With Great Power …

“He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” George Orwell One of the benefits of  the expanding analytical capabilities being created is the rise of a Culture of Evidence.  A Culture of Evidence is to increase the use of reliable, factual information in decision making.   In creating…

Shedding the Paper Mindset

During work with different health insurers, one thing I became curious about was the structure of information about employer based or Group insurance.  Specifically the origin of the Group, Sub-Group construct  (also known by many other names).  The group number usually corresponded to an employer. The Sub-Group would usually be a sub-set within a Group…

Don’t Forget the Simple Machines of Data Analytics

If you were trying to move a large rock in your back yard, would you use a lever or a UAV (drone) with heavy lift capacity?  While the UAV would be way cooler, a simple lever would do the trick.  The rapidly increasing capabilities in analytics are spawning new tools and techniques  of increased sophistication.…

The Imprecise Language of Analytics

There we were.  Three against a hundred. Toughest three guys we ever ran into. The growing field of data science has a quiet undercurrent that the scientific approach and the use of hard facts will yield understandable results.  There is one problem with that belief.  We still need good old, easy to misinterpret language to…

Finding Something by Looking at Nothing

NASA has recently announced they have found evidence of dark matter by, um, not finding it.  After studying over year’s worth of data, positrons — the antimatter partner particles of electrons — that suggest they were created when particles of dark matter collided and annihilated each other. In this time of vast data accumulation, much…