Chapter 7
Big data analytics
What do they do with all our data anyway?
Big Data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it.1
Dan Ariely2
What is it?
The word ‘data’ has two connected meanings. The first and most broadly used definition is that data is a collection of facts and stats. It is, literally, the plural for datum in Latin, but we tend to consider data as a singular collection. This becomes somewhat ironic when we talk about big data.
The second definition of data is: ‘The quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer, which may be stored and transmitted in the form of electrical ...
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