Visions of Type
the type of man with the best words
This section celebrates the words of William Shakespeare.
If you love letters in just the right combination, these pages, the art is for you. If you like to delve into the words yourself, use my plain-text annotated version of all his plays.
The posters are available for purchase.
I've decided to remove all punctuation except ampersands in the titles of plays. Because who doesn't love ampersands?
The last line of Henry IV Part II is the one by Lancaster ("Come, will you hence?") instead of the Dancer's epilogue line ("before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.").
And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.
— Dromio of Ephesus (A Comedy of Errors)
And Robin shall restore amends.
— Puck (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
We were dissever'd: hastily lead away.
— Leontes (A Winter's Tale)
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.
— King (All's Well That Ends Well)
High order in this great solemnity.
— Octavius Caesar (Antony and Cleopatra)
kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.
— Rosalind (As You Like It)
Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.
— Aufidius (Coriolanus)
Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace.
— Cymbeline (Cymbeline)
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
— Prince fortinbras (Hamlet)
Let us not leave till all our own be won.
— King Henry IV (Henry IV Part I)
Come, will you hence?
— Lancaster (Henry IV Part II)
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.
— Chorus (Henry V)
If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap.
— King Henry VIII (Henry VIII)
But I will rule both her, the king and realm.
— Suffolk (Henry VI Part I)
And more such days as these to us befall!
— Warwick (Henry VI Part II)
For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.
— King Edward IV (Henry VI Part III)
To part the glories of this happy day.
— Octavius (Julius Caesar)
If England to itself do rest but true.
— Bastard (King John)
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
— Albany (King Lear)
Apollo. You that way: we this way.
— Adriano de Armado (Love's Labours Lost)
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
— Malcolm (Macbeth)
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.
— Duke Vincentio (Measure for Measure)
So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.
— Gratiano (Merchant of Venice)
For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.
— Ford (Merry Wives of Windsor)
Strike up, pipers.
— Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing)
This heavy act with heavy heart relate.
— Lodovico (Othello)
New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending.
— Gower (Pericles)
In weeping after this untimely bier.
— Henry Bolingbroke (Richard II)
That she may long live here, God say amen!
— Richmond (Richard III)
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
— Prince (Romeo and Juliet)
'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.
— Lucentio (Taming of the Shrew)
Let your indulgence set me free.
— Prospero (The Tempest)
Let our drums strike.
— Alcibiades (Timon of Athens)
That like events may ne'er it ruinate.
— Lucius (Titus Andronicus)
And at that time bequeathe you my diseases.
— Pandarus (Troilus and Cressida)
And we'll strive to please you every day.
— Clown (Twelfth Night)
One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.
— Valentine (Two Gentlemen of Verona)
Using my plain-text annotated version of all of his plays, pulling out the last lines is trivial at the command line.
# last lines in a play are annotated with -p flag > grep -w "\-p" shakespeare.all.plays.plain.text.txt | cut -d "|" -f 1,14 A_Comedy_of_Errors | And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another. A_Midsummer_nights_dream | And Robin shall restore amends. A_Winters_Tale | We were dissever'd: hastily lead away. Alls_well_that_ends_well | Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts. Antony_and_Cleopatra | High order in this great solemnity. As_you_like_it | kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. Coriolanus | Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist. Cymbeline | Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace. Hamlet | Go, bid the soldiers shoot. Henry_IV_Part_1 | Let us not leave till all our own be won. Henry_IV_Part_2 | before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen. Henry_V | In your fair minds let this acceptance take. Henry_VI_Part_1 | But I will rule both her, the king and realm. Henry_VI_Part_2 | And more such days as these to us befall! Henry_VI_Part_3 | For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy. Henry_VIII | If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap. Julius_Caesar | To part the glories of this happy day. King_John | If England to itself do rest but true. King_Lear | Shall never see so much, nor live so long. Loves_Labours_Lost | Apollo. You that way: we this way. Macbeth | Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone. Measure_for_measure | What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know. Merchant_of_Venice | So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring. Merry_Wives_of_Windsor | For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford. Much_Ado_about_nothing | Strike up, pipers. Othello | This heavy act with heavy heart relate. Pericles | New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending. Richard_II | In weeping after this untimely bier. Richard_III | That she may long live here, God say amen! Romeo_and_Juliet | Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. Taming_of_the_Shrew | 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so. The_Tempest | Let your indulgence set me free. Timon_of_Athens | Let our drums strike. Titus_Andronicus | That like events may ne'er it ruinate. Troilus_and_Cressida | And at that time bequeathe you my diseases. Twelfth_Night | And we'll strive to please you every day. Two_Gentlemen_of_Verona | One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.
Happy 2025 π Day—
TTCAGT: a sequence of digits
Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and sequence digits like its 1999. Let's call some peaks.
Crafting 10 Years of Statistics Explanations: Points of Significance
I don’t have good luck in the match points. —Rafael Nadal, Spanish tennis player
Points of Significance is an ongoing series of short articles about statistics in Nature Methods that started in 2013. Its aim is to provide clear explanations of essential concepts in statistics for a nonspecialist audience. The articles favor heuristic explanations and make extensive use of simulated examples and graphical explanations, while maintaining mathematical rigor.
Topics range from basic, but often misunderstood, such as uncertainty and P-values, to relatively advanced, but often neglected, such as the error-in-variables problem and the curse of dimensionality. More recent articles have focused on timely topics such as modeling of epidemics, machine learning, and neural networks.
In this article, we discuss the evolution of topics and details behind some of the story arcs, our approach to crafting statistical explanations and narratives, and our use of figures and numerical simulations as props for building understanding.
Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2025) Crafting 10 Years of Statistics Explanations: Points of Significance. Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application 12:69–87.
Propensity score matching
I don’t have good luck in the match points. —Rafael Nadal, Spanish tennis player
In many experimental designs, we need to keep in mind the possibility of confounding variables, which may give rise to bias in the estimate of the treatment effect.
If the control and experimental groups aren't matched (or, roughly, similar enough), this bias can arise.
Sometimes this can be dealt with by randomizing, which on average can balance this effect out. When randomization is not possible, propensity score matching is an excellent strategy to match control and experimental groups.
Kurz, C.F., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2024) Points of significance: Propensity score matching. Nat. Methods 21:1770–1772.
Understanding p-values and significance
P-values combined with estimates of effect size are used to assess the importance of experimental results. However, their interpretation can be invalidated by selection bias when testing multiple hypotheses, fitting multiple models or even informally selecting results that seem interesting after observing the data.
We offer an introduction to principled uses of p-values (targeted at the non-specialist) and identify questionable practices to be avoided.
Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2024) Understanding p-values and significance. Laboratory Animals 58:443–446.
Depicting variability and uncertainty using intervals and error bars
Variability is inherent in most biological systems due to differences among members of the population. Two types of variation are commonly observed in studies: differences among samples and the “error” in estimating a population parameter (e.g. mean) from a sample. While these concepts are fundamentally very different, the associated variation is often expressed using similar notation—an interval that represents a range of values with a lower and upper bound.
In this article we discuss how common intervals are used (and misused).
Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2024) Depicting variability and uncertainty using intervals and error bars. Laboratory Animals 58:453–456.