Tag: Washington Post

  • How Would the Covid-19 Vaccines Work

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    Brendan Barry
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    Over the last week or so, we have been receiving some encouraging news from the makers of three viable Covid-19 vaccines: Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca. All three have reported their vaccines as at least 90% effective. This doesn’t mean the relevant regulatory agencies have verified that data, but it’s better than injecting ourselves with bleach.…

  • Positioning Is Important

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday Pew Research released the results of a survey of how the rest of the world views select countries throughout the world. The Washington Post covered it in an article and created some graphics to support the text. The text, of course, was no big surprise in that the rest of the world views the…

  • It’ll Get Cooler Eventually

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    Brendan Barry
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    President Trump, on climate change. I mean, technically he’s correct. Eventually the universe will likely end with heat death as all the energy dissipates and stars die out and space becomes a truly empty, cold void. So it’ll get cooler, eventually. But what about right now? In one to three generations’ time? 30–90 years? Not…

  • Double Your Hurricanes, Double Your Fun

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    Brendan Barry
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    In a first, the Gulf of Mexico basin has two active hurricanes simultaneously. Unfortunately, they are both likely to strikes somewhere along the Louisiana coastline within approximately 36 hours of each other. Fortunately, neither is strong as a storm named Katrina that caused a mess of things several years ago now. Over the last few…

  • Reducing Postal Sort Capacity

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    Brendan Barry
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    For my non-American audience, the United States uses a federal system under which its constituent states retain the responsibility for organising and executing elections. And so we have 50 different electoral systems. A select few use the United States Post Office (USPS) to distribute blank ballots to voters and collect them when completed. Five states…

  • Casual Fails?

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    Brendan Barry
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    In a recent Washington Post piece, I came across a graphic style that I am not sure I can embrace. The article looked at the political trifecta at state levels, i.e. single political party control over the government (executive, lower legislative chamber, and upper legislative chamber). As a side note, I do like how they excluded…

  • Erasing Culture One Tomb at a Time

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    Brendan Barry
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    As many of my readers know, I have a keen interest in genealogy. And for me that has often met spending hours—far too many hours—wandering around cemeteries attempting to find memorials to ancestors, links to my history, a context to that soil from a different time. But if you live in Xinjiang or more broadly…

  • Leaf Peeping

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    Brendan Barry
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    Autumn arrived this week in Philadelphia. And with the cooler weather came blustery winds blowing yellowing leaves from city trees. The yellows and reds of trees beneath blue skies makes for some great photography. But what is really going on? Thankfully, the Washington Post published an article exploring where and why the leaves change colour (or…

  • It’s Getting Hot in Here

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    Brendan Barry
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    The UN climate summit begins in New York today. So let’s take a look at another data visualisation piece exploring climate change data. This one comes from a Washington Post article that, while largely driven by a textual narrative, does make use of some nice maps. There is nothing too crazy going on with the actual…

  • Hog Wild

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    Brendan Barry
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    So admittedly this post should have been up last week, but I liked the lunar cycle one too  much. But today is Friday and who cares. We made it to the end of the week. In the wake of the shootings last week, someone on Twitter posed the question: Legit question for rural Americans –…