Author: Brendan Barry

  • 2016 Holyrood Elections

    Last week Scotland voted for its parliament, Holyrood. The Scottish National Party did well enough, the Conservatives picked up quite a few seats, and Labour lost quite a few. The Guardian put together this piece looking at the results and the stories contained therein. But I want to focus on the graphics, the big piece of…

  • Two Tales of One City

    Dickens is not my favourite, but that felt an appropriate title for today’s piece from the Washington Post on Chicago residents’ opinions on, well, Chicago. Turns out there is a notable demographic split on how residents feel about various things in the city. Credit for the piece goes to Emily Badger.

  • Trump Electoral University

    Okay, that joke was a stretch. But, this piece from the New York Times’ Upshot takes a look at the early polling in the increasingly likely Clinton–Trump matchup in November. Credit for the piece goes to Wilson Andrews, Josh Katz, and Alicia Parlapiano.

  • The T-14 Armata

    Or the post’s sub-title could be something like, Boys with Toys, because I have long enjoyed diagrams of military hardware, like these examples. Today’s post is about Russia’s new main battle tank, the first new design since the 1970s: the T-14 Armata. It premiered in last year’s parade and is expected to enter service soon. This BBC…

  • Justifying Text

    I am not a big fan of fully justified text. I get it, in things like newspaper and narrow blocks of copy, it can make sense. Although in those situations, again, personal preference is flush left ragged right. But, for when you do have to fully justify your text, xkcd has a guide to deal…

  • Where is Normal America?

    Not every graphic information graphic is a sexy chart or map. Sometimes tables communicate the story just as well. Maybe even better. Today’s post comes from FiveThirtyEight, which examined a claim about what places represent “Normal America”. Turns out that when one looks at the data, here age, race, ethnicity, and education, Normal America is…

  • Trump Knocks out Cruz

    Donald Trump will be the Republican Party candidate for President of the United States. Last summer I never imagined I would type those words in all seriousness, but after Trump won a majority of the votes in Indiana and likely swept all the delegates there, Ted Cruz suspended his campaign. Two graphics strike my mind…

  • Who Led Ganister’s Orthodox Church

    I spent the weekend in Ganister, Pennsylvania (shameless plug, you can learn more about the town on the website I built for it) where my immediate family gathers for Easter. The Orthodox version was obviously far later than the Catholic version this year. When here I try to do research on the town and the…

  • History of Bikes

    I do not know how to ride a bicycle. Fell off as a kid and never got back on. Now when I need to get places, I drive a car. But, I do know plenty of you folks do ride bicycles. So this one’s for you. Happy Friday, all. Credit for the piece goes to…

  • Tax Day

    So one of the posts I had intended to post was on 18 April, Tax Day. It was just a bar chart from FiveThirtyEight, but it accurately described yours truly. Yep, I filed that last week. Credit for the piece goes to Ben Casselman.