Tag: data visualisation

  • Where Guns Are Easier to Find Than Knowledge

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    Brendan Barry
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    I loved the title of this piece from the Washington Post that I had to borrow it myself. Of course all credit goes to that particular copywriter. The Washington Post looked at counties and states where gun stores outnumbered museums and libraries. Thankfully my home county has more knowledge than guns. Sadly, the same cannot…

  • How ISIS Got This Far

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    Brendan Barry
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    The Washington Post is also helping us understand the spread of ISIS. This time a bit more interactively than we have seen from the Times. This is a step-by-step (ish) explanation. Though, I quibble with the decision to link cities by dotted lines. That can create the illusion that ISIS fighters moved directly from city…

  • Unemployment Rates

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s post is a New York Times piece that looks at state levels of unemployment. In particular, whether states have returned to pre-Recession levels of employment. (Spoiler, they have not.) Credit for the piece goes to Alicia Parlapiano.

  • Understanding the Boston Subway System

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s post is the graduate work of Michael Barry and Brian Card of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The two looked at the available public data of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA)—the T to those that know—to better understand the Boston area subway system. Here the subway system refers to the heavy rail lines, i.e. the…

  • Growth of the Common Core Standard

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    Brendan Barry
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    Today’s piece is a timeline-driven piece from the Washington Post. It looks at the success the Gates Foundation has had in pushing its Common Core standards as an educational standard across the country. Credit for the piece goes to Darla Cameron, Ted Mellnik, and Cristina Rivero.

  • Viewing the Economy All at Once

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    Brendan Barry
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    Normally I try to reserve Fridays for the lighter stuff. But yesterday, the New York Times published a really fantastic piece about how the Great Recession changed the American economy through job growth or loss in each sector of the economy. Naturally this sounds very difficult because the American economy is both very large and…

  • Mass Shootings in the United States

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    Brendan Barry
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    America loves its gun. The big draw of this piece from the Washington Post is the illustration of the guns used in the mass shootings and whether each was legally or illegally acquired. But more interesting from a data visualisation standpoint are the charts below. They show the numbers of killers, victims, and then the demographics…

  • Carbon Emissions

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    Brendan Barry
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    President Obama announced new regulations to be enforced by the EPA that aim to reduce carbon emissions. Principally, the expected reduction will come through state-by-state measures to meet new federally mandated targets. Each state will have the ability to find different means of achieving the cuts, e.g. building more solar plants or nuclear plants or…

  • Europe Votes

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    Brendan Barry
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    Sunday (and a few days preceding it) was election day in the European Union for the European Parliament. Unfortunately it was also a banner day for the far-right parties. In France the National Front (FN) took the top slot and in the United Kingdom that went to the UK Independence Party (UKIP). This graphic from…

  • Swiss Coffee Exports

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    Brendan Barry
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    While I hate coffee, I do like sankey charts. And this piece from Quartz makes use of one when discussing the exports of coffee. In particular, the article focuses on the value that coffee manufactures, e.g. Nestle, add to Swiss imports of un-roasted beans before exporting them roasted. (Increasingly in little pods.) Overall, the piece…