Author: Brendan Barry

  • Per Sense

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    For some levity given today is Friday, let us get to the really contentious matters of late. Is the percentage sign acceptable in text? According to the AP, it now is. Thankfully, xkcd was on it and took a look at the acceptability of various forms of expressing a percentage. Credit for the piece goes…

  • Public Transit of Yesteryear

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    For my frequent readers, it will be no big surprise that I am avid supporter of public transit, especially the railways. Consequently I was delighted when I read a non-Brexit piece in the Guardian yesterday that looked at public transit systems in several cities. But it did so by comparing earlier plans or systems to…

  • The Entire United States Pt 2

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Yesterday I wrote about the failure in a Politico piece to include Alaska and Hawaii in a graphic depicting the “entire” United States. After I had posted it, I recalled an article I read in the Guardian that looked at the shape of the United States, using the term “logo map”. It compared what many…

  • The Entire United States

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last month Politico published an article called the Democrats’ Dilemma. It looked at what will likely be the crux of their debate for their 2020 candidates. Go moderate or hard left? The super simple version of the argument is that do you win by persuading independents and moderate Republicans to vote Democratic? Or do you…

  • 50 Shades of Tory Blue

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    It is Monday, so it must be another Brexit vote day. And today we have Indicative Vote Day 2. If you recall from last week, the House of Commons wrestled control over parliamentary business away from the government and created a two-step process to try and see if any alternative to Theresa May’s Brexit plan…

  • Infinite Errors

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Information design has largely settled on a few key forms to communicate data. One is the error bar. But xkcd explores what can happen when we take error bars…to infinity. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

  • The Rise of White Nationalist Terrorism

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Whilst I was on holiday, a terrorist killed nearly fifty people in Christchurch, New Zealand. Except this time, he was a white man and the victims were all Muslims. Admittedly, I really did not read much about it until I returned to the States, but it clearly is not a thing I was expecting out…

  • Video Orientation Guide

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    We made it to Friday, everybody. Although for me it, was a short week. I spent the last week on holiday in Ireland to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. And that meant I took a lot of photos. And I mean a lot. But the question when taking a photo is, in which orientation should I…

  • Regions of German Nationalism

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    The Economist has an interesting piece looking at the areas of support for the far-right AfD German political party, arguably a neo-fascist nationalist party. It turns out that The piece does a great job of setting the case through the demographics map at the top of the piece. It shows how the two areas where…

  • Angry Birds? Bad Birds

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Baseball is almost upon us. And oh boy do the Baltimore Orioles look bad. How bad? Historically bad. FiveThirtyEight went so far as to chart the expected WAR, wins above replacement, of each position of all teams since 1973. And the expected Orioles lineup looks remarkably bad. What is nice about this graphic is the…