Author: Brendan Barry
-
A Refreshed Look at My Ethnic Heritage
Late last week I received an update on my ethnic breakdown from My Heritage, a competitor of Ancestry.com and other genealogy/family history/genetic ancestry companies. For many years, the genealogical community had been waiting for this long-promised update. And it has finally arrived. For my money, My Heritage’s older analysis, v0.95, did not align with my…
-
Imports, Tariffs, and Taxes, Oh My!
Apologies, all, for the lengthy delay in posting. I decided to take some time away from work-related things for a few months around the holidays and try to enjoy, well, the holidays. Moving forward, I intend to at least start posting about once per week. After all, the state of information design these days provides…
-
Predicting…the Known Stats?
I have been trying to post more regularly here on Coffeespoons, but now that baseball’s postseason is in full swing—pun fully intended—my free time is spent watching balls and strikes at all hours of the day. (Though, with the Wild Card round over and the move from four to two games per day, my time…
-
Racing to the Final Finish Line
Thoroughbred racing is big business. And Philadelphia’s Parx Casino owns a racing track that, in a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, has seen a number of horse deaths. The article includes a single graphic worth noting, a bar chart showing the thoroughbred death rate. The graphic contrasts rising deaths at Parx with a national…
-
Titan’s Final Words
Last week wrapped up the Coast Guard’s two-week inquiry into the sinking of the submersible Titan, which imploded on a dive to the wreck of Titanic. The BBC summarised the findings in an article at the weekend. It included a number of fascinating annotated photographs identifying parts of the wreckage. But it also included the…
-
Tired of These Motherf*cking Sox on This Motherf*cking Plane
At least, that’s what I imagine South Siders saying in Chicago as they watch the White Sox team charter plane land at Midway. For those not following America’s Major League Baseball season, the Chicago White Sox are one of two clubs claiming Chicago as their home. (The other being the Cubs.) And the White Sox—not…
-
I Need My Sharpie. Where’s My Sharpie?
Because who does not recall the great Sharpie forecast track by the National Hurricane Center (NHC)? Earlier this summer, in the middle of the hurricane season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) NHC released a new, experimental warning cone map. For those unfamiliar, these are the maps that have a white and white-shaded forecast…
-
For Whom the Teamsters Poll Tolls
The Teamsters Union decided to officially endorse neither candidate in the 2024 US presidential election. Prior to their non-announcement announcement, however, the union surveyed its members and then released the polling data ahead of the announcement. Of course, the teamsters represent but a single union in a large and diverse country. More importantly, the survey…
-
Fear the Floodwaters
This past weekend saw some flooding along the East Coast due to the Moon pulling on Earth’s water. In Boston that meant downtown flooding, including Long Wharf. The Boston Globe’s article about the flooding dwelt with more impact, causes, and long-term forecasts—none of which really warranted data visualisation or information graphics. Nonetheless, the article included…
-
Labelling Line Charts
Today I have a little post about something I noticed over the weekend: labelling line charts. It begins with a BBC article I read about the ongoing return to office mandates some companies have been rolling out over the last few years. When I look for work these days, one important factor is the office…