2024 π Daylatest newsbuy art
Thoughts rearrange, familiar now strange.Holly Golightly & The Greenhornes break flowersmore quotes
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art + design
buy artwork Type peep show: Helvetica by Martin Krzywinski
VISIONS OF TYPE | Put my typographical posters on your wall. (buy artwork / see all my art)
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).
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: Franklin Gothic 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 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.

Nasa to send our human genome discs to the Moon

Sat 23-03-2024

We'd like to say a ‘cosmic hello’: mathematics, culture, palaeontology, art and science, and ... human genomes.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
SANCTUARY PROJECT | A cosmic hello of art, science, and genomes. (details)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
SANCTUARY PROJECT | Benoit Faiveley, founder of the Sanctuary project gives the Sanctuary disc a visual check at CEA LeQ Grenoble (image: Vincent Thomas). (details)
Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
SANCTUARY PROJECT | Sanctuary team examines the Life disc at INRIA Paris Saclay (image: Benedict Redgrove) (details)

Comparing classifier performance with baselines

Fri 22-03-2024

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. —George Orwell

This month, we will illustrate the importance of establishing a baseline performance level.

Baselines are typically generated independently for each dataset using very simple models. Their role is to set the minimum level of acceptable performance and help with comparing relative improvements in performance of other models.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Comparing classifier performance with baselines. (read)

Unfortunately, baselines are often overlooked and, in the presence of a class imbalance, must be established with care.

Megahed, F.M, Chen, Y-J., Jones-Farmer, A., Rigdon, S.E., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2024) Points of significance: Comparing classifier performance with baselines. Nat. Methods 21:546–548.

Happy 2024 π Day—
sunflowers ho!

Sat 09-03-2024

Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and dig into the digit garden. Let's grow something.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
2024 π DAY | A garden of 1,000 digits of π. (details)

How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything

Thu 18-01-2024

Huge empty areas of the universe called voids could help solve the greatest mysteries in the cosmos.

My graphic accompanying How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything in the January 2024 issue of Scientific American depicts the entire Universe in a two-page spread — full of nothing.

Martin Krzywinski @MKrzywinski mkweb.bcgsc.ca
How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything. Text by Michael Lemonick (editor), art direction by Jen Christiansen (Senior Graphics Editor), source: SDSS

The graphic uses the latest data from SDSS 12 and is an update to my Superclusters and Voids poster.

Michael Lemonick (editor) explains on the graphic:

“Regions of relatively empty space called cosmic voids are everywhere in the universe, and scientists believe studying their size, shape and spread across the cosmos could help them understand dark matter, dark energy and other big mysteries.

To use voids in this way, astronomers must map these regions in detail—a project that is just beginning.

Shown here are voids discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), along with a selection of 16 previously named voids. Scientists expect voids to be evenly distributed throughout space—the lack of voids in some regions on the globe simply reflects SDSS’s sky coverage.”

voids

Sofia Contarini, Alice Pisani, Nico Hamaus, Federico Marulli Lauro Moscardini & Marco Baldi (2023) Cosmological Constraints from the BOSS DR12 Void Size Function Astrophysical Journal 953:46.

Nico Hamaus, Alice Pisani, Jin-Ah Choi, Guilhem Lavaux, Benjamin D. Wandelt & Jochen Weller (2020) Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2020:023.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12

constellation figures

Alan MacRobert (Sky & Telescope), Paulina Rowicka/Martin Krzywinski (revisions & Microscopium)

stars

Hoffleit & Warren Jr. (1991) The Bright Star Catalog, 5th Revised Edition (Preliminary Version).

cosmology

H0 = 67.4 km/(Mpc·s), Ωm = 0.315, Ωv = 0.685. Planck collaboration Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters (2018).

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