Tag: FiveThirtyEight

  • Chris Christie Is Well Know But Not Well Like

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    As election season begins to heat up, Five Thirty Eight looks at the probability of a Chris Christie candidacy. The scatter plot below examines the favourability and name recognition. The public knows the “brand” of Christie. But they do not have a favourable view of him. I would be curious how much of that is…

  • Trains, Planes, and Automobiles: A Comparison (Kind of)

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Travelling by plane can often be a hassle because getting from the airport to the destination is not always easy. Suffice it to say your humble author has—on a few occasions—been almost stranded at Philadelphia International because of no way to get where I was going. A lot of that comes down to poor public…

  • Five Ring Circus

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today’s piece comes from Five Thirty Eight and it looks at the increasingly crowded Republican field for 2016. Credit for the piece goes to Nate Silver.

  • Board Games

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    On New Year’s Eve, well technically in the wee hours of New Year’s Day, the group with which I was spending the holiday broke out Settlers of Catan. We played that game—and drank a few bottles of champagne—until 04.00. My experience of playing the game—not necessarily the part about being inebriated on New Year’s Eve—bears…

  • Stop the Music

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    I get that a lot of you like Christmas. That’s great. But for those of not terribly attached to it for more than the days off work, listening to music can switch from being relaxing to aggravating right quick. Thankfully we have FiveThirtyEight to examine just how ridiculous this all-Christmas-all-the-time trend has become. Credit for…

  • The 76ers Are a Terrible Basketball Team

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    The Philadelphia 76ers are a terrible basketball team. FiveThirtyEight details the deficiencies of the team in this small table. Icons represent characteristics that can be either positive or negative. They are then placed within the table to quickly show how awful the team is. My favourite is the icon for poor player. Credit for the…

  • How Late is Fashionable?

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    The weekend has come and gone. And with it undoubtedly some house parties. But the looming question over any such party is when will the guests arrive. To answer that Five Thirty Eight took a look at one joint birthday party and here are the results. Credit for the piece goes to Walt Hickey.

  • Farewell, Summer (Jobs)

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Sorry (American) folks, but Labour Day just came and went. And for us (Americans) that means summer has “officially” ended. Back in the day, for your humble author, that meant preparing to wrap up my summer employment at the Jersey Shore. The Sidewalk Sale was the great clearing of summer stock and most of us…

  • Scrabble Scores

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Turns out that a large vocabulary is not necessarily what wins you games of Scrabble. Instead it has more to do with probabilities and statistics of values assigned to letters. Five Thirty Eight has a nice piece that charts the high scores of Scrabble games. Credit for the piece goes to Oliver Roeder.

  • Defining the Midwest

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last Friday, we looked at how one individual defined the state of Florida. Today, we look at how FiveThirtyEight attempted to get lots of people to define the Midwest. Personally, as someone from Philadelphia I tend to side with the author of the article, Walter Hickey. He writes he’s “from New York, and [he] generally…