Big Data: Does Size Matter?
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Overview
What is Big Data, and why should you care?
Big data knows where you've been and who your friends are. It knows what you like and what makes you angry. It can predict what you'll buy, where you'll be the victim of crime and when you'll have a heart attack. Big data knows you better than you know yourself, or so it claims.
But how well do you know big data?
You've probably seen the phrase in newspaper headlines, at work in a marketing meeting, or on a fitness-tracking gadget. But can you understand it without being a Silicon Valley nerd who writes computer programs for fun?
Yes. Yes, you can.
Timandra Harkness writes comedy, not computer code. The only programmes she makes are on the radio. If you can read a newspaper you can read this book.
Starting with the basics – what IS data? And what makes it big? – Timandra takes you on a whirlwind tour of how people are using big data today: from science to smart cities, business to politics, self-quantification to the Internet of Things.
Finally, she asks the big questions about where it's taking us; is it too big for its boots, or does it think too small? Are you a data point or a human being? Will this book be full of rhetorical questions?
No. It also contains puns, asides, unlikely stories and engaging people, inspiring feats and thought-provoking dilemmas. Leaving you armed and ready to decide what you think about one of the decade's big ideas: big data.
What is Big Data, and why should you care? This book tells you everything you need to know (and plenty of stuff you don't)
An irreverent debunking of the hype around Big Data, one that doesn't ignore its enormous potential or the sheer ingenuity behind it
Introduces the underlying principles of data analysis, in plain English
Packed with intriguing, amusing, touching and alarming human stories both from history and the present day
Invites the reader to make up their own minds about the future, data-driven or not
Introduction: What is it? Where did it come from?
1: What Is Data? And what makes it big?
2: Death and Taxes. And Babies.
3: Thinking Machines
What Has Big Data Done For Us?
4: Big Business
5: Big Science
6: Big Society
7: Data Driven Democracy
Big Ideas?
8: Big Brother
9: Who Do We Think You Are?
10: Are You A Data Point Or A Human Being?
Appendix - things you can do to keep your data private
Acknowledgements
A superb explanation of how we got to today.
Harkness has the perfect combination of wit, charm and statistical insight to crunch big data. It's the book about stats, life and big data we've all been waiting for.
Harkness raises some very big questions indeed, not just about the grandiose claims of the big data evangelists, but also about how in the age of universal surveillance we can defend the concept of privacy.
A wonderful collection of fascinating data stories, all told in Timandra's smart and chatty style. But this book also asks the important questions. If big data brings new opportunities, just what are the implications?
A brilliant guide to our brave new world.
This book is a great read – full of interesting stories and fun interviews. But it is not just another credulous tale of technological wonders – Harkness is suitably sceptical of the hype about data analytics, and serious about the challenges is brings.
- Title: Big Data: Does Size Matter?
- Author: Timandra Harkness
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Sigma
- Print Publication Date: 2016
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 304
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781472920065, 9781472920072, 1472920074, 1472920066
- Resource ID: LLS:9781472920065
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T12:01:47Z
Timandra Harkness is a writer, comedian and broadcaster who has been performing on scientific, mathematical and statistical topics since the latter days of the 20th century. She has written about travel for the Sunday Times, motoring for theTelegraph, science & technology for WIRED, BBC Focus Magazine and Men's Health Magazine, and on being 'Seduced by Stats' for Significance (the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society). She is a regular on BBC Radio, resident reporter on social psychology series The Human Zoo as well as writing and presenting documentaries and BBC Radio 4's FutureProofing series.
@TimandraHarknes/ timandraharkness.com