APPLIED DATA PHILOSOPHY
Data Readings
from the World’s First Data Psychic
What the numbers whisper,
I say out loud.
The Magic Trick of Statistical Significance
Ever wonder why election polls keep missing? It's not the math. The math is always fine.
It's that the kind of person who picks up an unknown number, stays on the line, and answers twenty minutes of questions about politics is a fundamentally different animal than the kind of person who doesn't. A bigger sample doesn't fix that. A better sample does.
I'd trust 30 people chosen truly at random over 500 who volunteered. That's not a hunch. That's how sampling actually works.
Four reasons "statistically significant" doesn't mean what you think.
Correlation Isn't the Problem. You Are.
Everyone knows correlation isn't causation. They teach it in every stats class. People say it at dinner parties to sound smart. Then they walk into a Monday morning meeting and do it anyway. The problem was never confusion. It was always motivation.
When the correlation supports what you already believe, questioning it feels like self-sabotage.
The Tyranny of the Average
A number landed on the board presentation screen. Everyone relaxed. That was the problem.
The Trap of Behavioral Data
We built a whole story around why a product was outselling everything in certain stores. Demand patterns. Local preference. Demographic fit. We were very pleased with ourselves. Turns out someone had shelved it at eye level by mistake. The data was right. We were completely wrong. Welcome to behavioral data, where the numbers are honest and the analysts are the problem.
More Confessions of a Datachondriac
I check the weather app twice before leaving the house. I check the stock market every few hours even when I have no intention of acting on it. I check my health data several times a day. After forty years in the data business I should know better. I do know better. And still I check. If you're honest with yourself, you might be a Datachondriac too.
Why You Can't Simply Trust a Number
I was asked to answer a simple question: is Santa Fe truly the creative capital of America? There were rankings that said yes. I looked at the criteria and found opinions dressed up as measurement. No real science underneath. So I went and built something I could actually stand behind. What I learned in the process is what I wish every person who's ever forwarded a statistic had known first.
Confessions of a Datachondriac
I check the weather app twice before leaving the house. I check the stock market every few hours even when I have no intention of acting on it. I check my health data several times a day. After forty years in the data business I should know better. I do know better. And still I check. If you're honest with yourself, you might be a Datachondriac too.
Numbers Were My First Language. They're AI's Only One.
They put me in special education because I couldn't read. Called me a slow learner. What nobody knew was that I was dyslexic, and that numbers were about to become the first language that never moved on me. Numbers were my first language. They're AI's only one. After forty years of running data companies and projects I have learned to love numbers deeply and question them completely. A number is not truth. It is a finger pointing at something. This is why I started Data Readings.
Invitation to Data Readings
The machines think in data. Most of us don't. That's not a fair fight, and nobody sent you the rules.
I spent four decades building the systems that predict what you'll buy, watch, click, and believe. Now I write about what those systems are actually doing to the rest of us. Short pieces. Real stories. No jargon. Occasional regret.
You'll know more about how the numbers work than the people using them on you.