Tag: line chart

  • The Ebola Outbreak in the Congo

    Ebola, which killed 11,000 people in West Africa in 2014 (which I covered in a couple of different posts), is back and this time ravaging the Congo region, specifically the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The BBC published an article looking at the outbreak, which at 1,400 deaths is still far short of the…

  • The Tory Leadership Race: The Favourite and All the Also Rans

    This piece was published Monday, so it’s one round out of date, but it still holds true. It looks at the betting odds of each of the candidates looking to enter No. 10 Downing Street. And yeah, it’s going to be Boris. The thing that strikes me as odd about this piece however, is note…

  • Living in the Dark

    Earlier this month the Economist published an article that looked at a different way of measuring the economic output of North Korea. The state is so secretive that the publicly available data we all rely on for almost every country is not available. Nor would we necessarily believe their figures. So we have to rely…

  • Bad Endings

    Turns out I was not the only one to look at plotting the ratings of the final series of Game of Thrones. The Economist looked at IMDB ratings, but just prior to the finale on Sunday. They, however, took it a step further and compared Game of Thrones to the final series of other well…

  • Game of Thrones Ratings

    No spoilers here, so don’t worry. But Game of Thrones ended last night. And I might be in the minority in that I like the overall ending and direction of the plot. But, I will agree that it would have been better…executed (just a Ned Stark reference) if at least the final two series were…

  • Who Bettors Think Will Sit Upon the Iron Throne

    Last night was the third episode of the final series of Game of Thrones and thus marked its midway point. I shall save you from any spoilers, but I thought we could do a lighter post to start the week. This comes from the Economist and simply plots the characters and their implied probability of…

  • Similar Airspeed Patterns

    Yesterday we looked at the isolation of the US and Canada in keeping the Boeing 737 Max aircraft in the air. Later that day, both countries grounded those aircraft. Today in the print edition of the New York Times the front page used significant space to chart the vertical speed of the two crashed aircraft.…

  • Is Bryce Harper Another Ryan Howard?

    No. Definitely not. But, the position of this article by FiveThirtyEight is that the Phillies, the Philadelphia baseball team that just made the largest guaranteed contract in North American sports, may have purchased the rights to somebody who is a few years past his prime. The author tracked the performance of similar baseball players over…

  • The Stunted Growth of North Korea

    This piece from the BBC is a few years old, but it provides some interesting nuggets about North Korea. Unsurprisingly it appeared on my radar because of the coverage of the Trump–Kim summit in Vietnam. The article says it is nine charts that tell you all you need to know about North Korea. Now, I…

  • Are Baseball’s Big Contracts Worth It?

    On Tuesday the San Diego Padres signed Manny Machado to a guaranteed contract worth $300 million over the next ten years—though he can opt out after five years. Machado was one of two big free agents on the market, the other being Bryce Harper. One question out there is whether or not these big contracts…