And while there probably is a case to be made that they are subsidized, rather than open that can of worms, recently I set about exploring what, if anything, sets them apart from their competitors.
Now you may think: what if I set up cameras and keep an eye on the drone that way?
What if they set George Washington as their daily standard?
What if we set our inner compasses on a journey of our own making?
What if we set the bar at a more reasonable level?
Schilling takes a kernel of a rumor -- that baseball maverick Bill Veeck was thinking of buying a team before World War II and stocking it with Negro League players -- and creates a gorgeously written what-if tale set after the war, with Veeck doing that very thing with the Philadelphia Phillies.
What if the setting were not contemporary America but something glamorous, and foreign, and historical?
While OLAP systems have the ability to answer "who" and "what" questions, it is their ability to answer "what if" that sets them apart from other business intelligence (BI) tools.
What if another set of parameters that can fit the constraints just as well show that the main conclusions do not hold anymore?
Give me a good story, and I can no longer quite put my finger on what, if anything, should set off my alarm bells.
