Quotes About Data

My life experience confirms that the U.S. government frequently overclassifies data. But that's a stronger argument for not dumping large volumes of government traffic on an unclassified personal server than it is a justification for retroactively challenging classification decisions.

U.S. intelligence services routinely use collection methods against foreigners that foreseeably - with certainty - ingest high volumes of U.S. communications as well.

Once upon a time there was a physicality to the business of investigating a serious crime. There were objects, pieces of paper, even good old-fashioned fingerprints. Today it's different. Because all of us are routinely and voluntarily giving the intimate details of our lives to all kinds of people whether we realize it or not.

The Department of Homeland Security knows of the millions of aliens who are in the United States legally and that's data that's never been bounced against the state's voter rolls to see whether these people are registered.

Voter fraud is a reality in American elections, but it is typical of the candidate to confuse anecdote with data and turn allegation into conspiracy.

Even seemingly innocuous housecleaning robots create maps of your home. That is information you want to make sure you control.

Every day we have teams looking for new data sets.

Using data gathered in 2011, the CDC study estimated that across all age groups, 19.3 percent of American women "have been raped in their lifetimes" and that 1.6 percent of American women—nearly two and a half million individuals—"reported that they were raped in the 12 months preceding the survey.

I kept remembering something Michael Fertik had said to me at the Village Pub in Woodside. 'The biggest lie,' he said, 'is The Internet is about you. We like to think of ourselves as people who have choice and taste and personalized content. But the Internet isn't about us. It's about the companies that dominate the data flows of the Internet.

Then I get worried that if anyone is really paying attention to Happy's predilections, they might become wary of his wholesale compassion and suspect him of being an imaginary character, created by a journalist, to trick businesses into inadvertently revealing their data-trafficking practices. So I untick tigers.

The biggest lie," he said, "is, The Internet is about you." We like to think of ourselves as people who have choice and taste and personalized content. But the Internet isn't about us. It's about the companies that dominate the data flows of the Internet." Now

A good scientist," Gideon explained, "modifies his operational hypotheses to accord with fresh data.

An interface can be a powerful narrative device. And as we collect more and more personally and socially relevant data, we have an opportunity, and maybe even an obligation, to maintain [our] humanity and tell some amazing stories.

Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.

Premature formulations based on a vision of reality that has been artificially censored to exclude data that fall outside the personal philosophy of the investigator must lead to dead-end conclusions.

though the data should be pure and straightforward, science is done by people, who are never either.

Doubt is the cornerstone of science. It gives you a sure footing from which to build an argument based on data.

In the spirit of science, there really is no such thing as a 'failed experiment.' Any test that yields valid data is a valid test.

Lovallo and Kahneman offer a useful prescription to repair this cognitive bias: Get the data. Track down actual figures on launch failure rates for your company, your industry, other industries or projects similar to yours. The numbers will be fascinating – and sobering.

As medical data has such power to deliver better understanding of disease and better patient outcomes, it is important we find the best way of sharing it.

Patients are empowered by having better access to their own health information, and then by owning their own data.

What I love - and I'm a journalist - and what I love is finding hidden patterns; I love being a data detective.

In genomics, there's a massive amount of information in which you can look for patterns and develop insights.

On Amazon, you find retailers that want Amazon to do part of their services. Those, you don't find to the same degree on Google Shopping. On Google Shopping, you find sort of the bigger brands, those who want to have the customer relationship themselves - the data, the payment details, the search patterns.