Tag: datasets

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Latest read: What the Dog Saw

I have been a fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing.  Joining The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Outliers: The Story of Success comes his latest work What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures which is a collection of his writings with the New Yorker.  I have enjoyed all of his books and this new release is no exception.

And to prove life again is all about timing the NYTimes has it’s book review hitting tomorrow’s Sunday paper.  The book’s title is from his writing about Cesar Millan, the noted animal trainer with the hit cable show The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan.

Gladwell breaks the book into three parts: Minor Geniuses, Theories – or ways of organizing experience and Predictions we make about people.  From these points Gladwell shares those articles that have stuck with him long after the New Yorker articles were published.

I was pretty amused in reading What the Dog Saw right after finishing SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

To say the data and stories by Gladwell and Dubner & Levitt may overlap, it was nevertheless a lesson in looking beyond the regular story to take the opportunity to learn hidden lessons.

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Design Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest read: Superfreakonomics

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner have released SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance a long awaited follow up to their hit Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.
If you enjoyed Freakonomics (my review here) or even Sudir Venkatesh‘s Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, the runaway hit from chapter three, then you will enjoy SuperFreakonomics.

I recall learning the book would be released in late 2009 but as soon as I saw it on the shelf I picked up a copy and began reading that night.  They have done another great job exploring new datasets.  Most readers will enjoy reading the data underlying a murder in New York of a woman in-front of 38 witnesses. Nobody called the police for help.  They explore what this says about society.  The book is more of the same: exploring the hidden side of everything.

From comparing street prostitution to a department store Santa to why suicide bombers should buy life insurance, Levitt and Dubner succeed in sharing unique datasets and telling a compelling story.  How did television empower women in India?  On the surface it may sound strange until you consider how they tell the story.

They provide inspiration as well. Their segment ‘The garden hose to the sky’ about global warming sounds funny on the surface until they share the idea is from Microsoft’s former technology director.  He is the principal owner in a scientific research firm that is developing tools to cool the earth.  It gets more interesting when you learn Bill Gates is an investor in the company.

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