Author: Brendan Barry
-
Breakfast Talents
Initially I planned to post something different today, but the more I thought about it over breakfast, I realised it would make more sense for a Monday post. Consequently, I needed to change this one up, but still wanted to keep it fairly light as I try to do on Fridays. Yesterday, Jessica Hagy over…
-
To the Moon, and Beyond!
At least a little beyond. Like the orbital height beyond. For those unaware, if the weather holds, later this evening East Coast time, NASA will launch the Artemis II mission from Cape Canaveral with the intention of sending a crew of four astronauts—three Americans, one Canadian—to the Moon. The last man on the Moon was…
-
Binders Full of Ballplayers
March is International Women’s Month. This year it is also the month within which the baseball season starts. The Sox played in Cincinnati and I have lots of new things to cover and I am sure I will bring some of them up here on Coffeespoons. (Looking at NESN’s new scorebug in particular.) One thing…
-
Iran, Not Persia
So if you’ve a date in Tehran, she’ll be waiting, in, well, Tehran. Happy Friday, all. On Monday I critiqued a graphic from Bloomberg about airstrikes in the Middle East. As we head into the weekend, I opted to pull one of my (many) atlases off the bookshelf, because I just wanted to see how…
-
Opening Day
Happy Opening Day, everyone. Baseball is back. The Red Sox are back. Last year, I only posted my predictions on social media because they don’t include charts or graphs really. (But I did revisit them at year’s end.) These are mostly just tables. But, why not? Last year, shortly after Opening Day, I wrote about…
-
The Arrow Is Pointing Sideways
I was reading an article in my local rag, the Philadelphia Inquirer, when I came upon an article about the healthcare industry’s outsized role in the region’s job growth. The article led off with a staff illustration of medical-looking types on a graphic swirl background—nothing inherently wrong with that. The Inquirer would know best what…
-
Gooood Morning, Bomb Iran?
As I ate breakfast this morning, I read through the Morning Briefing I receive from Bloomberg. These days, it provides a good update of what happened in Iran and the Middle East. Every once in a while I will flag one of their graphics to share here, but never decide to ultimately do it because…
-
Reticulating Splines
Happy Friday, all. In looking at my calendar the other day, I saw that in three weeks I will be in Appalachia for Orthodox Easter. That means driving through Pennsylvania’s Ridge and Valley region and then sleeping in the mountains. But wherefore the mountains? Thankfully, xkcd posted a map explaining why all the natural features.…
-
The Axis in Poland
Earlier this week I read an Associated Press (AP) article about Poland’s economic growth since the end of Communism in the former Soviet-bloc state. Generally speaking, things are good in Eastern Europe, though a revanchist Russia to Poland’s east rekindles memories of an earlier era and the disaster after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The article included…
-
Still Irish
Last October Ancestry.com updated their ethnic origins breakdowns. Longtime readers will know these are not the most useful tools for helping one in their genealogical research. But, if they garner interest in one’s family history and motivate people to explore their own pasts, more power to them. I only encourage those people to dig a…