Author: Brendan Barry

  • Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

    Ukraine has dominated the news much of the last few weeks. But the new 24/7 international news story is the missing aircraft (at least as of my writing this) that was Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. There are presently two nice graphics I have seen attempting to explain the story. The first, a cropping of which…

  • Answering Some More Questions About Ukraine

    So Ukraine is even more of a mess and in less than a week’s time, the Crimean people will vote in a referendum on whether they want to remain a part of Ukraine or rejoin Russia. This graphic of mine is an attempt to answer some questions—though hardly all I wanted—about Ukraine, Crimea, and about…

  • Bad Film February

    Did you go to the cinema in February? Well, according to some research done by Slate, what you watched probably sucked. I’m just glad I never went last month. Maybe March will be a little bit better. Credit for the piece goes to Chris Kirk and Kim Thompson.

  • World War II Bombs in Hong Kong

    Last month, police in Hong Kong defused a 2000 pound (900 kilogram) bomb found undetonated since World War II. The South China Morning Post created a small graphic to diagram just what the bomb was and how it was delivered (by US aircraft) to Hong Kong. Credit for the piece goes to Adolfo Arranz.

  • Walking Down the Street

    Business Insider posted a neat graphic that compared the walkability of a suburban neighbourhood outside Seattle to a dense urban neighbourhood in Seattle. Turns out you can walk a lot more and further in a gridded mile than in a faux-organic sprawl. Credit for the piece goes to Sightline Institute.

  • Economically Isolating Russia

    The West hesitates to use military force to push Russian troops out of Crimea. Likely with good reason as any such campaign would be neither cheap nor bloodless in addition to running the risk of spreading beyond the borders of Ukraine. So that leaves diplomatic and economic isolation. Diplomatic isolation is already underway—the G8 conference…

  • Ukraine

    A lot of things happened in Ukraine this past weekend. Unfortunately, I was not able to quite capture all of the events and the background I wanted. So, until I do, this quick graphic will have to suffice. In short, Ukraine is a big European country, one of the largest prizes remaining in the struggle…

  • Around the World

    If you’ll allow your humble author a humblebrag, I often complain about having to daily deal with people around the world living in a lot of different time zones. How do I keep track of business hours around the world? I don’t. Well, not easily. But thanks to xkcd, this is no longer a problem.…

  • The Science Behind the Thoroughbred

    I do not know a thing about horses. I leave that knowledge to others in my family. However, this piece from the South China Morning Post explains quite a bit of why the thoroughbred is such a famous type of horse for racing. Credit for the piece goes to Alberto Lucas López.

  • Defensive Incest

    Today’s piece comes from Bloomberg Businessweek. In the wake of the Pentagon’s decision to push for budget cuts including force reduction and slashing several programmes, I decided to show this chord diagram that shows how the defence industry supports itself. Credit for the piece goes to Robert Levinson, Dorothy Gambrell, and David Evans.