Tag: infographic

  • Jupiter’s New Moons

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    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…

  • Revealing the Past Through a Heatwave

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    The United Kingdom has been…well, enjoying is not the right word for me, so let’s just say witnessing a heatwave. And it is having some unexpected consequences. In short, things like grass will behave differently in extreme conditions when planted on soil vs. when growing atop stone, wood, or other non-natural features. This helps identify…

  • Burden Sharing in NATO

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    Brendan Barry
    in , ,

    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
    in

    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
    in

    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…

  • Rescuing a Trapped Thai Football Team

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    For much of the last two weeks the world has followed the drama unfolding in Thailand, where a youth football team has been trapped underground in a partially flooded cave complex. This weekend, rescuers, who had overcome a daunting challenge of simply finding them, began extracting the boys. And this graphic from the BBC shows…

  • Nine O’clock on a Friday (Morning)

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    When I lived in Chicago, karaoke was definitely a thing I did. Billy Joel’s Piano Man was among the songs in my repertoire. And this Friday, well, we made it to another weekend. So raise a glass, toast Indexed, and forget about life for a while. Credit for the piece goes to Jessica Hagy.

  • Still a Loyalist

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    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…