Tag: data visualisation

  • Global Warming and Harder Living

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    Brendan Barry
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    The weather in Philly the past week has been just gross. It reminds of Florida in that it has been hot, steamy, storms and downpours pop up out of nowhere then disappear, and just, generally, gross. I do not understand how people live in Florida year round. Anyway, that got me thinking about this piece…

  • The Decline of the Media

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    Brendan Barry
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    Everybody loves maps. Unfortunately this is not a map to love. The Economist looked at the global status of the free press and its decline around the world. The graphic is a neat little package of a map to anchor the narrative and a few callout countries with their general declines—or in Tunisia’s case the…

  • State Level Action on Gun Control

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    Brendan Barry
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    A few months ago I covered an editorial piece from the New York Times that looked at all the action, by which I mean inaction, the federal government had taken on gun violence in the wake of some horrific shootings. Well on Saturday the Washington Post published an article looking at how there has been…

  • Jupiter’s New Moons

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday, space nerds were alerted to the news that 12 new moons have been discovered in orbit of Jupiter. These are much smaller than Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, which is the largest moon in the Solar System and is larger than even Mercury. The point is that there are almost certainly no Ganymede-esque moons orbiting Jupiter…

  • 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…

  • The James Webb Telescope: Delayed Again

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    Brendan Barry
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    A few weeks ago it was announced that NASA’s James Webb space telescope would see its launch delayed again. The successor to the Hubble telescope was originally supposed to launch several years ago, but now it won’t fly until at least 2021. Thankfully xkcd covered this slipping launch date. Credit for the piece goes to…

  • Penalty Shoot Outs

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    Brendan Barry
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    Well, football is not coming home. But the World Cup continues. And should we get another final match tied at the end of extra time, that means penalty shoot outs. Thankfully, the Economist did a nice job detailing the success rates on goal by placement of the ball. The only thing I am unsure about…

  • The Semifinalists

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today is the semifinal match between England and Croatia. I could have posted this yesterday, but the US Supreme Court selection seemed more important. But today’s post is a simple scatter plot from FiveThirtyEight. It is part of a broader article comparing the four semifinalists of the World Cup. (Spoiler alert, France won its match.)…

  • Kavanaugh the Conservative

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last night President Trump nominated Merrick Garland to fill the seat left by Anthony Kennedy. Just kidding. But he is up for a vote in the Senate. Also just kidding. No, instead, President Trump nominated a very conservative judge for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh. How conservative? Well, FiveThirtyEight explained in a piece that plotted…

  • Still a Loyalist

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    Brendan Barry
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    As most of you know, I am what would have been called a loyalist. That is, I disagree with the premise of the American Revolution. People often mistake that as saying I think Americans should be British. No, although I personally would not mind that. Instead, America would likely have been a lot more like…