We've written about BIG data before and while some reckon it's sexy, you better roll up your sleeves because you'll invariably need to do a lot of 'janitorial' (a.k.a. shit) work first!
Ron Sandland recently wrote about the new phenomenon of 'big data' - weighing up the benefits and concerns. Terry Speed reflected on the same issue in a talk earlier this year inGothenburg, Sweeden noting that this is nothing new to statisticians. So what's all the fuss about? Here's another take on the 'big data' bandwagon.
Hey Larry - it's not either / or February 12, 2016
CSIRO's boss, Larry Marshall takes the axe to climate research
If you browse the news items on this website you will find numerous stories about cuts to CSIRO spanning many years and many CEO's (click here, here, here, here, here, and here).
Latest CEO recruit, Larry Marshall had a brain-fart when he recently declared that the organisation needs to refocus its climate science effort away from measurement and move to mitigation. Larry's reasoning is that the issue of climate change has been proved and we now need to concentrate on fixing the problem. No arguments with the latter but Larry's flaw is that he sees this as a binary decision: either we continue to measure the impacts of global warming or we do something about it. The reality is both are required. Anyone who knows anything about environmental measuring, monitoring, and management understands the importance of monitoring to establish a baseline against which the impact of future management actions can be established. The intensity and continuity of measurement is particularly critical in very 'noisy' environments such as those experienced in climate research.
Rather than reducing funding, CSIRO should be seeking new, additional sources of funding so that it can do a decent job of both measuring and mitigating.
Larry appears before Senate estimates committee to explain his radical new approach to climate science.
