Despite the rhetoric of recent years, data is neither beautiful nor ugly. Data is data; it merely describes what is and has no aesthetic dimension. The world that’s revealed in data can be breathtakingly beautiful or soul-crushingly ugly, but data itself is neither. We can respond to data in ways that create beauty, justice, and […]

Even though our unique ability to deal with complexity propelled humans to the top of the evolutionary heap, we still crave simplistic (i.e., overly simple) explanations. I promote the value of simplicity in my work, but never simplicity that sacrifices truth. Simple things can and should be explained simply. Complex things can and should be […]