Category: Uncategorized

  • To Compare the Fares of Cabs

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    If you live in a big city, you’ve probably been running late, missed the bus or the train, needed to get home safely at least once. So you’ve probably taken a cab. This interactive graphic from the Washington Post compares cab fares across a number of major cities in the United States. The cheapest cab…

  • Humanity’s Not So Finest Hours

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Humanity is amazing. We have great emotional power for love, sympathy, compassion, &c. We have great intellectual power; we have/are mastering mathematics and science to explore the depths of this ocean and the surfaces of planets not our own. Yet with these great powers comes a great responsibility. And as we continue to reflect upon…

  • Can a Republican Win the White House?

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    It’s Election Day. Well, not really. But, Nate Silver and the New York Times have come together to release an election simulator, if you will, focused on the chances that a Republican will win the White House. You play with a few different variables to control the outcome: GDP growth and President Obama’s approval rating.…

  • Random is the New Orderly

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Ever been on a flight where there is not enough overhead luggage capacity for everyone? Then they make you stow your bag anyway? Well, apparently that’s what’s happening in these days of baggage fees—which make airlines quite profitable. This diagram in the New York Times shows how American Airlines is changing from the more common…

  • 7 Billion Is a Big Number

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    We have seven billion living on the planet today. Or at least we think we do. Really, who knows? But for the sake of this blog post and many others like it along with news stories and water cooler conversations, let’s just say we’re at seven billion, okay? So where do you fit into the…

  • That’s a Whole Lotta People

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    On Halloween, we will welcome the 7 billionth person into this world. That’s a lot of people. And that means a lot of food, water, shelter, comforts, &c. Stress on limited resources could become a defining characteristic of the future. The Washington Post has an interactive piece with a few graphics out there about the…

  • Troop Levels in Iraq

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    A few days ago, President Obama announced that all but perhaps 150 US troops in Iraq would be home before 1 Jan 2012. While the mission may have been accomplished over 8 years ago, we are finally seeing an end to the Iraq War. Both the BBC and the New York Times created charts to…

  • Oh Great Gatsby

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Income inequality basically means that the wealth of a country, in this case, is unevenly distributed with most of it falling in the hands of a very few people or families. Think the era of, as the title alludes to, Gatsby and the 1920s before the Crash. Broadly speaking, a middle class requires a more…

  • Riding the Rail to London?

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Long time readers know by now that I advocate high-speed rail and similar transport infrastructure investment. The following screenshot was taken from a BBC News video about the Russian proposal to build an underground passenger/freight tunnel beneath the Bering Strait to connect eastern Siberia to Alaska. The video is not an infographic, strictly speaking, but…

  • European Debt Crisis Explained

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    The European debt crisis affects all of us. Shares fall on the exchanges in Frankfurt, Paris and London and then ripple westward to New York before finally reaching Hong Kong and Tokyo. But does anyone understand actually understand who owes whom what? This interactive piece is yet another from the New York Times and is…