turning nothing into something
on going against the grain
Approaching a data set for a story, I usually have some idea what the data will tell me. Through cleaning and reporting of the data, I start to see things develop, even if I don’t have the firm analysis to back it up quite yet.
That’s not to say that I don’t keep an open mind. I like to ask questions and let those answers guide more questions and more reporting.
But it’s exceedingly rare for all of the answers to all of my questions to lie within the data I have. The truth is that the world is quite complicated and more reporting or more data is often warranted.
But every now and again, there are almost no answers in the data. Such is the tale of my attempts to understand why the number of fatal police shootings across the country increased again in 2022.
As background, since 2015 The Washington Post has kept data on every fatal police shooting because the federal government’s data is woefully incomplete. In 2022, police shot and killed nearly 1,100 people, the most since we’d starting collecting the data.
When my colleagues and I set out to understand what might be driving the number up, or if the count is just an expected fluctuation.
As we combed through the data, we started to see the same thing again and again. Nothing. The data hadn’t changed in significant ways over the years of analysis. It was unclear why shootings had risen again.
So my colleague Andrew Ba Tran and I started calling experts who look as this kind of data for a living. Surely they would have an explanation for why the numbers had risen.
Nope.
As it turns out, and given the nature of the United States having more than 18,000 police departments with no uniform standard of training, it’s really difficult to understand why the numbers sometimes change from year to to year.
There is no one explanation as to why 2022 had the most shootings since we started counting. And as one expert pointed out, there’s reason to believe that the high of 2022 surpassed the totals of 30 years ago. There’s plenty of reason to believe, based on limited data from large departments, that shootings were higher during that era.
So what we had was a bit of a nothingburger. The number was up but seemingly no one knew why. So no story, right?
Nope.
We thought it was important for people to know what we learned, even if that was kind of nothing.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is go against the grain and give folks a something counterintuitive; it just may turn out better than you expect.
The world is a complicated place and it does no one any good for us to complicate it by not telling people what we know, even if that’s not much. Because even learning nothing can teach you something.
When I start to scope out a project for my shop, my first thoughts go to what lumber would work well for the piece. There are many considerations that go into this process.
First is what would look good in the space. Is there other wood in the space already? Do we want to match or contrast the wood? Then I think about the purpose of the piece. Not all lumber is created equal for all types of furniture and so it’s imperative that the lumber is up to the task of the furniture. Usability is my first concern in design as a chair that cannot hold a person is not a good chair at all.
Finally, I’m concerned with what I can get. Lumber is a commodity and there’s not always an ample supply of it. Lumber shops are at the mercy of sawmills who are at the mercy of what’s growing where they’re logging. And so sometimes all of your well-made plans go to waste as what you most want is currently unattainable.
When I was gearing up to build a waterfall coffee table, I knew that the wood I wanted to use was walnut. It fit well in the space and was good for the purpose. I set out to get what I needed in 8/4 (2-inch thick) or 12/4 (3-inch thick) planks that I could convert to a coffee table with ease.
Unfortunately, neither of my lumber suppliers had any walnut planks thicker than 5/4, and that simply would not do for the purpose. I would have to get creative if I was going to salvage the idea.
Lucky for me, my lumber guy had a slab of 9/4 walnut that had enough lumber to build the coffee table. However, I’d have to get creative in how I extracted the pieces to build it. I could not simply cut a top and two legs from the slab.
First, to keep the top as one piece, I’d have to cut out a section that included both a large crack as well as bark growing within the slab. They weren’t pretty but to keep the plan, I would have to. So I cut that out and filled with clear epoxy both to keep it together and smooth out the entire surface.
Then, I had to cut 13” by 3” strips wherever I could find them to make the legs. I had to get creative to get the 16 I needed to make two legs but somehow I found them. At the end of the process, I could not have gotten a 17th strip if I tried. I’ve always fancied myself as good at Tetris but apparently I am at this sort of reverse Tetris, as well.
The strips glued up, I could make the coffee table I had planned to make. And the ugly crack on the top and the bark turned out to be a lovely centerpiece of the wood. So many people get caught up in the need for uniformity and pristine lumber that they miss out on what makes lumber unique.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is go against the grain and give folks a something counterintuitive; it just may turn out better than you expect.
And in this case, the struggle for lumber ended up being a key to the beauty of the table. Sometimes you need to embrace the search. I’m happy I did.
datawork
Dashcam Footage Shows Driverless Cars Clogging San Francisco — “Driverless cars have completed thousands of journeys in San Francisco—taking people to work, to school, and to and from dates. They have also proven to be a glitchy nuisance, snarling traffic and creeping into hazardous terrain such as construction zones and downed power lines. Autonomous cars in San Francisco made 92 unplanned stops between May and December 2022—88 percent of them on streets with transit service, according to city transportation authorities, who collected the data from social media reports, 911 calls, and other sources, because companies aren’t required to report all the breakdowns.” [WIRED]
How Cigna Saves Millions by Having Its Doctors Reject Claims Without Reading Them — “The rejection of van Terheyden’s claim was typical for Cigna, one of the country’s largest insurers. The company has built a system that allows its doctors to instantly reject a claim on medical grounds without opening the patient file, leaving people with unexpected bills, according to corporate documents and interviews with former Cigna officials. Over a period of two months last year, Cigna doctors denied over 300,000 requests for payments using this method, spending an average of 1.2 seconds on each case, the documents show. The company has reported it covers or administers health care plans for 18 million people.” [ProPublica and The Capitol Forum]
Field of Dread — “Decades after the final out of the 1980 World Series was recorded, McGraw, Vukovich, Brett, and Quisenberry had all died from brain cancer. They weren’t the only ones: In all, six former Phillies have reportedly been felled by glioblastoma — a particularly aggressive and deadly form of brain cancer — including catcher Darren Daulton, catcher Johnny Oates, and relief pitcher David West, who died in 2022. The rate of brain cancer among Phillies who played at the Vet between 1971 and 2003 is about three times the average rate among adult men.” [Philadelphia Inquirer]
The AI bot has picked an answer for you. Here’s how often it’s bad. — “We wanted to understand whether the AI was actually good at researching complex questions. So we set up an experiment with Microsoft’s Bing chat, which includes citations for the answers its AI provides. The sources are linked in the text of its response and footnoted along the bottom with a shortened version of their addresses. We asked Bing 47 tough questions, then graded its more than 700 citations by tapping the expertise of 10 fellow Washington Post journalists. The result: Six in 10 of Bing’s citations were just fine. Three in 10 were merely okay. And nearly 1 in 10 were inadequate or inaccurate.” [The Washington Post]
Stolen, cloned and sold: Inside the digital black market for SNAP benefits — “They’re purchasing stolen benefits information online, printing the data onto cloned debit cards and cashing out, The Baltimore Banner found after analyzing dozens of online markets, obtaining state social welfare records and speaking to cyber security experts. Even as states are attempting to increase security measures, many are experiencing a collective rise in welfare theft, in part, due to this illicit online ecosystem. Maryland is no exception. The Banner identified at least 2,500 posts selling Marylanders’ benefits account information, also known as EBT.” [The Baltimore Banner]
woodwork
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