A Random walk down Data Street

If you enjoy, abhor or are simply bored with the massive surfeit of hype surrounding Big Data, Data Warehousing and Analytics, then you might just hate these less than faithful quotes as well.

If you enjoy one or two of the quotes, well, then that’s an acceptable bonus too.

So, to begin at the beginning…

Data Sources

“My data sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating.” – Ashleigh Brilliant

“I give no data sources, because it is indifferent to me whether what data I have sourced has already been sourced before me by another.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

“In the kitchen of a great Data Warehouse, the data source chef is a soloist.” – Fernand Point

“It is better to be hated for what data sources you have than to be loved for what data sources you do not have.” – André Gide

“In England, there are sixty different types of Data Warehouse and only one data source.” – Attributed to Voltaire

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data sources. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” – Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

“From such a gentle thing, from such a source of all data, my every pain is born.” –Michelangelo

“Noise free data is a source of great strength.” – Lao Tzu

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about data: it goes on.” – Robert Frost

“Data enrichment improves a mighty fine data source” – Anonymous

Big Data

“Junk food, empty calories and carbs are the Big Data of the masses” – Karl Marx

“We live, I regret to say, in an age of Big Data hype.” – Oscar Wilde

“We are not rich by the Big Data we possess but by what Big Data we can do without.” – Immanuel Kant

“He who has Big Data hype on his side has no need of proof.” – Theodor Adorno

“The religion of Big Data sets itself the goal of fulfilling man’s unattainable desires, but for that very reason ignores her attainable needs.” – Ludwig Feuerbach

“The flesh endures the storms of the present alone; the mind in our social network interactions, those of the past and future as well as the present. Big Data is a covetousness of the mind.” – Thomas Hobbes

“Big Data is negative and dialectical, because it resolves the determinations of the understanding of things into nothings.” – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

“I am trapped in this Big Data, and there is nothing I can do about it.” – Dudley Moore

“And remember, never take the ruby case off your iPad for a moment, or you will be at the mercy of the Big Data Witch of the West.” – The Wizard of Oz

“Imagine there’s no Big Data…” – John Lennon

Data Transformation

“Analysis does not transform data.” – Jiddu Krishnamurtu

“I live in a data landscape, which every single day of my life is enriching data.” – Daniel Day-Lewis

“Data opportunities multiply as the data is transformed” – Sun Tzu

“He who integrates data badly is lost.” – Theodor Adorno

“Today we transform the data; tomorrow, the whole enchilada” – Leon Trotsky

“Well, it’s all about the ETL law of the transformation of data quantity into data quality, and vice versa. Innit!” – Friedrich Engels

“The management consultants have only interpreted the business data, in various ways. The point, however, is to transform it.” – Karl Marx

“Hey! What’s going down here in the Hollyweird of data?” – Joe McCarthy

“The Big Data alchemists in their transformational search for gold discovered much data of greater value.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

“That Schopenhauer yolk was a bit of an old Big Data ‘procurer’ wasn’t he now Rodge?” – Pádraig Judas O’Leprosy

Business Intelligence

“The trouble with the world is that the cocksure have Big Data and that Data Science and Business Intelligence are all sexed up.” – Bertrand Russell

If people never did silly things no Business Intelligence would ever get done.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The best Business Intelligence user is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk.” –Alben W Barkley

“The Master said, “If your conduct is determined solely by considerations of Business Intelligence and profit you will arouse great resentment.” ― Confucius

“That’s cricket, Harry, you get these sort of things in Business Intelligence” – Frank Bruno

“Business Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.” – Salvador Dali

“I would prefer a Business Intelligence hell to a Big Data paradise.” – Blaise Pascal

“Many much-learned business men have no Business Intelligence.” – Democritus

“We should not only use the brains we have, but all that we can borrow.” – Woodrow Wilson

“The reason we have Business Intelligence is so we don’t have to think all the time” –Homer Simpson

Data Warehousing

“The study of Data Warehousing, like the Nile, begins in Inmon and ends in magnificence.” – Charles Caleb Colton

“Big Data wins games, but Data Warehousing wins championships.” – Michael Jordan

“Big Data is no substitute for Data Warehousing.” – Frank Herbert

“It’s in me blood, Clive, without Data Warehousing I’d be nothing,” – Alan Latchley

“The trouble with the world is that the cocksure have Big Data and that Data Science is all sexed up.” – Bertrand Russell

If people never did silly things no Business Intelligence would ever get done.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The best Business Intelligence user is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk.” –Alben W Barkley

“You can catch all the whales in the ocean and stack them together and they still do not make a minnow.” – Ralph Wiggum

“Well, the smarter I practice Inmon Data Warehousing, the luckier I get.” – Gary Player

“Well, I’ve cleaned up facts and dimensions in a star-schema ‘data warehouse’. That was pretty terrible. But I can’t complain because I’m sure other people have done worse.” – Cee Lo Green

“You can give a person a bowl of Big Data Gruel and feed them for a day, or teach them Inmon Data Warehousing and feed them for a lifetime.” – Proverb

“A Data Warehouse is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until you are in hot water.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

” οἶδα δ᾽ ἐγὼ ψάμμου τ᾽ ἀριθμὸν καὶ μέτρα θαλάσσης, καὶ κωφοῦ συνίημι, καὶ οὐ φωνεῦντος ἀκούω. ὀδμή μ᾽ ἐς φρένας ἦλθε κραταιρίνοιο χελώνης ἑψομένης ἐν χαλκῷ ἅμ᾽ ἀρνείοισι κρέεσσιν, ᾗ χαλκὸς μὲν ὑπέστρωται, χαλκὸν δ᾽ ἐπιέσται.” – An Oracle to Croesus of Lydia

That’s all folks!

Well, now that that’s done I can always ask for forgiveness. Not that I will of course.