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Material Type: | Document, Internet resource |
---|---|
Document Type: | Book, Computer File, Internet Resource |
All Authors / Contributors: |
Brian Clegg |
ISBN: | 9781785782497 1785782495 9781785782343 1785782347 |
OCLC Number: | 1024312885 |
Description: | 1 Online-Ressource (108 Seiten) |
More information: |
Abstract:

Reviews
Publisher Synopsis
As always, Clegg writes with an easy clarity that draws us in - no technical expertise required to understand his exploration of this essential subject - and throughout Big Data's highly enjoyable pages, the spread and range of material is highly impressive - dizzying in fact. I personally found entirely new perspectives on the subject that will keep me pondering for quite some time. I should add that, if I were still a statistics lecturer at Oxford, I would recommend the book to my students as bedside reading. -- Peet Morris * Former Lecturer in Statistics (St Hilda's College Oxford), Lecturer/Researcher in software development * Clegg provides an engaging insight, reflecting on its positives and negatives. A holiday workout for the brain. * Saga Magazine * Acclaimed science writer Brian Clegg - a habitual early adopter of new technology (and the owner of the second-ever copy of Windows in the UK) brings big data to life. * Laboratory News * Read more...
WorldCat User Reviews (1)
Review of ‘Big data’ by Brian Clegg.
Review of ‘Big data’ by Brian Clegg.
CITATION: Clegg, B. (2017). Big data: how the information revolution is transforming our lives. London: Icon books
REVIEWER Dr W. P. Palmer
This is a short (162 page), inexpensive, paperback book with a few black and white illustrations with a general non-technical approach. However, the author is extremely experienced at writing popular science works and he writes simply and effectively on the subject of the importance of ‘big data’ and how it effects our lives. Clegg provides illustrations of his main themes by providing examples based on his own experience. However, his themes are amazingly diverse including comments on UK politics, public lending rights, the history of computing, shopping, Mondex, the Starbucks ‘app’, Uber, airlines overbooking, Google, Kindle, fitness data, medicine, insurance, the Delphi principle, surveillance, CCTV, democracy etc. Clegg’s experience is UK based; I like his anecdotes and many of the stories he tells about using computers from the 1970s onwards parallel my own. Yet, I wonder whether Australian teenagers would find the text equally compelling. A teacher teaching a general ‘issues’ type course could pick sections of the book and relate those sections to student daily life.
I am a strong supporter of the Wikipedia approach to knowledge and Clegg is also impressed by the size and accuracy of Wikipedia. However, on p. 67, he has the story that he found on Wikipedia of a broncaurus [brontosaurus] on a UK farm living on a diet of hay, vodka martinis and flying saucers. This humorous insertion shows that incorrect data can be inserted in otherwise reliable sources.
In the end the book should certainly find a place in a school library, but perhaps it may even prove more useful.
BILL PALMER
See review in:
Palmer, W. P. (2019). Review of 'Big Data: how the information revolution is transforming our lives' by Brian Clegg in Lab Talk , Volume 63, No. 3, p. 20.
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- science (by 1 person)
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