Author: Brendan Barry

  • Russians in the Sky

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    This piece has been sitting for a month, but I still enjoy it. The Washing Post maps out Russian air activity around NATO airspace over a two-day period. Credit for the piece goes to Gene Thorp.

  • Habitable Exoplanets

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    What is out there beyond our solar system? Are there little green men in flying saucers? Or Klingons waging war? The first step in figuring that out is knowing how many planets can be inhabited by life as we know it. This interactive graphic from National Geographic explores just that. And as it turns out,…

  • American College Football Part Deux

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    A couple of weeks ago I shared a map from the New York Times that looked at American college football programme loyalty. And I quipped that none of it made sense to me as someone born and raised in the Northeast. The New York Times followed that piece up with another that looks solely at…

  • Thanksgiving Recipes by State

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today is an American holiday: Thanksgiving. We give thanks that European diseases and military technology allowed us to remove the native population for colonisation of the continent. We do that by watching American football and eating lots and lots of food. For dessert, well, we have dessert. But also gluttonous amounts of shopping. So in…

  • The 76ers Are a Terrible Basketball Team

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    The Philadelphia 76ers are a terrible basketball team. FiveThirtyEight details the deficiencies of the team in this small table. Icons represent characteristics that can be either positive or negative. They are then placed within the table to quickly show how awful the team is. My favourite is the icon for poor player. Credit for the…

  • The American Empire

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    The United States has a long history of deploying troops overseas. How long? And where to? Well, ABC (as in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) mapped out every US deployment dating back to 1798. I captured the year 2014, but if you are curious, you should check it out for yourself. A neat little bonus, watch…

  • Whence do US Retail Sales Come?

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today’s piece comes from the Wall Street Journal. It looks at US retail and foodservice spending through different types of stores. I take issue with a few things, firstly the tree map. Because it’s not really a tree map. Another thing I am not keen on is the comparison feature in the piece. The user…

  • When is Hummus Not Hummus?

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    The subject matter of this one interested me. I am new to hummus. Well, sort of. I never ate it before moving to Chicago. But when I did, I understood it to be essentially a dip made from chick peas. According to an article from Quartz, It turns out that’s what most Americans believe. Even…

  • After the Curtain Dropped

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last week we covered the fall of the Berlin Wall and the lasting impact in former East Germany vs. former West Germany. This week we look at a piece from Bloomberg Businessweek that looks more broadly at Eastern Europe. The piece scrolls with the charts updating based upon the available text. And within that text…

  • We All Have to Die…But How?

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    As the title says, we are all going to die one of these days. But what are the odds that Ebola will kill you? Turns out it is fairly small. Smaller than your pyjamas catching on fire and killing you. Or even your regular clothes catching fire. How did I know that? Well, the Washington…