Join me and my special guest, Colby "meat whore" Pritchett (@colbypritchett) on this BBQ showdown where we pit the Big Green Egg against the Green Mountain Grill Pellet Smoker. We also cover the history, styles, stats, and health facets of different types of BBQ. (more…)

Where did graphs come from? (Graph Theory History) In its simplest form, Graph Theory defines a graph as a construct made up of vertices, nodes, or points which are connected by edges, arcs, or lines.1 The connections may be directed, indicating a direction from one node to another, or undirected. Properties are attributes associated with nodes that describe the node in some detail. Graph theory is applied in many disciplines from linguistics to computer science, physics, and chemistry. ...

Sheer Quantity 3% of gun owners own almost 50% of all civilian guns. These 7.7mm "super owners"  own between 8-140 guns (on average 17)15 In 2013, U.S. gun manufacturers built 10,844,792 guns, and we imported an additional 5,539,539; the number dropped slightly in 2014.16 There are over 300 million guns owned by civilians (legal and illegal)11 The government holds approximately 2.7mm guns History National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA)4 In 1934 Congress passed a law taxing the...

National Cheesecake Day! June 30, 2016 is National Cheesecake Day, a likely commercially driven holiday to which I, for one, am happy to fall victim. Adam's PB Cup Fudge Ripple is one of my favorites and also one of the worst (go figure).   History (#4) Believed to have originated around 2,000 BC in Greece Was served to athletes in first Olympic games as a source of energy Original recipe, documented in 230 AD was: mashed cheese, honey, flour heated into a mass Around...

News: Big Data falls off the hype cycle: http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/big-data-falls-off-the-hype-cycle Tableau 10 in beta: http://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2016/4/10-reasons-join-tableau-10-beta-53165 http://www.tableau.com/coming-soon Fireworks! NOTE: Overall, statistics are hard to follow across sites and even different reports from the same groups.    2015 Consumption Statistics: Consumption: 260.7 Million lbs. (Consumer), 24.6 million ...

Summary: Hot models...data models that is. A survey of many of the most popular data modeling approaches in the news today. Third Normal Form, Anchor Modeling, Data Vault, Data Lakes, Data Swamps. What do they do well, what do they do badly, and which is the one true data model to rule them all? (Hint: it depends, as usual.) Third Normal Form (3NF) (a.k.a. Naomi Sims) History: E.F. Codd defined 3NF in 1971 while working at IBM. Basic Concept: "The Key, the Whole Key, and Nothing but the K...

Churches have a wealth of data that other organizations could only dream about--a weekly stream of attendees and donors who also participate in a wide variety of activities around the organization. In this episode, I sit down with Glen Brechner, the Executive Director of Chase Oaks Church in Plano. Chase Oaks is one of the top twenty churches in the DFW metroplex and is in the top 20% of megachurches in the US. We discuss how they track member participation and donation information, how they ...

Data, Analytics, Business Intelligence... how do I keep track of what is going on in this ever-expanding technology realm? "For the Love of Data" is a monthly podcast covering data, big data, huge data, tiny data, analytics, and business intelligence trends across the industry. Join the discussion, write a review, or give us your feedback on our site. This introductory episode covers the podcast's format, why I want to do it (because I love data!), and who may benefit from listening.