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Precision agriculture grows up, changes the game

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For ages, farmers held a finger to the wind and called it analytics. Every season, that finger and a lifetime of observation said when to plant, what pests to kill, and when to harvest. Every year, it started all over again.

As you might imagine, the farmer’s finger has been replaced somewhat by data-driven “precision agriculture.” The annual game of planting, killing, and eating now runs more scientifically.

What hasn’t changed much is the timeframe: it’s still primarily a finite, annual game. By the sound of it, mesur.io founder and CTO Mike Prorock — whom I talk to originally at last year’s Qlik Qonnections — may end up changing the ag game more than simply driving it with data.… Read the rest “Precision agriculture grows up, changes the game”

Business analysts tell about Vertica

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Business analysts and their enablers are a fascinating bunch, to generalize extravagantly. In your first two minutes with one, you might recognize the tiny sparks of brilliance on an otherwise ordinary appearance. Keep watching, and you might see those sparks ignite nearby fuel.

Look again, and your analysts again appear ordinary. They want what everyone else wants: to do the work they do best, and without interruption, hassle, or undue tedium. And when they succeed, they really don’t mind recognition. Some might even crave rock star status.

Naturally, such people find their way into highly skilled, well paid crafts like data analysis.… Read the rest “Business analysts tell about Vertica”

Data driven but wabi-sabi driven, too

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The get “smart” these days, city leaders usually beef themselves up with a network of sensors. They become a city of things, wired and tuned. Unfortunately, that alone doesn’t make a city a nice place to be. For that, you also need wabi-sabi.

It’s a Japanese thing, and like so much of Japanese culture that Westerners like, it’s hard to explain.

I picked up a little book, on Seth Godin’s recommendation, that does a pretty good job of explaining. It’s Leonard Koren’s Wabi-Sabi, for Artists, Designers, Poets, and Philosophers.

“Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete,” it says on the first page.… Read the rest “Data driven but wabi-sabi driven, too”