The Numerati Audiobook

" I was hoping that this was going to be more of a popular science survey of the present and future of quantitative analysis. It turned out to be directed at business people. The featured researchers were entrepreneurs and not academics, which means their research was glowingly presented with no citations. It is also a book that has 60 pages of good, interesting content, but it's impossible to sell a book with less than 175 pages, so it's filled out with fluff, speculation and introspection. "

" Quick read -- was expecting more insight and more depth. "

" Lots of interesting material if you don't work in the field. Fascinating, but without that much depth. But Baker writes in the fashion of Gladwell, meaning each chapter is a snippet on a variety of different topics with a central underlying theme. Some are more valuable than others but it presents a good case for the value of data, which will only increase as we grow better models to analyze and account for the proliferation of data in the Internet world. "

" decent facts, interesting angle, but showy and florid. journalism drips off each obnoxious word. if you think of it as a very long spread in time magazine, it'll work better for you. "

" Nice overview of the commercial use of math, stats, operations research, etc., as well as measurement and monitoring capabilities. The author took some effort to make things interesting to a broad audience, but made it a bit too pop-science-y for my liking. A lot like an extended article from Wired magazine. Nice overview, though I think enough material exists to dedicate an entire book to a couple of the subjects, like politics and healthcare. I would have preferred more detail on one or two of the subjects. I listened to this on audio, and I enjoyed the narration. "

" Stephen Baker uses the term Numerati to describe those people who analyze our numbers. There people and companies who do nothing more than examine mouse clicks, emails, cell phone calls, credit card use, etc to make predictions about our behavior. Especially our buying behavior. He gets behind the scenes and interviews the Numerati who explain what they do and how they do it. Interesting topic, but a slow read. "

" Privacy...going, going, gone! You be the judge as to whether or not we should be alarmed about the new age of the Numerati. I won't lie, this book is dense and some parts are certainly more interesting than others. "

" A scary look at our future with computers/numbers... "

" This book was somewhat disappointing. It feels like we explore the same idea through multiple contexts (politics, health care, shopping), but I ended up wanting more, and was frustrated with the repetition. "

" This book was a nice interpretation from a historian's point of view on modern day information and data analysis. "

" They're doing what with my keystroke data!? "

" What's more complex to understand? Human behavior or maths? "

" Overview best suited perhaps to magazine-style reporting - lots of interesting and disturbing tidbits but doesn't hang together as a book per se. Old hat to those who think about data on a regular basis but could be eye-opening to others. "

" Confirms paranoid expectations, kind of weak wrap up. "

" i got bored in some parts, defintiely one you can skim for interesting bits. i enjoyed the chapters on shoppers and voters. "

" Interesting. And kind of scary. "

" Nothing earth-shattering here regarding how our data is collected and used, but it did make a career in such analysis seem more appealing. Also, it made me wonder when/if I'd start getting more penalized as a consumer for being thrifty. "

" Although, I still appreciate the subject I had to drag myself through this book. Almost all details became drudgery instead of interesting or enlightening. I'm sorry I didn't speed ahead to the more exciting conclusion. "

" Had me early until it got into 9/11 and terrorism. Then it became bland and predictable. Stopped about half way through. The first 1/4 of the book was pretty interesting though. "

" This book was a little hard to get into, but I am fascintaed with Data Mining and some of the research that they are doing is really fascinating. "

" A book about those folks who do data mining and figure out patterns from data, sort of like how Netflix and Amazon and those zillion doubleclick cookies work. An interesting read, although not much of anything new for me, who was already familiar with a lot of it. "

" A good introduction for the lay person but I was looking for something a little more sophisticated. "

" Not as good as Supercrunchers, of the same topic, but I liked it. "

" Helpful information about how to manage personal info in the digital world. Good NPR interview made me want to read this. "