Author: Brendan Barry

  • The Importance of Cartography

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today I wanted to share with you a piece from the BBC that explores the importance of cartography, or mapmaking, in relief efforts particularly in Malawi, a country located in southeastern Africa. This is a still from a short video—it clocks in at just a tad under three minutes—that you can watch to see how…

  • Why So Many Mass Shootings?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Well, the data speaks for itself. I wanted to use this screenshot, however, to show you the story because I think it does a fantastic job. Without having to read the article, the image encapsulates what is to come in the article. That said, there are a few other scatter plots worth checking out if…

  • Voting in Virginia

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today is Election Day here in the States, but neither for the presidency nor for Congress. 2017 is an off-year, but it does have a few interesting races worth following. One is the New Jersey gubernatorial election across the river here from Philadelphia. Further down the Northeast Corridor we have the gubernatorial election in Virginia.…

  • Phillip’s Curves are Flatlining

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    Brendan Barry
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    I’ve worked on a few scatter plots of late and so this piece from the Economist grabbed my attention. It examines the correlation between unemployment rates and inflation rates. Broadly speaking, the theory has been that low unemployment rates lead to high inflation rates. But the United States has had low unemployment rates now for…

  • Murder Rates in the US

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday we looked at an article about exporting guns from one state to another. After writing the article I sat down and recalled that the copy of the Economist sitting by the sofa had a small multiple chart looking at murders in a select set of US cities. It turns out that while there was a spike,…

  • Exporting Guns

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    Brendan Barry
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    When I lived in Chicago, people back East would always ask if I was worried about murder and gun crime in Chicago. My reply was always, “no, not really”. Why? Because I lived in generally safe neighbourhoods. But on that topic, the second most numerous question/comment was always, why are the strict gun laws in Chicago…

  • An Ailing Graphic on the Healthcare Labour Force

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    Brendan Barry
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    I know I have said it before, but I like the increasing number of graphics-led articles published by Politico. Many policy and politics stories are driven—or should be driven—by data. But, myself included, we cannot hit it out of the park at every plate appearance. And that is what we have from Politico today, actually…

  • What Does Your Name Mean? (Country-level Edition)

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    Brendan Barry
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    Shoutout to my very good friend Jonathan Fairman for passing this one along. Browsing the internets, I often find these little adverts saying something about “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Your Name” or “10 Things Your Name Says About You”. They grab my attention because, as you all know, genealogy is kind of a…

  • Flaking Out of the Senate

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    Brendan Barry
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    This has been a busy week. I am working on a small piece on the Red Sox managers in the free agency period—I thought it would be ready yesterday, but not so much—but news continues to happen outside of the baseball world. Some of the biggest, at least in the US, would have to be…

  • The Ratio

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    Brendan Barry
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    And I’m not talking about walking into a bar late at night. Instead, I am talking about the ratio of likes to retweets to replies, which, for those of you unfamiliar with the service, refers to engagement with a person’s tweets on Twitter. The Ratio does not come from FiveThirtyEight—read the article for the full…