San Francisco Shoplifting: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

This is incredible. Also this bit struck me specifically:

> That sounds bad, until you take a closer look at where the reports are coming from. Or more specifically, the one store where nearly half of all reports originated

So often it seems that reported trends are just something like this. But the existence of the trend becomes a highly sticky meme, and it's hard to then dislodge it.

also, I'd love to know more about how/when people apply this:

> “The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There’s something wrong with the way you are measuring it” -Jeff Bezos

Because I don't actually think it's crazy, I think data is often mismeasured and that when they go against against common perceptions that's sometimes a sign that the data is wrong. But obviously anecdotes are also often wrong/misleading/unrepresentative!

p.s. actually I wonder if this is like the "herniated discs cause back pain" thing -- everyone has herniated discs, but we only found that out for people who have back pain. Maybe ~all data is mismeasured, but we only find out when the data clashes with anecdotes, and therefore investigate it....