Author: Brendan Barry

  • Sarin Nerve Gas

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    Brendan Barry
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    This is an older piece from the fall, but with the talks going on about Syria this felt an appropriate time an infographic about sarin gas poisoning. Credit for the piece goes to Jonathon Rivait, Mike Faille, and Richard Johnson.

  • Speed Skating

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s post comes from a co-worker and looks at the increase of speed in speed skating in the Winter Olympics since 1924. It does a nice job of showing the increase in the speed. Because to a degree, the increase has not been linear. Instead, it really only increased in two spurts and recently has…

  • Mapping Economic Mobility

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    Brendan Barry
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    This piece from the Washington Post examines the idea of economic mobility. That is, what is the likelihood that children born and raised in an impoverished family will surpass their parents’ standard of living. Credit for the piece goes to Darla Cameron and Ted Mellnik.

  • Sochi and the Caucasus

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    Brendan Barry
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    The Olympics opened in Sochi this past weekend. Many of us may well be familiar with photographs of urinals without piping, or unfinished hotel rooms, or many other infrastructure problems, but there is a bigger issue facing Sochi. It exists on what the New York Times terms the edge of a war zone. Their overall…

  • Drawing the World

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    Brendan Barry
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    The inability of people to understand geography beyond their own borders is not new. But today’s post uses that to create a new map—albeit from a limited sample. The creator of this map merged 30 different, hand-drawn maps into one to reveal the world as imagined by his sample. Credit for the piece goes to…

  • Depicting Radiation

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s post is more about a means of illustrating radiation, less about quantifying it. Unfortunately the article is in German and I speak none of it. But, the context is that of the Fukushima Disaster. Make sure you click through to see the illustrations in action. Credit (I think) goes to Interactive Things and Neue…

  • Average Ticket Prices in 2013

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    Brendan Barry
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    So yeah, the Super Bowl thing. Apparently tickets are expensive? Earlier, Bloomberg Businessweek took a look at average prices for the most expensive events of 2013. The only sentence supporting the graphic was that the most expensive event was not the Super Bowl. Okay, so what was? I think this graphic actually makes it more…

  • Smart Banking Cards

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    Brendan Barry
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    As I noted in my Friday post, I spent last week in Lithuania for work. That same Friday night, I had a conversation with a few coworkers over dinner and a beer about credit cards. They teased me that for all of America’s technological advances and advantages, even in Lithuania they were using more secure…

  • The Best Superbowl Match-up Ever?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last night the United States enjoyed a little (American, not rest-of-the-world) football match wherein two squadrons competed upon the pitch for the glory of their squadron colours. Thankfully for those of us who wanted a preview of the match on data’s terms, well, the Guardian put together a fantastic piece breaking down some of the…

  • It’s Cold Outside

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    Brendan Barry
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    I have spent this past week in Lithuania for work. And it was cold. But it was colder still in Chicago. Thankfully on a Friday we have xkcd to put all this cold into a bit more perspective. Although his example uses St. Louis, I presume it holds for most cities. Credit for the piece…