Where Is The Information We Have Lost In Data

During the past year, perhaps a year like no other year, we have been bombarded with statistics. Covid cases, numbers of deaths, positivity rates and flattening the curve. Add to this an election and polling data that drowned us in information. 

On top of all of this is disinformation and the traditional ways in which numbers and statistics can be used to deceive us. 

And then just this week, statistics about stocks, and all manner of economic information. Data is everywhere. Every publication of note, now has whole departments devoted to data visualization.

One wonders though, where is the information we’ve lost in all that data. If you are good or bad at math, there is a lot to take in, to process and to try and understand.\

Tim Harford just might be able to help us with that with his new work The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics.

My conversation with Tim Harford:

Mike Nichols: A Life

Amidst the cacophony of social and cultural noise that’s all around us, we have too often neglected the role of the arts in shaping who we are and how we might be better, or at least different. 

Like almost everything else, we tend to commodify the arts. Everything from streaming revenue, to box office grosses, to the price of paintings at auction. 

I would argue that what we don’t do enough of is look deep into the artists themselves. Artists who by the very nature of their work, must keep their emotions closer to the surface. And in so doing, we can see how their work reflects the best and worst aspects of our culture. 

Mike Nichols was such an artist. In a multi decade-spanning career, the films and plays he directed have in some ways impacted us all. In the early comedy of Nichols and May, to the social insights of films like The Graduate, Silkwood, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Catch 22, to his plays that reflected who we were in the human comedy, he not only understood his art and craft, but valued other artists; specifically actors and writers as creative tools to help him to help us see the world. 

Mark Harris gives us all of this in his new biography Mike Nichols: A Life 

My conversation with Mark Harris:

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Why The Exploration Of Space Should Still Matter

Once it was the moon. Today Mars is the holy grail of space exploration. In the coming months three missions, one from the US, one from Taiwan and one from the UAE will be approaching and/or landing on Mars. Next year Russia, Japan, and India have missions planned. It could get crowded up there! 

And while NASA, the President and Congress may be less enamored by space than by that latest social media site, there is amazing work being done at NASA. Also the private sector, in the form of wayfarers such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson are giving the government some competition. 

All of this is part of the history of space and its future exploration. This includes an amazing mission planned to Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter in 2024. 

Giving us a telescopic view of all of this is David W. Brown in his new book The Mission: A True Story

My conversation with David W. Brown:

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Are You A Broker, Expansionist or Convener? It Will Tell How the Pandemic Impacted You

As we work the phones and Zoom calls, it makes you wonder if physical connection is even necessary? Has the pandemic given us a new normal. How has it impacted things like conversation in the hallways or parking lot, a lunch meeting or a discussion over a glass of wine. 

Just like science, when you change the way and the amount of elements you mix together, you get a different result. It’s just chemistry right? So is the same true for real life? Is the chemistry of our connections a static condition or a dynamic process that will be changed forever for the past year?

To understand this we talk with Marissa King, the author of Social Chemistry: Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection

My conversation with Marissa King:

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