Author: Brendan Barry

  • I Gesture Unto Thee…

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    Brendan Barry
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    We are in the home stretch of the presidential campaign and the first of the four debates (three presidential, one vice-presidential) is tonight in Denver, Colorado. Unfortunately debates tend to be less about ideas and more about talking points, gotchas, and zingers. Regardless of the debates’ utility, candidates do not always convey everything they express…

  • Uncertain Planet

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    Brendan Barry
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    Someday humanity will find a planet amongst the stars similar in temperament to Earth. One of the best star systems to explore is Gliese 581, a small and faint star some 20 light years away. Calculations show that there are a few planets that could exist in or near what is often called the Goldilocks Zone. The…

  • The Hispanic Vote

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    Brendan Barry
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    People make a great deal about the Hispanic vote and how it will affect the election. In every election I can recall. Granted, that’s only  a few presidential elections and a couple more Congressional mid-terms. But the problem is that Hispanics do not vote. In scientific-ish terms, the Hispanic vote is wasted potential energy—they could…

  • This Infographic Is Da Bomb

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    Brendan Barry
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    For your Friday comic relief comes the infographic of the week. The content is serious. But the graphic is laughable at best. And undercuts the message in my opinion. Seriously, it’s like the mobile weapons labs, but worse. All over again. Photo credit goes to Mario Tama at Getty Images, via the Los Angeles Times.

  • Average Household Spending

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    Brendan Barry
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    This tree map from the Wall Street Journal looks at an interesting subject: average household spending. How much are we spending on housing, on food, on transportation, &c.? But I’m not so sure that the main visualisation is necessary. I appreciate the big colour and splashiness, but the space use seems inefficient. Perhaps if the…

  • Economic Freedom

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    Brendan Barry
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    Canada, our neighbour to the north, is sometimes taken to task for being too socialist or too liberal with their healthcare system and regulatory oversight of industries, including finance. But what data increasingly shows us is that we cannot say their more socialist economy is weaker than ours. Rather in several metrics now, the Canadian…

  • Life Expectancy Decline for Under-educated Whites

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    Brendan Barry
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    The New York Times published a chart looking at the decline in life expectancy for under-educated whites, i.e. whites who have not finished high school. The life expectancies of blacks and Hispanics offer a stark contrast, for while starting at a lower base, their respective expectancies are increasing.

  • How a Dead Panda Should Have Grown

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    Brendan Barry
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    Earlier this month a panda was born in Washington. The Post did a small infographic looking at how a panda cub grows over the course of its first year. I decided I would probably wait until sometime later this week to publish it. Except it died yesterday. So before the moment is gone, here’s a…

  • The Enemy Amongst Us

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    Brendan Barry
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    Perhaps the greatest danger now facing NATO and US troops in Afghanistan is the age-old wolf in sheep’s clothing, the insurgent dressed in Afghan Army fatigues. As the graphic below shows, the number of fatalities has been increasing along with the number of attacks. The silver lining in the cloud (to mix metaphors) is that…

  • Timeline of the History of the World

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    Brendan Barry
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    Evolution is a myth. Creationism is where it’s at. So thankfully we have this new timeline that takes into account the age of fossils, radiocarbon dating, and all that other science-y stuff. I’m just glad to know that the reason we won World War I was because we had the raptors on our side. The…