Tag: information design

  • Kiss Me, I’m Irish

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    Brendan Barry
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    Or just shake my hand, because today marks the second St. Patrick’s Day spent in isolation. I am lucky, of course, because two years ago I spent the holiday in Dublin. One of those bucket list kind of things. There I ran into a(n American) friend who was coincidentally in town. Then the next day…

  • And Up We Go Again

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I wrote about Covid-19 here in five states of the US. I mentioned how I am concerned about the levelling out of new cases in certain states, notably Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In Italy, the government issued a new round of lockdowns in an attempt to contain a new wave before it swamps their…

  • Covid Update: 14 March

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week I wrote about how our progress in dealing with Covid-19 was stagnating. To put it simply, this past week did not get any better on that front. In Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Illinois we see that the flattened tail I described last week, well remained a flattened tail. In Delaware, we see more movement,…

  • Making America Save Again

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    Brendan Barry
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    For years, one issue with the American economy had been that we did not save enough. It’s understandable, as it’s hard to keep up with the image of the carefree American without profligate spending. But that’s also not great long-term. But thanks to Covid-19, we’ve now swung to the other side of the spectrum: Americans…

  • Covid Update: 7 March

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week I wrote about some signals indicating a potential stagnation in terms of declining numbers of new cases. I also wrote about some potential signs of reversals, or increasing numbers of new cases. This week, what we saw signs of came to pass. At the tail ends of each chart, you can see that…

  • Farewell, Cardboard Cutouts

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    Brendan Barry
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    In 2020, baseball did not permit fans to attend regular season matches. (They changed this for the playoffs.) Instead, many stadiums opted for cardboard cutouts: fans often paid a fee and submitted a picture that the team printed on cardboard cutouts. Like so many things we will say about 2020, it was surreal. But in…

  • Lead Pie

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    Brendan Barry
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    This past weekend, I read an article in Politico discussing parents’ outrage over levels of lead and other toxic metals in baby food. The story focuses on a Congressional report into the matter, but that ties back into an EPA study from 2017 that investigated lead contamination. Specifically the article’s author notes “a chart that…

  • Covid Update: 28 February

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week we saw some positive trends with respect to new Covid-19 cases in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, and Illinois area. What did we see this week? Curiously, we saw stagnating figures and, in some instances, slight reversals. This stagnation can be seen by the small flattenings at the end of the lines…

  • Another Look at 500,000

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday we looked at how the New York Times covered the deaths of 500,000 Americans due to Covid-19. But I also read another article, this by the BBC, that attempted to capture the scale of the tragedy. Instead of looking at the deaths in a timeline, the BBC approached it from a cumulative impact, i.e.…

  • 500,000 Deaths

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    Brendan Barry
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    The United States surpassed 500,000 deaths from Covid-19. On Sunday, in advance of that sobering statistic, the New York Times published a front-page graphic that dominated the layout. Usually a front-page graphic will make use of the four-colour process and present richly coloured graphics. This, however, starkly lays out the timeline of deaths in the…