Tag: maps

  • Water, Water Everywhere Nor Any Drop to Drink

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Most of Earth’s surface is covered by water. But, as any of you who have swallowed seawater can attest, it is not exactly drinkable. Instead, mankind evolved to drink freshwater. And as some new data suggests, that might not be as plentiful in the future because some areas are already under extreme stress. Yesterday the…

  • What’s the Warning Today?

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    The weather here in Philadelphia has been fairly intense this summer. But, as August begins and summer begins to wane, even the meteorologists will need a holiday. Thankfully, xkcd has us covered on meteorology’s plan to provide coverage on their holiday. Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.

  • Quantifying Part of the Opioid Crisis

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Two weeks ago the Washington Post published a fascinating article detailing the prescription painkiller market in the United States. The Drug Enforcement Administration made the database available to the public and the Post created graphics to explore the top-line data. But the Post then went further and provided a tool allowing users to explore the data for…

  • Baby, It’ Hot Outside Pt 2

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in ,

    Yesterday we looked at Billy Penn’s graphics about the cooler stations and I mentioned a few ways the graphic could be improved. So last night I created a graphic where I explored the limited scope of the data, but also showing how low the temperatures were, relative to the air temperature outside, using weather data…

  • Baby, It’s Hot Outside

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Those of you living on the East Coast, specifically the Mid-Atlantic, know that presently the weather is quite warm outside. As in levels of dangerous heat and humidity. Personally, your author has not left his flat in a few days now because it is so bad. Alas, not everyone has access to air conditioning in…

  • New Orleans Dodges a Bullet

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Hurricane/tropical storm Barry has been dumping rain along the Gulf Coast for a few days now. But prior to this weekend, the biggest concern had been for the city of New Orleans, which sits besides the swollen Mississippi River. The river was running already high at 17 feet above normal, and with storm surges and…

  • British English vs. Irish English

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    The United Kingdom is known for having a large number of accents in a—compared to the United States—relatively small space. But then you add in Ireland and you have an entirely new level of linguistic diversity. Josh Katz, who several years ago made waves for his work on the differences in the States, completed some…

  • The Ebola Outbreak in the Congo

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    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…

  • Regional Power Plays

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    One of the things we missed covering last week whilst I was on holiday? The dust up in the Gulf of Oman, located near the Strait of Hormuz, where two foreign ships were attacked by mines or other explosive devices. The United States blames Iran and, of course, Iran denies it. The thing is, an…

  • Tornado Alley Spread East

    —

    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last week the Philadelphia area experienced a mini tornado outbreak with three straight days of watches and warnings. Of course further west in the traditional Tornado Alley, far more storms of far greater intensity were wreaking havoc. But with tornado warnings going off every few minutes just outside the city of Philadelphia, it was hard…