love to condemn it. Wired, Time, Harvard Business Review and other publications are falling over themselves to dance on […]
If a world that relies on cause and effect gets rid of the cause, what happens?One day in high school science class, our teacher handed out black plastic boxes that were completely sealed. As we lifted, rotated, and shook the boxes, we could hear a heavy object rattling around inside, bumping into the barriers of an internal maze we couldn’t […]
