What happened in Flint, the impact of closing the L train in NYC, “research parasites,” and Disney princess linguistics.

WHAT THE L?
The L Train closure—what data can tell us
This is a great example of how civilians can harness open data to analyze the impact of proposed government projects. - CartoDB

NEAT CODE
Writing More Legible SQL
It's easy to get lazy when writing SQL. Here are a few tips for cleaning up your queries so others can actually read your work. - Craig Kerstiens

OUTMANNED
Researchers have found a major problem with ‘The Little Mermaid’ and other Disney movies
The original three Disney princesses—Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty—are classic examples of the archetypal damsel in distress. But an analysis of the dialogue in the Disney princess franchise shows that it wasn't until “The Little Mermaid” that men significantly outspoke the women. - Wonkblog

BETTER TOGETHER
[PODCAST] Building a business that combines human experts and data science
An insightful interview with Eric Colson about algorithms, human computation, and building data science teams at Stitch Fix and Netflix. - O'Reilly Data Show Podcast

CHOOSE WISELY
Are Your Predictive Models like Broken Clocks?
How can you ensure you've picked the “right model” for a very big and very complex dataset? - Rocket-Powered Data Science

People are talking about:

The Flint water crisis
The water contamination in Flint, MI was declared a public health emergency last October, but many residents had known long before that there was something wrong. For months, they'd been collecting evidence to convince officials, but that data was ignored in favor of official—and severely flawed—reports.

• What Went Wrong In Flint (FiveThirtyEight)
• Can citizen science empower disenfranchised communities? (The Conversation)

“Research parasites”
The New England Journal of Medicine recently published an editorial about data sharing which referred to people who use data secondhand as “research parasites.” Twitter went nuts and many a think piece were written.

• NEJM Calls Data Scientists 'Parasites.' Can Joe Biden Change Their Minds? (Forbes)
• On research parasites and internet mobs - let's try to solve the real problem. (Simply Statistics)
• Episode 38: Mind Control and Parasites (Partially Derivative)