Category: My Work

  • Ohio 12th Results

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week parts of Ohio voted for a special election in the 12th Congressional District. Historically it has been a solidly Republican district by margins in the double digits. However, last week Republicans barely managed to hold the seat by, at the latest count I saw, less than one percentage point. Why? Well, it turns…

  • Radiohead in Philadelphia

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    Brendan Barry
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    A week and a half ago my favourite band, Radiohead, played two shows in Philadelphia to close out their 2018 North America tour. I got to see the final of the two shows. And I decided to make this little piece over the weekend. Because it was totally fantastic. The data shows that the band…

  • Burden Sharing in NATO

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    Brendan Barry
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    Late last week we heard a lot about contributions to NATO. Except, that was not true. Because the idea of spending 2% of GDP on NATO is actually about a NATO member spending 2% of its GDP on its military. And within that 2%, at least 20% must be spent on hardware or R&D. There…

  • Chinese Urban Clusters

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday the Economist posted a graphic about Chinese urban clusters, of which the Chinese government is planning to create 19 as part of a development strategy. In terms of design, though, I saw it and said, “I remember doing something like that several years ago”. The Economist piece looks at just the geography of the Chinese…

  • Family Migration Patterns

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    Brendan Barry
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    On Saturday I attended an all-day seminar by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) at the new Museum of the American Revolution here in Philadelphia. Just fantastic. One of the lectures included some maps that looked at the distribution of families over a year span—turns out families did not stand still. Instead, they tended…

  • The Facts on Tariffs

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    Brendan Barry
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    Unless you avoid the news, we all heard a lot about tariffs this weekend. So this morning, instead of going with some other things I found, I decided I wanted to look and see just what the data is on tariffs. Turns out Trump is wrong on the data about tariffs. In short, in 2016…

  • Philly Rules

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yo. C’mon, bro. This jawn is getting tired. Just stop already. If you did not catch it this week, the most important news was Donald Trump disinviting the Super Bowl champions Eagles to the White House to celebrate their victory over the Patriots. He then lied about Eagles players kneeling during the US anthem—no player…

  • Lunar Observations

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    Brendan Barry
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    Monday night I was doing some work outside and when I turned around to head inside I was struck by the brilliance of an object in the night sky. I had seen the Moon rise earlier in the evening, but this was far to the east. It was identifiable as a dot, not just a…

  • The Short Arc of Pub Trivia Scores Bends Towards Victory

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    Brendan Barry
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    Well, at least over the last three weeks it did. In previous examples of my pub trivia team’s performance, we have had a lacklustre performance. But a few weeks we had an epic collapse. Having been in 4th place out of 10 in the penultimate round we ultimately finished in 8th out of 9—somebody left…

  • Pub Trivia Performance—the Long View

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week my pub trivia team was debating whether our high score, although only good for second place—we lost by one point—was the highest. So this past weekend I scoured my sketchbooks for the last year and a half and reviewed our scores. Alas, the earliest appearances were tally-free. And I did not record them…