2025 π Day latest news buy art
Where am I supposed to go? Where was I supposed to know?Violet Indianaget lost in questionsmore quotes
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art + design
buy artwork Song of the White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys) by Martin Krzywinski
VISIONS OF TYPE | Put my typographical posters on your wall. (buy artwork / see all my art)
The 2018 π Day art celebrates the 30th anniversary of π day and connects friends stitching road maps from around the world. Pack a sandwich and let's go!
My SnellenMK font adds lowercase and punctuation to the traditional Snellen design.

Visions of Type

1 · The Intertypes — Spaces Between Letters

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Intertypes: the spaces betwen letters by Martin Krzywinski
INTERTYPES — THE SPACES BETWEEN | Explore the space-glue that holds letters together. (buy artwork / see all my art)

Letters give a type weight. Intertypes give a type cohesion. The “intertypes” (my own term) are the spaces between letters. This poster shows all 26 ×26 = 686 intertypes for Helvetica Neue.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
The intertypes of Helvetica Neue. (BUY ARTWORK)

2 · Type Peep Show — Private Curves of Letters

Sometimes to understand the whole, we need to look more closely at its parts. See a little — imagine a lot.

buy artwork Type peep show: Platelet by Martin Krzywinski
TYPE PEEP SHOW | Typographical intrigue — see a little, imagine a lot. (buy artwork / see all my art)

I include Emigre's Platelet because it's such a goofy and fun font. One look at the lower case b and you know this isn't a type face that wears a tie.

Look more than once. These are great as a set.

buy artwork Type peep show: Franklin Gothic by Martin Krzywinski Type peep show: Dax by Martin Krzywinski Type peep show: Helvetica by Martin Krzywinski
TYPE PEEP SHOW | Typographical intrigue — see a little, imagine a lot. Great as a set — shown here are Franklin Gothic, Dax and Helvetica. (buy “Type peep show: Franklin Gothic” / buy “Type peep show: Dax” / buy “Type peep show: Helvetica” / see all my art)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Bodoni type peep show. (BUY ARTWORK)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Century type peep show. (BUY ARTWORK)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Dax type peep show. (BUY ARTWORK)

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Franklin Gothic type peep show. (BUY ARTWORK)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Futura type peep show. (BUY ARTWORK)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Gill Sans type peep show. (BUY ARTWORK)

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Helvetica type peep show. (BUY ARTWORK)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Minion type peep show. (BUY ARTWORK)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Platelet type peep show. (BUY ARTWORK)

3 · Type Peep Show — Remix

buy artwork Type peep show: Remix by Martin Krzywinski
TYPE PEEP SHOW | Typographical intrigue — see a little, imagine a lot. (buy artwork / see all my art)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Type peep show of nine faces. (BUY ARTWORK)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca buy artwork
Type peep show of nine faces. (BUY ARTWORK)
news + thoughts

Propensity score weighting

Mon 17-03-2025

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. —Mr. Spock (Star Trek II)

This month, we explore a related and powerful technique to address bias: propensity score weighting (PSW), which applies weights to each subject instead of matching (or discarding) them.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Propensity score weighting. (read)

Kurz, C.F., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2025) Points of significance: Propensity score weighting. Nat. Methods 22:1–3.

Happy 2025 π Day—
TTCAGT: a sequence of digits

Thu 13-03-2025

Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and sequence digits like its 1999. Let's call some peaks.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
2025 π DAY | TTCAGT: a sequence of digits. The digits of π are encoded into DNA sequence and visualized with Sanger sequencing. (details)

Crafting 10 Years of Statistics Explanations: Points of Significance

Sun 09-03-2025

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.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
Crafting 10 Years of Statistics Explanations: Points of Significance. (read)

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

Mon 16-09-2024

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.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Propensity score matching. (read)

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

Tue 24-09-2024

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.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
Understanding p-values and significance. (read)

Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2024) Understanding p-values and significance. Laboratory Animals 58:443–446.

Martin Krzywinski | contact | Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences CentreBC Cancer Research CenterBC CancerPHSA
Google whack “vicissitudinal corporealization”
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