Fair Warning: Secret tunnels, statistical errors, and Flat Earth truthers

Hi!

You may have noticed it is not Sunday and nor is it morning. You would be right, sorry. I also missed last week’s newsletter, but life sometimes gets in the way. Anyway, hi!

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On the home front

Land Registry data reveals secret tunnels underneath London. Whaaaaat! Yes. YES! You read that right. There is apparently an atom bomb-proof telephone exchange beneath High Holborn. This changes everything.

The FT says research on the impact of the Brexit vote has started, which suggests that there’s “£350m a week lost to the British economy — an irony that will not be lost on those who may have backed Leave because of the claim made on the side of the bus.”

Films made in the UK — like Star Wars and Paddington — added £7.7bn to the economy in 2016. This is a genuinely interesting piece published by the ONS. And I find this chart aesthetically pleasing:

Although everyone is sick of Brexit (I guess?) this “very late Brexity blog” was quite interesting. It basically looks at the % of Leave votes against deprivation in local authorities. But the weird (and interesting) thing is that there isn’t necessarily always correlation between them, suggesting it’s about more than economics.

Over the pond

A statistical error appears to have led to experts to recommend the wrong amount of Vitamin D for years. Oops.

Genuinely one of the most insightful pieces I’ve read this year, “Millennials are screwed” is full of amazing and ridiculous stats and data points. The really interesting bit for me was about how those students who graduated during a recession are *still* struggling, earning less than those who graduated after. Also:

Netflix released their end of year report, and some self-loathing person watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean every day this year. In their defence, it is the best POTC film. And hopefully it’s a different person to the one that watched the third Lord of the Rings film 361 times. Someone should check in on them.

WaPo wrote about how legalising marijuana in Colorado led to a lower rate of teenage drug use. “Rates of teen alcohol, tobacco and heroin use are down sharply in the state, as well” the piece notes. This effect has been seen elsewhere, for instance in Portugal. Seems like legalisation is a no-brainer to me.

The Boston Globe did a great investigation into racism in the city, finding that landlords are more likely to ignore queries from “prospective tenants with black-sounding names”. There’s also this shocking stat: “The median net worth of non-immigrant African-American households is just $8… [in] dramatic contrast to the $247,500 net worth for white households.”

Elsewhere

A historian has spent four years trying to map massacres of indigenous people in Australia, and has found more than 170 sites of massacres. She did this based on newspaper reports, incriminating place names (!) and other written sources. It’s an astonishing piece of work — the map itself is here.

The RSS has announced its Statistic of the Year — 0.1% (percentage of UK land area that is densely built on) and 69 (annual number of Americans killed by lawn mowers). Seriously. Probably the first time a Kardashian has meaningfully contributed to helping the public understand statistics.

I really enjoyed this piece about how no one makes a living on Patreon (a website where people can give money to artists and writers on a monthly basis). Patreon just changed the way it takes fees, and upset a *lot* of people who have lost patrons as a result. Just 2% of ‘creators’ on the site earn minimum wage:

Napoleon was the best general ever, and the maths proves it. This is a really good and interesting use of maths and I suspect a lot of you will love reading it. So go ahead!

This Economist chart on the rise of Flat Earth truthers made me 🙈:

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading! If you like this newsletter, please forward it to people, encourage friends to subscribe to it, or buy me a coffee to show your appreciation. I’m on Twitter @SophieWarnes.

This is the last newsletter of 2017, so have an amazing Christmas and happy new year! 🎁🎄🎅