Tag: Washington Post

  • The NFL Draft Comes to Philadelphia

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    The joke I have been telling everyone in person this past week: I changed jobs and moved 750 miles from Chicago to Philadelphia, but I still cannot escape the NFL Draft. The two previous drafts occurred across the street from my last job and this year they are three blocks away from my new flat. Traffic…

  • US Foreign Aid

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    One of the big news stories yesterday centred on the Trump administration’s budget outline that would expand US defence spending by 9%, or $54 billion. That is quite a lot of money. More worrying, however, was the draft’s directive that it be accompanied by equal spending cuts in neither security nor entitlement programmes like Social Security…

  • Capturing a US Navy Drone Submersible

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last Friday China seized a US Navy submersible drone—like the drones the Air Force uses but for underwater purposes—in international waters off the coast of the Philippines. This graphic from the Washington Post shows how, while in international waters, the seizure occurred not far outside China’s Nine-dash Line, which they claim as territorial waters. Credit…

  • The Electoral College

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Well today we elect the president of the United States. Wait! you say, did we not just do that a few weeks ago? Not really, no. In the run up to the election, I and others saw the possibility that this election could result in a gap between the national popular vote and the electoral…

  • Diversity in America

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today’s post is a choropleth map from the Washington Post examining diversity in the United States and how fast or slow diversity is expanding. Normally with two variables one goes instantly to the scatter plot. But here the Post explored the two variables geographically. And it holds up. The colours are perhaps the only part…

  • The National Debt

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    One of the things discussed during the election season—though very minorly compared to other things—is the national debt. Debt itself is not scary. Look at student loans, home loans, auto loans, &c. Look at the credit cards in your wallet. But running a country is far more difficult and complex than a household budget. That said,…

  • Tracking Polls One Week Out

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Well the election is next Tuesday, and last Friday and this past weekend was…interesting. So one(ish) week to go, and we are going to turn to a few posts that use data visualisation and graphics to explore topics related to the election. Today we start with the latest tracking polls, released on Friday. The piece…

  • Baselines Are Important

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Last week the Washington Post published a fascinating article on the data visualisation work of the Donald Trump media campaign. In my last job I frequently harped on the importance of displaying the baseline and/or setting the baseline to zero. When you fail to do so you distort the data. But maybe that is the point…

  • Gerrymandered Districts

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Well last night was the debate and it was a doozy. But while I was looking for some graphics capturing the debate itself, I came upon an article over on the Washington Post about gerrymandering. For those that do not know, gerrymandering is when state-level politicians draw the maps for congressional districts to preserve or…

  • Hillary Clinton’s E-mail Problem

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    Brendan Barry
    in

    Today Donald Trump should take the stage at the Republican National Convention as he accepts the party’s nomination to run for president. I suspect he will mention Crooked Hillary and quite possibly her e-mails. Thankfully, we have this Washington Post piece from earlier this month that examines the severity of her lapses in security. Credit…