Features

Here are submitted entries for KDnuggets Data Mining Haiku competition. Unlike Data Mining Limericks, which were judged by "objective" quality rules, Data Mining Haiku selection was completely subjective, and was not necessarily based on poetic quality, sense of humor or the importance of the invoked data mining concept.

The winning haiku, however, illustrates an important point about ease of finding spurious correlations (that ease is sometimes known as Bonferroni's curse, reminding us about Bonferroni's correction that can be used to fight the curse).

1st place

Curse Bonferroni
The harder I look for it
The less it is real

(Nigel Clay, Australia)

2nd Place

The data complex
The expectation great
The budget small

(Karl Brazier, UK)

3nd Place

Certainty begets
The never ending cry of:
Data! More Data!

(Nigel Clay, Australia)

Honorary Mentions

The model is built
A lift chart displays -
the data miner smiles

(Adam Lynton, Australia)

Knowledge and meaning.
Miners, like mystics, give chase.
Searching forever.

(David Turkington, USA)

I only mine data
for those who cannot mine themselves.
Russell's paradox?

(Andrei Turinsky, Canada)

Note

The high poetic level to which data miners can aspire is the winning haiku from Salon magazine haiku contest on the topic of computer error messages. The winning haiku, written by David Dixon, was:

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.