#i think the whole idea of george trying to impress john would extend to like. everything

[beatlesdumpsterfire]

For @pushmipulluridesagain's prompt:

The Beatles go to Target

Brian should have known better than to give the boys the day off, completely unsupervised. Even John, Paul, George, and Ringo were shocked. In fact, they were so shocked that they couldn’t think of a single thing to do to fully take advantage of Brian’s huge mistake.

So, they found themselves in the sitting room of George’s flat, staring around at each other with blank looks plastered across their faces. Finally, John was the one to break the silence with a suggestion:

“Why don’t we go to Target?”

It wasn’t the most exciting option out there, but it sure was something, and it was a lot better than sitting around like their wax figures at Madame Tussauds. None of the other boys had any better ideas to offer, so that was that. Before Brian could change his mind, they all piled into George’s car and sped off to their local Target.

“Are we looking for anything specific?” Paul asked the car. Ringo turned around from the passenger seat and grinned back at Paul.

“It doesn’t matter if there’s something specific we’re looking for, we’re bound to walk out with a cart full of things we didn’t even know we needed.”

“I once went to Target looking for a screwdriver and I came out with an inflatable lawn decoration,” George mused. “I don’t think I’ve even taken it out of the box though.”

“There’s something about Target, it just sucks you dry,” Paul thought aloud. He paused for a second and quickly turned to John, who was obviously on the verge of making a bad joke. “Don’t you dare say it,” Paul warned him.

John luckily listened, which saved him from a hefty slap from Paul, and instead shared some wisdom he had picked up from a TikTok he saw the other day.

“You know, I heard somewhere that you can steal a certain amount of stuff from Target and they won’t stop you. They keep track of what you take, but they’ll only pull the authorities in when you’ve surpassed a certain dollar amount of stolen goods. It’s so they can charge it as a serious felony, I think.”

“Huh,” Ringo thought aloud. “So I could steal just under that amount and waltz out of the store?”

“I doubt it’s that black and white,” Paul interjected. “If they catch you taking something, they’re bound to stop you, right?”

“Why don’t we test it, lads?” John grinned. Paul let out a groan; he should have seen where that conversation was going. He had been a fool to assume they were going to take an innocent trip to Target.

“I’m game,” George said from behind the steering wheel. “We were bound to do something stupid today, I’m glad we figured out what that was.”

“Sounds like fun,” Ringo chirped happily. “I’ve never stolen anything before.”

“You haven’t either, have you, Paul?” John teased Paul.

“I have too,” Paul murmured. He had pocketed a single bean from the grocery store when he was 5 and, while his mom made him return the bean to one of the employees working there, he still felt it counted.

John could see straight through Paul’s fib, but he was confident that his mate would participate, as much as he acted like he was against it. Knowing that they were all on board to rob a Target got John feeling especially energized: he couldn’t wait to kick capitalism in the shins.

“Let’s make a competition out of it, Lads,” he announced, clapping his hands together. “30 minutes on the clock, whoever comes out with the most impressive collection of items wins.”

“What’s the prize?” George asked.

“Bragging rights,” John decided. None of the other boys were especially happy about that but, considering they were going to rob a store, they were all already kind of winning something in a sense.

“And one last thing,” John added, “if you get caught, you’ll be disqualified.”

“That’s straight-forward enough to me,” George nodded as he turned into the Target parking lot. “We’ll meet back at the car once our 30 minutes is up then?”

“Yeah,” John said.

“You’re going to get your asses handed to you!” Ringo cackled, unbuckling his seatbelt and rushing into the store before anyone could even set a timer. Paul, John, and George all exchanged tired glances; they knew Ringo was about to do something stupid.

And, of course, they were right. Ringo tore into the Target, the bell dinging above his head as he scanned around the store, his heart beating up into his throat with a wild look in his eyes. He needed to prove to his mates that he could be the best thief out there, one that was bound to earn their utmost respect. Ringo hadn’t really listened to the rules all that much, but he felt that he got the overall gist of the competition: he just had to take the biggest and most impressive thing and not get caught. That was a piece of cake because he, Ringo Starr, was the Master of Deception.

Ringo sprinted for the electronics department, nearly taking out an older gentleman and a mannequin in the process. The mannequin slowly toppled over, flattening the older gentleman behind Ringo, giving him the most action he had received in well over 50 years.

“Ooh!” the older man squealed.

Ringo made it to the section with the really big televisions and felt his pupils dilate tenfold.

“Yes,” he breathed out. Sure, there were three Target employees on the floor nearby, but Ringo was the Master of Deception. He had this in the bag. He managed to slow his breathing down to a pace that didn’t make him look like a rabid animal, and sauntered to the biggest TV in the store. Ringo looked it up and down and then smiled. He was gonna win this thing so hard. He looked to the left, making direct eye contact with one of the employees, and then looked to the right, making direct eye contact with the other employee, and then turned back to the TV. And, in one big grunt, he dislodged the TV from the wall and proceeded to shove it down his pants.

Both employees probably would have made more of an effort to stop him if they hadn’t been so thrown off guard by the fact that he had just put an 80 inch TV down his rear. It was a mystery how he was able to fit that screen in there, but somehow he did it.

Well, Ringo was the Master of Deception after all, I guess he was just doing what he did best.

While the TV was semi-concealed, the latter half of it stuck out of the seat of Ringo’s pants and rose well-above his head, so there was no denying what he was doing. Ringo had grossly miscalculated how heavy the TV was going to be; he was obviously struggling as he attempted to shuffle his way to the front doors. The two employees who had just witnessed this entire shit show exchanged an uncertain glance and shrugged their shoulders. They weren’t paid enough to deal with shit like that. Let the weirdo shove a TV down his pants if he wanted to.

Somehow, by some miracle, Ringo managed to make it to the front doors without being stopped (although he did attract a lot of strange looks). It was only when the metal detectors started to blare through the store that Ringo was surrounded by seven employees, two of which body slammed him to the ground. In a matter of seconds, the TV was removed from his pants and Ringo was sitting against the Starbucks counter by the front door with his arms shackled behind his back, moping not only because he had been eliminated from the competition and arrested, but also because he could no longer confidently say that he was the Master of Deception.

After Ringo powered into the store, Paul, George, and John synced their watches and agreed to meet back in the parking lot to determine the winner (they already knew that Ringo was going to be disqualified, it was only a matter of time before they found out exactly what he had done to eliminate himself).

George was the second to enter the store behind Ringo. As if he was going on any old Target run, George casually strolled through the front doors and made his way directly to the food section. The second John had initially mentioned theft, George’s stomach growled since it had officially been 20 minutes since his last meal. From that second onwards, George could only think about one thing and one thing only: filling the apparent goddamn void in his stomach.

So, in that food aisle, George went to town, carefully packing his shopping cart to the brim with crackers, cookies, sandwich-making materials, and lots and lots of candy. Satisfied with his load, he retreated to the back of the store where he very quickly found the employee break room and settled there, seated eagerly in front of his stuffed cart. A few employees filed in and out of the room as George worked away at his feast, but none of them bothered to stop him because they could care less. This was just an average day at Target: some guy had shoved a TV down his pants a few minutes ago, so George’s spectacle wasn’t even the worst thing they’d seen all day.

In ten minutes, George had consumed well over 50,000 calories and patted his extended stomach with content before letting out a belch that rattled the whole establishment for well-over 10 seconds.

Across the store in the women’s lingerie section, Paul snapped his head up from a rack of nice bras and scanned around in a panic. When he realized that the shaking wasn’t coming from an angry guard storming up to him, Paul’s shoulders relaxed and he returned back to sifting through the silk fabric, trying to find the flashiest bra available.

George collected all of his empty packages and started to shove them into a plastic Target bag that had been discarded in the breakroom so he had evidence of just how many things he had stolen that were now sitting in the bottom of his stomach. But, George wasn’t going to stop there; as impressive as his feat was, he knew that he was up against some tough competition (aka John, Paul didn’t count), so he really had to step up his game.

As he scanned around the store trying to find something good to snag, it occurred to George that he was wearing a red shirt and a pair of khakis (he was long overdue to do his laundry). He was basically an employee at Target, so George knew that he really could take things the extra mile. And oh boy, did he. He approached a cash register where there was an apron and an employee’s scanner sitting loosely around and tugged the apron over his head, adding the scanner to one of his front pockets. To be an incredibly huge nuisance, George went out of his way to unscrew the credit card reader (with his Target screwdriver, of course) and packed that into his apron as well. He checked his phone and, when he saw he had two minutes to spare, he decided that he had had his fun, and returned to the parking lot.

For Paul, when he first entered the store, he was a nervous wreck. Since the bean incident, he had vowed to never do a wrong thing ever again in his life. But, deep down, he knew that he would much rather become a criminal than let down his mates. He especially didn’t want to see the look of disappointment on John’s face if he came back empty-handed; that just wasn’t acceptable.

So, he decided to go the conservative route and start off small. After sneaking a pack of Trident Layers into his coat pocket without so much as a blink of an eye from those in the vicinity, Paul felt his heart rate slow. It was okay, this was fine, he totally had this. So, from there, Paul started to get more of a feel for the sticky fingers, sliding a pack of soap up his sleeve and a daily planner down his shirt. Now he was really feeling the groove of things, so he boldly made his way to the gift card section and grabbed a $20 Applebee's gift card. He was really going wild now. He was yet to face any consequences for his actions, so he booked it to the best part of Target: the electronic section, where Ringo had just been fucking shit up five minutes prior. Attempting to keep all of his stolen goods concealed, Paul strolled up and down the aisles, trying to decide which items on display were the best to grab (aka what would impress John the most). After checking to see if the coast was clear (which it was, since all the staff in the area were busy dealing with Ringo in the front of the store), Paul slid a Nintendo Switch inside his coat and hustled away from the crime scene, giggling to himself.

Now he was on a high. He was bound to win the competition with his impressive level of skill; the rest of the boys had probably already been caught because they were nowhere near as sneaky as him. As Paul hustled past the home goods aisle, he caught a glimpse of a Rolling Stones poster and turned back around with a smug look. The poster immediately went down his pants, where it belonged, so Mick’s face was pressed up against some stuff I’m not going to list out here. To top off the successful day, Paul made his way to the lingerie section to pick out an especially nice bra to give to John as a joke, to really rub in his victory. With the exception of the quick period of shaking that nearly made Paul crap himself, he was poised with a confidence he had never felt before, like he was immortal. Paul crept his way out a side door and returned to George’s car with his head held high and his pockets completely lined with goods, making it to George and John with three seconds to spare.

John knew exactly what he was doing from the get-go. He knew that his mates would all fall for a friendly competition and get so consumed by it that John could do his dirty work undetected. He knew that Ringo was bound to create a distraction big enough for him to do what he set out to do. He wasn’t sure if Paul and George would get caught too but, if they did, that would just be an additional bonus. After watching George and Paul hurry through the front doors, John stomped out his used cigarette on the pavement and ambled in behind them.

“Hey, Ringo,” he calmly greeted his mate as he made it through the front doors, where Ringo was still handcuffed and swarmed by employees and police officers.

“Hi John,” Ringo attempted to wave back, failing miserably. With a satisfied smirk, John moved to the front registers and, one by one, popped them open with a screwdriver that he himself had stolen from Target just the previous week. You’d think that alarms would have gone off, or someone would have noticed, but no, John was the true Master of Deception. He opened his coat to reveal a large, holographic fanny pack (also stolen) and started to fill it with the 1s, 5s, 10s, 20s, and 100s in each cash register. In under a minute, he had emptied out every register in the store, right under the cops’ noses. It was practically a miracle.

While George and Paul were still trying to make their way around the perimeter of the store, finding the best things to take, John was out the front doors in under three minutes, his fanny pack stuffed to the brim with cash just like George’s stomach was about to be with food.

“Fools,” John couldn’t help but laugh to himself as he lit a new cigarette and took out a long, satisfied drag. And, with that, he let himself back into George’s car and reclined backwards in the front seat, his feet kicked up on the dashboard. He kept an eye out for any commotion if someone caught on to his crime, but the store was incredibly peaceful and still, like a lake on a cool summer’s morning. John found that to be oddly beautiful, so much so that he knew he could write a decent song about it, called “Hey Target I Just Robbed You Blind, Suck It”.

After what felt like ages of waiting, George finally emerged from the store and, not too shortly afterwards, Paul trailed out after him.

“Did you see they arrested Ringo?” Paul asked as he plopped in the back seat, his pockets swishing this way and that and a loud, papery crunching noise coming from his pants.

“I was able to get in a quick word with him,” George told Paul. “Turns out he tried to steal the biggest TV in the store by hiding it in his pants.”

“Classic Ringo,” Paul rolled his eyes. “You’re awfully quiet,” he turned to John. “Nervous to lose?”

“You wish,” John snapped back to life, reclaiming his role as the leader of the competition. “Well, let’s go then, boys, shall we? Show off what you were able to grab.”

George was the first to go, and Paul and John’s eyes widened as he emptied out the opened food packages from his stolen bag. He had enough in there to fill half a trash dump.

“I ate all of that in under 10 minutes,” George proudly shared, before letting out another loud burp. “And, I took this.” George untied his apron and threw it in the pile, adding along the scanner and the credit card reader. “They thought I was an employee,” George couldn’t help but laugh as he looked down at his red shirt and khakis.

“What are you gonna do with a credit card reader?” Paul couldn’t help but ask. It seemed like the stupidest thing George could have taken. Well, actually a toilet plunger from the bathroom would have been stupider, but Paul had come to that conclusion earlier after taking the toilet plunger from the men’s room and talking himself into putting it back.

“Dunno,” George shrugged. “It seemed like it would be hard to take, so I took it.”

“That’s admirable,” John admitted, impressed with his younger mate. “Alright Paul, show us your booty.”

Paul couldn’t help but grin in anticipated excitement at his seemingly inevitable victory as he first retrieved the pack of gum and soap, followed by the daily planner and $20 Applebee’s gift card.

“Hold up,” John stopped him. “You’re disqualified.”

“Disqualified?” Paul nearly shouted in shock. “Why?”

John pointed at the Applebee’s gift card.

“That’s a foul right there. No one in their right mind would steal an Applebee’s gift card and consider themselves a winner. That just spoiled whatever else you took, I don’t even want to see it.”

“But I took a Nintendo Switch!” Paul tried to protest, reaching into his coat to grab it.

“I don’t care,” John held his ground, “you’re disqualified.” George watched onwards in excitement; he loved it when he did better than Paul.

“Now how’s that fair?” Paul protested. “We’re all judges here, your word isn’t above ours!”

“It is when I already know I’ve won,” John retorted. Before Paul could fight against this, John unzipped his jacket, displaying his fanny pack. Both Paul and George broke into fits of laughter.

“You can’t be serious, John,” George howled, “You think you won with that?”

“That’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Paul added in, relief washing over him that John might have just been giving him a hard time. That theory was quickly abandoned, however, when John, sporting the strongest poker face ever seen in the history of mankind, unzipped the fanny pack, revealing the stacks upon stacks of cash inside.

“I counted it all while you were in there wasting your time,” he explained to George and Paul’s gaping faces. “It’s near $20,000.” George recoiled in shock.

“John,” Paul’s voice was shaking now, “I don’t think that was such a great idea…”

“They haven’t caught me though, have they?” John tested Paul with a raised eyebrow, nodding towards the store.

“But I don’t think you should be sitting in their parking lot with the $20,000 you just stole, John,” George told him, trying to keep his cool.

“I’m not worried about it,” John waved George off. “Ringo’s got them all busy. Meanwhile I’m gonna buy me a new car to celebrate.”

“John,” Paul deadpanned, “you already own three cars. And you don’t have a driver’s license.”

“You really do need to consider other ways to live lavishly,” George agreed.

“What matters is that I’m $20,000 richer and you’re not,” John snapped back at them, growing frustrated that they weren’t as in awe of his achievement as he had hoped.

Right as Paul was about to suggest that John go back inside and return the money before they got into any serious trouble, Ringo knocked on George’s window, accompanied by two cops, making them all jump. After glancing back at John to make sure his money was hidden, George rolled down the window.

“They’re taking me to the sin bin,” Ringo explained, nodding at the two cops who were holding him in a deathlock. “Apparently putting a TV down your pants is considered a crime.”

“No kidding,” Paul told him.

“My bail is supposed to be posted at about $20,000,” Ringo continued, ignoring Paul. “Can you help set old Ringo free?”

Paul and George slowly turned to face John, who was scowling downwards.

“Yes,” George answered for him, “in fact, I think we’ve got $20,000 we can spare.”

Ringo smiled.

#I wrote a novel with this one #sorry #beatles ask #beatles fanfic #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #target #ringo really tried his best

[warninggraphiccontent]

7 August 2020

Show of hands

A couple of interesting government speeches touching on data while I was away (naturally).

Soon-to-depart Cabinet Secretary, Mark Sedwill, gave a valedictory rundown of his experience in public service. There was a bit on the importance of the UK government comparing itself to, and learning from, other governments (hello InCiSE). And there was a bit on data:

With all the data available to us in the modern era, the man or woman in Whitehall really should know best, but knowledge isn’t impact and so insight from big data should inform our leadership of the wider system, and that leadership must be persuasive and convening to be truly effective.

I don't think it's just the 'knowledge isn't impact' point that makes the expertise of others in the system important (local government will have better knowledge of a particular local area, etc), but the need to see Whitehall as a steward in a wider system - including on data - was a welcome theme running through the speech. Sedwill chose to quote T. E. Lawrence:

“Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better they do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly … you are to help them, not [do] it for them. Actually, also, under their conditions, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is”. Or in the famous development aphorism: “better teach to fish than provide a fish”.

The 'hands' reference put me in my mind of something else. Specifically, That Dominic Cummings Job Advert which uses a different quote about hands, from mathematician Alexander Grothendieck:

‘Two hands, it isn’t much considering how the world is infinite. Yet, all the same, two hands, they are a lot.’

One may be deliberately over-reading in a desperate attempt to connect some things for a newsletter introduction, but Sedwill's stewarding hands approach and Cummings' contrasting centralising one (see, e.g., 10ds) provide a useful frame for thinking about how the government is approaching data (and much else besides).

There is also some risk of sorting things at the centre at the expense of the whole system in the speech by Steve Barclay, chief secretary to the Treasury, which announces the creation of a small data science team in the Treasury. There undoubtedly be other dragons too - see Peter here, and Rachel Coldicutt and replies here - but I'm mainly encouraged that the Treasury is heading into what have been uncharted waters for them: taking the better use of data seriously.

Setting clear priorities and connecting expenditure, performance and outcomes? Good. Recognising government has 'too often... been behind the curve when it comes to obtaining, analysing, and enabling open access to data'? Good. Talking about the importance of standards, incentives, data architecture, legacy IT and the limits of data across government? Good. Let's see how that's translated into action when it comes to the Spending Review.

There's also a good summary from Graham here. And hats off to Civil Service World for the New Radicals gag.

Also:

Data Bites will return on Wednesday 9 September. Watch the archive here in the meantime.

It's snooker world championship time - here's my attempt at some snooker dataviz (and terrible puns) from last year

The Office for Statistics Regulation are reviewing the availability of data on children and young people. If only someone had done a report on that recently... here's our report with Nesta on missing data in children and young people's services.

A British (online) newspaper has given its frontpage over to a chart, like it's an American newspaper or something. Though as the replies suggest, there may be some way to go yet...

Happy tenth birthday to legislation.gov.uk! Here's John Sheridan talking about how they prepared the site for Brexit, at October's Data Bites.

***Open government irony klaxon*** I'll spare you my extended thoughts on open government being back at the Cabinet Office and therefore under the auspices of certain individuals (for now), but this should give you an idea.

That Twitter Joke Format feels like it was months ago already, but yes, of course I got involved.

Amazing work from the team at the Orwell Youth Prize to keep this year's show on the road - read, and even listen to, some of the brilliant winners here.

Nope. And the polls prove it. And you should always believe the polls. Obviously.

I'm off again next week - so, by extension, is this newsletter. Maybe I'll find some time to read this E. M. Forster short story, The Machine Stops, which has popped up in conversations a few times over the last couple of weeks.

See you soon

Gavin

Today's links:

Tips, tech, etc

Looking after your mental health as we come out of lockdown (Mental Health Foundation)

Companies Start to Think Remote Work Isn’t So Great After All* (Wall Street Journal)

Graphic content

Beirut

Visual guide: how explosion caused mass casualties and devastation across Beirut (The Guardian)

Mapping the Damage From the Beirut Explosion* (New York Times)

The Beirut blast is the latest tragedy linked to ammonium nitrate* (The Economist)

This morning I woke up to see viral maps incorrectly comparing the damage area of the Beirut explosion to London and New York (Joanna Merson)

Beirut port, before and after the explosion (Ian Bremmer)

Beirut explosion: Before and after satellite images show extent of devastation (ITV News)

Viral content

Coronavirus vaccine tracker: how close are we to a vaccine? (The Guardian, via Sukh)

The unique US failure to control the virus* (New York Times)

How to spot a local coronavirus outbreak from data (FT)

Europe battles to contain surge in Covid-19 cases (FT)

Pandemic crisis: Global economic recovery tracker* (FT)

The Infodemic: Super-spreaders* (Tortoise)

New York City Reopening Splits Along Lines of Wealth and Race* (Bloomberg)

Covid-19: England had highest excess death levels in Europe by end of May (The Guardian)

White America Got a Head Start on Small-Business Virus Relief* (Bloomberg)

Covid-19 seems to have changed lifestyles for good* (The Economist)

Coronavirus: England highest level of excess deaths (BBC News)

The French have, breaking the pattern of recent weeks, published Covid-19 test result data on a Saturday... (Tom Forth)

Why does data matter so much in #COVID19 and why is the UK getting it wrong? A thread on transparency (Ed Conway)

Where next for local lockdown? Use our tracker to find out* (New Statesman)

Counting the coronavirus crisis (South China Morning Post)

How fit were public services for coronavirus? (IfG)

Big tech

Microsoft’s proposed purchase of TikTok would be its biggest yet* (The Economist)

Big tech presents a problem for investors as well as Congress* (FT)

Twitter’s algorithm does not seem to silence conservatives* (The Economist)

TikTok’s rampant growth strikes wrong note with US* (FT)

#dataviz

17 gold, 65 silver and 87 bronze medals at #malofiej28 (Malofiej)

Continue, Pivot or Put It Down: The Pudding’s process to go from idea to data story (The Pudding)

The Courage (and Disappointment) of Pitching a Visual Essay (The Pudding)

Ten Guidelines for Better Tables (Jon Schwabish)

Science and nature

Life and Death in Our Hot Future Will Be Shaped by Today’s Income Inequality* (Bloomberg)

Isaias Targets East Coast in Fastest Start to Hurricane Season Since 1851* (Bloomberg)

Exploring the Solar System* (New York Times)

How to dress for space* (Washington Post)

Biden calls for 100 percent clean electricity by 2035. Here’s how far we have to go.* (Washington Post)

Rain shadow maps (Alasdair Rae)

Sport and leisure

A Sankey diagram of the first-place vote for Best Novel in this year's #HugoAwards (@Goobergunch)

Premier League: The best stats from the strangest season (BBC Sport)

Are Penalty Kicks Easier Without Fans? Maybe Not. (FiveThirtyEight)

A year out, few in Japan think the Olympics can be held next year* (The Economist)

Everything else

Major projects in government (Oliver for IfG)

So, the permanent secretary of the newly formed Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will be... (Oliver for IfG)

Personal well-being in the UK (ONS)

Why supermarkets are struggling to profit from the online grocery boom* (FT)

The time of your life: Time use in London and the UK over the past 40 years (Resolution Foundation/Trust for London)

Finding the New Age, for Your Age (Flowing Data)

How George Floyd's death sparked a wave of UK anti-racism protests (The Guardian)

Below the radar: Exploring grants data for grassroots organisations (Local Trust, NCVO, 360Giving)

Police money in US politics under scrutiny as calls for reform grow* (FT - I think the box charts give the opposite impression to that intended at first glance?)

Early education and childcare entitlements data visualisation (NAO)

So I promised more behind-the-scenes of the @FiveThirtyEight 2020 forecast. Today I'll walk you through the development of our topline chart! (Anna Wiederkehr, via Marcus)

Meta data

Viral content

Coronavirus: England's contact-tracing app readies for launch (BBC News)

From frenzy to clarity: How our COVID-19 response has helped us put our community and data at the heart of our decision-making (Parkinson's UK)

FIGHTING AND WINNING FOR PRIVACY, WHERE WAS THE ICO (Open Rights Group)

We mustn’t let Silicon Valley thinking infect our NHS (openDemocracy)

How the pandemic has exposed AI’s limitations (Nesta)

How Taiwan’s Unlikely Digital Minister Hacked the Pandemic* (Wired - our interview with Audrey Tang here)

How to Think Like an Epidemiologist: Don’t worry, a little Bayesian analysis won’t hurt you.* (New York Times)

NHS contact-tracing app Ethics Board scrapped* (Telegraph)

Health data

NDG report on barriers to information sharing to support direct care (National Data Guardian)

Exploring the barriers to information sharing for direct care (National Data Guardian)

Public deliberation in the use of health and care data (OneLondon/Ipsos MORI/The King's Fund)

Government

Census 2021 – For the first time the ONS is using administrative data to count number of rooms (ONS)

Important digital changes are set out in today's planning reform white paper (Paul Maltby - see also previous Data Bites)

Personal reflections on a year of LOTI (Eddie Copeland)

Introducing our Data Principles (Ordnance Survey)

How data analytics can help with audits (National Audit Office)

Rapidly delivering an online form using MoJ Form Builder (MoJ Digital and Technology)

We won! Home Office to stop using racist visa algorithm (JCWI, via Jill)

Gove's Data Control Coup Emerges from the Shadows (Byline Times)

Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age

The Political School: forecasting, statistics and probability (BBC Sounds, via David)

Lies, damn lies and YouTube analytics – Part 1 (HackIT)

Scottish exam grades - John Swinney v Guy Nason (via Hetan Shah)

Everything else

Is the US about to split the internet? (BBC News)

Introducing WhatDoTheyKnow Projects (mySociety)

How Not to Know Ourselves (Data & Society)

Which Generation Chief Data Officer are you?  #CDOSummerSchool (Edafe Onerhime - see also this)

Tech Titans at Bay? (Project Syndicate)

The (in)credibility of algorithmic models to non-experts (Information, Communication and Society)

FAIR, fairer, fairest? (Leigh Dodds)

It’s not just misinformation that’s confusing us, it’s also missing information (An Xiao Mina)

Polis and the Political Process (Demos, Open Rights Group)

Public apathy is the most powerful enemy of tech regulation (NS Tech)

Can Killing Cookies Save Journalism?* (Wired)

Behind the Buzzwords: Big Data (BBC Sounds)

Mining public opinion: why unsuccessful online petitions should not be ignored (LSE British Politics and Policy)

Creating a digital commons (IPPR)

Modernizing U.S. Data Infrastructure: Design Considerations for Implementing a National Secure Data Service to Improve Statistics and Evidence Building (Data Foundation)

Opportunities

Call for inputs: Emerging technologies and their potential impact on the communications industry (Ofcom)

Consultation: Open Communications – Enabling people to share data with innovative services (Ofcom)

JOB: Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner (Home Office)

JOB: National Data Guardian for Health and Social Care (DHSC)

JOB: Deputy Director Head of Operations, Data and Dashboard (Cabinet Office)

JOB: Head of Policy & Innovation Lab (Home Office)

JOB: Research Director (Resolution Foundation)

JOB: Data architect (Citizens Advice)

We're hiring: Apply to be our Algorithms Reporter (Bureau of Investigative Journalism)

And finally...

Sound

Transit chimes by chord interval (Denise Lu)

Listen to Wikipedia (Hatnote, via Giuseppe)

Vision

I can't stop thinking about this chart. (Laura Birks, via Nick)

Trump looks at charts (Axios, via Georgie)

Are overweight politicians less trustworthy?* (The Economist)

#EatOutToHelpOut (Rob Fry)

Other

I have a joke about Excel, but... (Mike Shapiro)

Winning the Internet is a data-driven newsletter of links in other newsletters (The Pudding)