The 8 minute window in Atlanta that broke my whole timeline theory

I spent 3 weeks cross checking flight logs and gate cameras after a trip through Hartsfield last month, and every single source had the same plane landing at 9:12 but taking off at 9:20, which is impossible for a turnaround that size. Then I realized one of the timestamps was on a different timezone setting, and the whole 'proof' fell apart like wet cardboard. How many of you have built a whole narrative on a data point that turned out to be a formatting error, and did it change how you trust sources?

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david_adams15d ago

Forgot how deep I was into a rabbit hole about shipping delays last year, turns out the entire dataset had a daylight saving time mixup and about half my 'conclusions' were garbage. It made me step way back from any source that looks too perfect, because that's usually when I find out I'm just reading what the formatting wanted me to see. These days I double check the raw numbers before I even start building a story around them. It's like a bad habit, you want the mystery to be real so bad you'll ignore the boring explanation staring right at you. This post hit close to home, I've been there more times than I'd like to admit.