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Simplifying complex ideas through fun and insightful sketches. Explore topics from science, creativity, psychology, and more explained in pictures.

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Learn something new in a sketch each Sunday

Recent sketches

Kintsugi

Kintsugi is the repair of a ceramic item, perhaps a bowl or vase, with a bright gold seam. Like wabi sabi, kintsugi reflects a view that wear and use of an object adds value rather than detracts. Rather than try to hide the past damage and the repair instead it is celebrated and enhanced. A bowl repaired with kintsugi might be seen as more valuable than one that had never been broken. An ebook might reload the same every time. A book, instead, accumulates its previous use in its pages and appearance — the slight bend in the pages, discoloration from fingerprints or sunlight, creases in the spine at frequently visited pages, a pencil mark here and there. The book itself hints at the story of its own life. A well-thumbed secondhand book can be a beautiful thing. You may have noticed some modern kintsugi in Kylo Ren's helmet.…Kintsugi is the repair of a ceramic item, perhaps a bowl or vase, with a bright gold seam. Like wabi sabi, kintsugi reflects a view that wear and use of an object adds value rather than detracts. Rather than try to hide the past damage and the repair instead it is celebrated and enhanced. A bowl repaired with kintsugi might be seen as more valuable than one that had never been broken. An ebook might reload the same every time. A book, instead, accumulates its previous use in its pages and appearance — the slight bend in the pages, discoloration from fingerprints or sunlight, creases in the spine at frequently visited pages, a pencil mark here and there. The book itself hints at the story of its own life. A well-thumbed secondhand book can be a beautiful thing. You may have noticed some modern kintsugi in Kylo Ren's helmet.

7 Aug 2022

Two hikers look at distant lightning and count how long it takes to hear the thunder to estimate how far the lightning is away

Flash-to-bang method

How far away is the storm? The flash-to-bang method can help. When lightning is made by a storm the rapid heating and expansion of the air create the thunderclap. But because sound travels slower than light, there's a gap between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder it produced. Using Distance = speed x time, by counting the seconds from seeing the lightning you can easily estimate how far away it is. Conveniently, the speed of sound in air is about 330 metres/second. So depending on your unit preference: every 3s you wait the thunder travels about 1 km every 5s you wait the thunder travels about 1 mile Give it a try at a safe distance from your next lightning storm. Also see: thunderclap or rumble, thunder clouds, dirty thunderstorm…How far away is the storm? The flash-to-bang method can help. When lightning is made by a storm the rapid heating and expansion of the air create the thunderclap. But because sound travels slower than light, there's a gap between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder it produced. Using Distance = speed x time, by counting the seconds from seeing the lightning you can easily estimate how far away it is. Conveniently, the speed of sound in air is about 330 metres/second. So depending on your unit preference: every 3s you wait the thunder travels about 1 km every 5s you wait the thunder travels about 1 mile Give it a try at a safe distance from your next lightning storm. Also see: thunderclap or rumble, thunder clouds, dirty thunderstorm

31 Jul 2022

An urban area next to a more natural rural area showing how the urban area gets hotter than the surrounding land

Heat islands

Heat islands are urban areas that can have higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas with more greenery. Heat islands are caused by several factors, including: the types of materials we use in cities for buildings, pavement, and roads that can absorb more heat than natural surfaces such as leaves or grass human additions to the sun's heat, such as air conditioning, vehicles, cooking, or machinery the shapes of our cities that may restrict airflow to carry heat away the mass of our buildings that can absorb heat and release it gradually, even through the night More natural, often rural areas with greenery may reflect more light, release moisture and provide shade. There are ways to help reduce the effect of heat islands, such as planting more urban trees or using green roofs. Deciduous trees have the handy feature of providing shade for a house in the summer while letting light through in the winter when the leaves fall. A study using 2015 data found that "doubling tree cover in European cities could cut the number of heat-related deaths during summer months by nearly 40 per cent." In Columbia's Medellín, creating 30 Green Corridors helped to reduce temperatures by 2°C in the first three years of the program. Learn more about the heat island effect on the EPA site.…Heat islands are urban areas that can have higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas with more greenery. Heat islands are caused by several factors, including: the types of materials we use in cities for buildings, pavement, and roads that can absorb more heat than natural surfaces such as leaves or grass human additions to the sun's heat, such as air conditioning, vehicles, cooking, or machinery the shapes of our cities that may restrict airflow to carry heat away the mass of our buildings that can absorb heat and release it gradually, even through the night More natural, often rural areas with greenery may reflect more light, release moisture and provide shade. There are ways to help reduce the effect of heat islands, such as planting more urban trees or using green roofs. Deciduous trees have the handy feature of providing shade for a house in the summer while letting light through in the winter when the leaves fall. A study using 2015 data found that "doubling tree cover in European cities could cut the number of heat-related deaths during summer months by nearly 40 per cent." In Columbia's Medellín, creating 30 Green Corridors helped to reduce temperatures by 2°C in the first three years of the program. Learn more about the heat island effect on the EPA site.

24 Jul 2022

Happy talk must die

Happy talk is fluff and often self-congratulatory promotional talk, usually intended to be friendly but generally just getting in the way of people trying to get a job done. On the web, and to be honest, in most places, happy talk must die. Brenda Ueland, in her book If you Want to Write, put it perhaps the best I have seen: 'Oh, this over-explaining! It is the secret of all boredom. It is like this: You, the writer, go slowly and laboriously with many words, while the reader gropes through it, saying impatiently: “Yes, yes, hurry, hurry up! I see it—I get it! Go on to the next."' Happy Talk Must Die is a gem from Steve Krug's legendary book on usability, Don't Make Me Think. Here's an excerpt on Happy Talk. Also from Don't make me think: Omit needless words…Happy talk is fluff and often self-congratulatory promotional talk, usually intended to be friendly but generally just getting in the way of people trying to get a job done. On the web, and to be honest, in most places, happy talk must die. Brenda Ueland, in her book If you Want to Write, put it perhaps the best I have seen: 'Oh, this over-explaining! It is the secret of all boredom. It is like this: You, the writer, go slowly and laboriously with many words, while the reader gropes through it, saying impatiently: “Yes, yes, hurry, hurry up! I see it—I get it! Go on to the next."' Happy Talk Must Die is a gem from Steve Krug's legendary book on usability, Don't Make Me Think. Here's an excerpt on Happy Talk. Also from Don't make me think: Omit needless words

17 Jul 2022

Two people walk through many white swans before bumping into a black swan. One claims it was obvious all along.

Black swan events

A swan in Europe was a white swan. So, naturally, swans were thought of as only white by Europeans until news came from travelers to Australia in the late 1600s where black swans are in fact relatively common. Black swan events can turn a worldview upside down. They are unprecedented, unexpected, rare, and with a significant impact. The infrequency of black swan events means prior data about them is too little to reliably guess the likelihood of one, and you may not even think to anticipate the event anyway. Except after the fact, when all of a sudden many people will claim to have predicted it — black swan events are prone to be rationalised in hindsight, believing that all the signs were there beforehand even if they weren't. The idea of black swan events is from Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He writes: "One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans. All you need is one single black bird." Examples Taleb gives include the September 11 terrorist attack, the 2008 financial crisis, World War I, or the rise of the Internet. More Taleb sketches: on mistakes, the firehouse effect, and the Lucretius problem. Also, hindsight bias.…A swan in Europe was a white swan. So, naturally, swans were thought of as only white by Europeans until news came from travelers to Australia in the late 1600s where black swans are in fact relatively common. Black swan events can turn a worldview upside down. They are unprecedented, unexpected, rare, and with a significant impact. The infrequency of black swan events means prior data about them is too little to reliably guess the likelihood of one, and you may not even think to anticipate the event anyway. Except after the fact, when all of a sudden many people will claim to have predicted it — black swan events are prone to be rationalised in hindsight, believing that all the signs were there beforehand even if they weren't. The idea of black swan events is from Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He writes: "One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millennia of confirmatory sightings of millions of white swans. All you need is one single black bird." Examples Taleb gives include the September 11 terrorist attack, the 2008 financial crisis, World War I, or the rise of the Internet. More Taleb sketches: on mistakes, the firehouse effect, and the Lucretius problem. Also, hindsight bias.

10 Jul 2022

Only dead fish go with the flow

Only dead fish go with the flow. To me, this is a nice reminder to swim your path in life and be true to yourself. I heard about this from Patricia Ryan Madson in her book Improv Wisdom, and she, in turn, saw it in a Welsh pub. "To reach a port we must sail. Sail, not tie at anchor. Sail, not drift." —Franklin D. Roosevelt…

3 Jul 2022

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