Thoughts rearrange, familiar now strange. • Holly Golightly & The Greenhornes • break flowers • more quotes
very clickable
art + literature
The 2022 π Day art is a music album composed by Greg Coles for solo piano. It tells stories from the very beginning (314…) to the very (known) end of π (…264) as well as math (Wallis Product) and math jokes (Feynman Point), repetition (nn) and zeroes (null).
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
▲ 1,710 quotes and all is well.

The archive contains 1,710 quotes. From Dorothy Parker to Pinky and Brain, you're sure to find something special.

There are quote collections about love, heart, desire, life, death, god, mind, science.

Feeling lucky? Read 10 random quotes. Well, will you, punk?

A subset of random quotes

442
You can’t be truly rude until you understand good manners.
Rita Mae Brown
536
The real world is a special case.
567
For when I was a babe and wept and slept,
Time crept;
When I was a boy and laughed and talked,
Time walked;
Then when the years saw me a man,
Time ran,
But as I older grew, Time flew.
Guy Pentreath
595
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death.
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not
wait at the end to arrest it.
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
728
What shall become of us without any barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
Constantine Cavafy
Expecting the Barbarians
751
If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
Charles Caleb Colton
Lacon
756
Women are like tricks by light of hand,
Which, to admire, we should not understand.
William Congreve
Love for Love, IV.xxi
1354
The heaviest object in the world is the body
of the woman you have ceased to love.
Marquis de Luc de Clapiers Vauvenargues
1597
Punishment without judgment is bearable. It has a name, besides, that guarantees our innocence: it is called misfortune.
Albert Camus
1603
Within you I lose myself
Without you I find myself
Wanting to be lost again.
news + thoughts

Consequences of missing data

Fri 04-09-2026

Either I've been missing something or nothing has been going on. —Karen Elizabeth Gordon

Missing data are everywhere. Subjects may decline to participate in a survey or fail to answer sensitive questions. A cell culture might fail due to contamination. Instrument failures or mishandling of a sample may lead to missing observations. But why are missing data a problem?

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
▲ Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Consequences of missing data. (read)

This month, we begin a series of articles about practical and statistical aspects of missing data. We'll see that missing data can increase variability and introduce bias and we will ask whether anything can be done to mitigate these consequences. It turns out that, in the case where we know nothing about the missing subjects, no mitigation is possible. We must accept higher variability and, if we have a suspicion that the missing subjects aren’t completely random, possible bias as well.

Tanujit Dey, T., Lipsitz, S.R., Fitzmaurice, G., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2026) Points of significance: Consequences of missing data. Nat. Methods 23:1661–1663.

Double Robustness

Mon 04-05-2026

It is not certain that everything is uncertain. —Blaise Pascal

We have already explored how we can mitigate bias caused by confounding variables in observational studies using propensity score (PS) matching (PSM) and propensity score weighting (PSW). However, any statistical model is only as good as its assumptions and, if it is specified incorrectly, it can itself produce biased estimates of the treatment effect.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
▲ Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Double Robustness. (read)

This month, we explore double robustness, a powerful statistical concept that provides a valuable “safety net” against the risk of an incorrect model. It offers two opportunities, instead of just one, to obtain a valid estimate of the treatment effect — making it possible to draw credible causal inferences from observational data without having to depend on a single set of modeling assumptions.

Kurz, C.F., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2026) Points of significance: Double Robustness. Nat. Methods 23:868–869.

Nature Biotechnology cover

Thu 23-04-2026

My cover design on the 7 April 2026 Nature Biotechnology issue shows the dendrogram that represents a cluster of uniquely expressed (or downregulated) genes in human naive stem cells induced from such cells. Within each dendrogram block, the genomic barcode sequence (sampled from Supplementary Table 1) is depicted with a Code 39 barcode. The highlighted barcode is one of those used for cell isolation.

Ishiguro S. et al. A multi-kingdom genetic barcoding system for precise clone isolation (2026) Nature Biotechnology 44:616–629.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
▲ My Nature Biotechnology phylogenetic tree cover (volume 44, issue 4, 7 April 2026). (more)

Browse my gallery of cover designs.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
▲ A catalogue of my journal and magazine cover designs. (more)

Happy 2026 π Day—
Art for the 5%

Fri 13-03-2026

Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and enjoy the art — but only if you're part of the 5%.

Go ahead, see what you can't see.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
▲ 2026 π DAY | Art for the 5%. Shown in the style of Ishihara color test plates, the art is visible only to those with colour blindness. (details)

Ishihara's Tests for Colour Deficiency

Sun 08-03-2026

Authentic and accurate images of Ishihara's test plates photographed (and lovingly color-corrected) from the 38-plate Ishihara's Tests for Colour Deficiency.

I also provide the position, size, and color of each circle on each test plate.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
▲ ISHIHARA'S TEST PLATE 6 | This plate is part of the set of transformation plates. If you see 5, you're ok. If you see 2, you're not. (details)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
▲ ISHIHARA'S TEST PLATE 18 | This plate is part of the set of mysterious hidden plates. If you don't see anything, you're ok. If you see 5, you're not. (details)
Martin Krzywinski | contact | Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre ⊂ PHSA
Google whack “vicissitudinal corporealization”