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Stephen Baker
ISBN # : 9780099507024
Publisher: Vintage
(1 Reviews)
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In a world teeming with data, we ourselves become the maths gurus' most prized specimens. In "They've Got Your Number", Stephen Baker takes us on a guided tour (no maths required) through an unprecedented new era, in which mathematicians are starting to map individual human behaviour - what we do, who we are, how we work, chat, play and shop - and in doing so, will change every aspect of our lives. "They've Got Your Number" is a book about one of the great undertakings of the twenty-first century - the mathematical modelling of humanity. Much in the same way as neuroscientists are mapping our brains, the Numerati are mapping our behaviour - everything that makes us individuals. Stephen Baker navigates us through a world that otherwise might seem remote or disconnected, but one which is absolutely relevant to our everyday lives.
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Altaf Noor

This book (published: 2009) is about the use of data for drawing inferences. Its divided in seven chapters: worker, shopper, voter, blogger, terrorist, patient, and lover. Life without computers and internet is unimaginable in this age, atleast in developed economy. They are everywhere: from our offices, to our pockets. All of us happen to use them for a variety of purposes, fitting broadly into the categories mentioned about. With the wall of privacy getting thinner, our online presence and what we do is somehow under reach of so many who study it for discerning trends and feeding those hungry for data; which includes your boss, our government and security agencies, political parties, pharmaceutical companies - almost every provider of service, even our spouses. Sure, what the data tells you is always an approximate, not exact but its better to be approximately right than completely wrong! Two aspects that came out clearly while reading this book. First, the author missed out on the use of data for use in reforming education; he left out all those who are in education in any capacity - as students, teachers, administrators. Second, how long will it be before we as a nation start take formal social research for defining and moving towards managing of these issues? Its regretful that our government do not have the capacity or will to conduct a long-overdue census.

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