HBO’s “Peacemaker.” As shocking as it may sound, I don’t pay my bills with my brilliant music writing. My day job is as a data journalist. It sounds very exciting—mining data to catch government officials at corruption, presenting the public with factual information to be better citizens—and that is…

Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF. If you’ve watched a lot of Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom—whatever, you’ve witnessed the time-lapse scenery progressions of the African watering hole, as the animals continue to show up despite the lake becoming a pond, then a puddle, then mud. Then the…