Fair Warning - Benefit fraud, quiet rooms, and data butterflies
Hello! I'm almost afraid to say it but it's...almost Christmas?! What a year. The good thing about this is that I have a present for you (seriously, I do! - I just need to do more work on it) and the bad thing is... Nope, no bad thing. Woo Christmas and end of year!
On that note, everyone's been doing that 'what I looked like at the start of this decade vs the end' thing. Here's mine. Turns out I still like putting crap on my face, but it's more glittery, I'm older, and my hair is now red.
Non-data stuff that made me laugh this week:
IMO the only reason to have a partner in 2019 is so you can wear these meme jumpers together
"My cat had surgery and they shaved his tail" Not sure what I can add to this really...
Unwitting dad puts 600 seals and 180 pups up for sale on Facebook. "Now in the nelson head pub at horsea" better get down there quickly before they sell out :)
On the home front
Does £80,000 put you in the top 5% of earners? — www.bbc.co.uk
Man earning £80,000 says "I am nowhere near in the top 5%, let me tell you, I'm not even in the top 50%".
Hahahahaha*breathe*hahahahahahaha, OK sweetie.
Britain general election December 2019
"Britain will hold its first December election in almost a century after Prime Minister Boris Johnson won approval from parliament for an early ballot aimed at breaking the Brexit deadlock." This is a nicely represented set of poll results, and policies by party.
"Introducing YouGov's food map of Britain" — twitter.com
*whispers* I have several reasons to doubt the veracity of this, not least that there appear to only be six Miller and Carter restaurants in the whole of Wales which is, funnily enough, an entire country and not just a 'region'. I also suspect the North East confused 'favourite' with 'most regularly visited' but what do I know, I'm just a girl from London...
‘Horrific’ stats show how most disability benefit fraud allegations are false
This is based on a public FOI request (here) from a campaigning group. From the FOI response itself, "the percentage of allegations of disability benefit fraud investigated that proved to be non-fraudulent in 2017 – 2018 was 89%*. " Same for 17-18. That's ridiculous.
Brexit didn't cause all our divisions — unherd.com
Unherd is commissioning new polls to understand how the nation is divided on topics like the royals, gender, immigration, religion, free speech and tax. The royal family question is highlighted here on Twitter; can't say I'm hugely amazed by the results.
Over the pond
The Quiet Rooms — graphics.chicagotribune.com
Harrowing investigation into so-called 'seclusion rooms' in schools in Illinois. Schoolchildren are being locked in tiny rooms when they supposedly misbehave, and end up wetting themselves, banging their heads on the walls, and crying for their parents. It's state-sanctioned child abuse and it's horrendous. This is such an important investigation, using records/data to expose a horrible misuse of power and the law.
Democratic Presidential Debate Atlanta: Summary and Key Issues
"Foreign policy and democracy had their biggest nights ever." I like the style that Bloomberg's using for these analyses of debates and speeches.
After Sandy Hook, we said never again. And then we let 2,300 mass shootings happen. — www.vox.com
I've lost count of how many mass shooting visualisations or data stories I've put in Fair Warning since I started writing this 2.5 years ago. It makes me so sad and angry.
Nice beeswarm-style plot showing how salaries change by occupation in the US. Someone else recreated it in R and wrote a tutorial, so that's pretty neat.
Odds and ends
Using Natural Language Processing to discover themes in First World War poetry — rforjournalists.com
Short piece of work by my friend Rob, with a tutorial so you can learn how to do it yourself in R.
Dataviz butterflies is exactly what it says on the tin. Different data visualisation types but as butterflies. Er, it's strange but it appeals to my quirky nerd side so it's a yes from me.
Apple says its App Store is ‘a safe and trusted place.’ We found 1,500 reports of unwanted sexual behavior on six apps, some targeting minors. — www.washingtonpost.com
The first use of machine learning in reporting that I've seen that actually warrants it, maybe? I'm digging through my brain...I got nothin'. This is very good and also worrying - surely Apple could do this themselves though!
Hours of daylight mapped as a function of latitude and time of year
He's right. It *is* mesmerising. (Thanks to Luke for sending it over!)
How do you visualise $110 BILLION??? With some animated column charts of course. This is just a random tweet but illustrates the enormity quite well.
That's everything for this week. Thanks for reading!
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