Author: Brendan Barry

  • Investigating the NYPD for Excessive Force

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    Brendan Barry
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    Sometimes complaints about excessive police force are frivolous or vindictive in nature. Sometimes, however, they are legitimate. In New York, the Civilian Complaint Review Board is the first line of investigation. It makes recommendations that the NYPD then takes up. Or not. This piece from WNYC looks at how the NYPD has responded to those…

  • Autonomous Cars

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    Brendan Barry
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    Some days I do not enjoy the thought of driving to the office. For those days, I take mass transit. However, in the future, I may be able to sit back and allow my car to drive me. This illustration from the Washington Post examines just how one example of such vehicles functions. Credit for…

  • Importing Russian Gas

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s post is a graphic from the New York Times that looks at Russia’s hold on energy across Europe. I’m not terribly keen on this particular graphic for a few reasons. First, the design needs to incorporate the actual datapoint so the reader can compare across countries. Comparing the height of each black bar to…

  • Does the Apple Fall Far from the Tree?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week Apple announced its plan for its new Apple Watch. I am not quite a watch aficionado, but I do have a preference for my light, minimalist design watches. So I find this comparison of the new smart watches from Bloomberg quite interesting. The only watch to which I aesthetically gravitate is the Moto…

  • Scotland Votes

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    Brendan Barry
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    By the time this post goes live, Scotland will have already been voting on independence for several hours. At the time of writing this post, it appears more a toss-up than anything else. And so today we highlight a piece that is a little bit different than what I might normally cover. Here we have…

  • When the Baltimore Oriole Abandons Baltimore

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    Brendan Barry
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    Climate change has more of an impact than just extreme weather. For one, not all weather will necessarily be warmer. Two, animals and plants will be affected in terms of their natural habitat. The New York Times recently put together a piece about the impact of climate change upon birds. And it turns out that…

  • Cycling Deaths in Australia

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    Brendan Barry
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    Cycling can be quite dangerous. But apparently this summer was quite dangerous over in Australia. So much so that the Guardian did some data reporting on it back in June. Thankfully they included some charts in that reporting, the heat map below being one example. None of the data visualisation in the piece is revolutionary…

  • Terror Attacks Throughout the World

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week many American observed 11 September in remembrance of the terror attacks that brought down the Twin Towers, a section of the Pentagon, and four airliners in total. So this week we are going to see some fantastic work from Periscopic that highlights several other terror groups operating in the world across the last…

  • Soda

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    Brendan Barry
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    Happy Friday, everybody. I cannot say about you, but I certainly love seeing dialects and regional variations of words, phrases, pronunciations mapped out. So thankfully we have some work by Alan McConchie to look at today, specifically versus the soda vs. pop debate. As the screenshot shows, I come from a solidly soda camp. But…

  • Drought Severity

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    Brendan Barry
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    Not here in Chicago at least. But across swaths of the Southwest, people are experiencing droughts. But the New York Times is on it, with a tracker updated weekly. Credit for the piece goes to Mike Bostock and Kevin Quealy.