Explaining the world one sketch at a time

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

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Recent sketches

The bandwagon effect

There are a lot of reasons why it can make sense to go with the majority. Going with the popular view is a shortcut for taking the time and effort to make our own decisions from scratch. We might reason that if others believe it, then it's probably true. But we can also keenly feel the desire to conform to the majority view because it's uncomfortable to hold a different opinion — the easy choice is so often to go with the flow even if, deep down, you disagree. So we get the bandwagon effect. The bandwagon effect can lead to the Abilene paradox — where a group can make a decision that no one in the group agrees with. On a night out it may lead to just following the crowd, but in a company it could lead to launching a product that no one thinks is good or, more seriously, in safety critical industries like airlines, if people don't feel comfortable speaking up against the group or authority it could lead to accidents.…There are a lot of reasons why it can make sense to go with the majority. Going with the popular view is a shortcut for taking the time and effort to make our own decisions from scratch. We might reason that if others believe it, then it's probably true. But we can also keenly feel the desire to conform to the majority view because it's uncomfortable to hold a different opinion — the easy choice is so often to go with the flow even if, deep down, you disagree. So we get the bandwagon effect. The bandwagon effect can lead to the Abilene paradox — where a group can make a decision that no one in the group agrees with. On a night out it may lead to just following the crowd, but in a company it could lead to launching a product that no one thinks is good or, more seriously, in safety critical industries like airlines, if people don't feel comfortable speaking up against the group or authority it could lead to accidents.

7 Feb 2021

The Bystander Effect

The essence of the bystander effect is that in a situation where someone needs help, if others are around who could help then it discourages us as individuals from stepping in. While there may be many reasons for this, and it has been replicated in lots of different contexts, a recent study of CCTV footage paints a more optimistic picture. In the study they saw that although the likelihood of any individual intervening may be reduced with other bystanders present, the chances of someone coming to help increases the more people are around. In 9 out of 10 public conflicts they studied at least one person and often several came to help. So the lady in the sketch would probably be OK. Given the bystander effect I remember being taught that if you are in a motor vehicle accident don't assume that someone has called for help already: it could help to choose someone directly and ask them to call for help to avoid everyone thinking everyone else will do it. It reminds me of the story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody (also known as the responsibility poem): There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have. The paper referenced is: Philpot, Richard & Liebst, Lasse & Levine, Mark & Bernasco, Wim & Lindegaard, Marie. (2019). Would I be helped? Cross-national CCTV footage shows that intervention is the norm in public conflicts. The American psychologist. 75. 10.1037/amp0000469. (pdf)…The essence of the bystander effect is that in a situation where someone needs help, if others are around who could help then it discourages us as individuals from stepping in. While there may be many reasons for this, and it has been replicated in lots of different contexts, a recent study of CCTV footage paints a more optimistic picture. In the study they saw that although the likelihood of any individual intervening may be reduced with other bystanders present, the chances of someone coming to help increases the more people are around. In 9 out of 10 public conflicts they studied at least one person and often several came to help. So the lady in the sketch would probably be OK. Given the bystander effect I remember being taught that if you are in a motor vehicle accident don't assume that someone has called for help already: it could help to choose someone directly and ask them to call for help to avoid everyone thinking everyone else will do it. It reminds me of the story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody (also known as the responsibility poem): There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have. The paper referenced is: Philpot, Richard & Liebst, Lasse & Levine, Mark & Bernasco, Wim & Lindegaard, Marie. (2019). Would I be helped? Cross-national CCTV footage shows that intervention is the norm in public conflicts. The American psychologist. 75. 10.1037/amp0000469. (pdf)

30 Jan 2021

A funnel of dots of information emerge as a shining ball of wisdom at the bottom — the DIKW chain

Data Information Knowledge Wisdom

In his poem The Rock, T.S. Eliot wrote: Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? In these short lines he touched on an intriguing differentiation between wisdom, knowledge and information. Add data at the beginning and people have proposed various models such as a hierarchy, chain, or pyramid to help understand their relationships. It's perhaps like a skier who's experienced the data points of snow and conditions in the mountains most days of their life. They begin to observe predictable patterns and then gradually distill these into knowledge of the relationships between the weather and avalanche risk. And over a lifetime of building and applying such knowledge they may develop instincts and behaviours for predicting risk and living with the mountains that may even be called wisdom. Perhaps there's something in it. In an unlikely scenario, I once wrote a class paper, that somehow people still find to read, on The Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom Chain: The Metaphorical link (pdf). It touches on some of the subtle differences of how we think about each of these, such as how I might complain of information overload, but never of knowledge overload.…In his poem The Rock, T.S. Eliot wrote: Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? In these short lines he touched on an intriguing differentiation between wisdom, knowledge and information. Add data at the beginning and people have proposed various models such as a hierarchy, chain, or pyramid to help understand their relationships. It's perhaps like a skier who's experienced the data points of snow and conditions in the mountains most days of their life. They begin to observe predictable patterns and then gradually distill these into knowledge of the relationships between the weather and avalanche risk. And over a lifetime of building and applying such knowledge they may develop instincts and behaviours for predicting risk and living with the mountains that may even be called wisdom. Perhaps there's something in it. In an unlikely scenario, I once wrote a class paper, that somehow people still find to read, on The Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom Chain: The Metaphorical link (pdf). It touches on some of the subtle differences of how we think about each of these, such as how I might complain of information overload, but never of knowledge overload.

24 Jan 2021

Wishcycling

I've been there. I'm holding some packaging that kind of looks like it ought to be recyclable but isn't one of the standard products that are asked for. I could put it in the bin and then it'll head straight to landfill, or I could put it in the recycling and then it has a chance of being recycled, right? So it often seems better to recycle it in the hope that it might be recovered rather than consign it to certain landfill. This is known as wishcycling. Sadly, from all that I've read about wishcycling it's not the best approach. When we put in non-recyclables into a recycling bin it contaminates the high quality recyclable materials and several things can happen: A lot of dry recycling is still manually sorted in Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs). When the quality of the input goes down it can require more people to sort it. It's not a pretty job if it also contains items that are contaminated with food waste Non-recyclable items that processing machines aren't designed for can damage them and mean costly maintenance Items like batteries that make it into regular recycling can start fires in paper bales which is dangerous and expensive Non-recyclables mixed in can mean a lower quality end product to use to turn into new products. This can reduce what it can be used for and make it harder to sell Paying more pickers and sorters and servicing machines costs money, and selling lower quality products brings less in, both of which reduce the profitability and potential viability of recycling operations So the advice I have learned to take on board is: Check what you can recycle locally If in doubt, keep it out Counterintuitively, if we want to recycle more, it seems at the moment we have to recycle less. And even better is to reduce and reuse where possible in the first place.…I've been there. I'm holding some packaging that kind of looks like it ought to be recyclable but isn't one of the standard products that are asked for. I could put it in the bin and then it'll head straight to landfill, or I could put it in the recycling and then it has a chance of being recycled, right? So it often seems better to recycle it in the hope that it might be recovered rather than consign it to certain landfill. This is known as wishcycling. Sadly, from all that I've read about wishcycling it's not the best approach. When we put in non-recyclables into a recycling bin it contaminates the high quality recyclable materials and several things can happen: A lot of dry recycling is still manually sorted in Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs). When the quality of the input goes down it can require more people to sort it. It's not a pretty job if it also contains items that are contaminated with food waste Non-recyclable items that processing machines aren't designed for can damage them and mean costly maintenance Items like batteries that make it into regular recycling can start fires in paper bales which is dangerous and expensive Non-recyclables mixed in can mean a lower quality end product to use to turn into new products. This can reduce what it can be used for and make it harder to sell Paying more pickers and sorters and servicing machines costs money, and selling lower quality products brings less in, both of which reduce the profitability and potential viability of recycling operations So the advice I have learned to take on board is: Check what you can recycle locally If in doubt, keep it out Counterintuitively, if we want to recycle more, it seems at the moment we have to recycle less. And even better is to reduce and reuse where possible in the first place.

17 Jan 2021

Binary

We find it handy to count in the decimal system using 10 numbers from 0,9, known as base 10, before we have to put two together to make 10 to keep counting further — 10 fingers and toes and all. But it turns out you can represent all numbers equally using just two digits, known as base 2, a 0 and a 1. This is called the binary system and is credited to Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz in the 1600s. The binary system is handy because 1s and 0s can be represented by simply by on/off and reproduced in as simple means as pebbles in trays , the sign of a magnetic field eg positive/negative, or a gate as open or closed. This made them the choice for designing computers and is how digital information is stored and transmitted today. When we write a decimal number we use positional notation with each successive position representing 10 to the next power. So 739 is understood as (7 x 10^2) + (3 x 10^1) + (9 x 10^0). 10 to the power 2 is 10 x 10, so is the number of 100s in the number. Anything to the power 0 is 1. The same is true in binary, so 1101 is understood in decimal as: 1101 = (1 x 2^3) + (1 x 2^2) + (0 x 2^1) + (1 x 2^0) or 1101 = (1 x 8) + (1 x 4) + (0 x 2) + (1 x 1) = 8 + 4 + 0 + 1 = 13 Each 0 or 1 in a binary number is known as a bit — named by Claude Shannon as short for binary digit — and 8 bits is known as a byte. Translating to decimal looks fiddly, but computers don't have to do that, they can just add, subtract or multiply the binary numbers directly. Amazing to think that the device you may be reading this on now is just incredibly efficient at manipulating 1s and 0s. For a readable and visual introduction to the history and operation of computers — from binary, logic gates, transistors, circuits, and Moore's law through to software and AI — you could do a lot worse than my Dad's book The Computing Universe 😀…We find it handy to count in the decimal system using 10 numbers from 0,9, known as base 10, before we have to put two together to make 10 to keep counting further — 10 fingers and toes and all. But it turns out you can represent all numbers equally using just two digits, known as base 2, a 0 and a 1. This is called the binary system and is credited to Gottfried Wilhelm Liebniz in the 1600s. The binary system is handy because 1s and 0s can be represented by simply by on/off and reproduced in as simple means as pebbles in trays , the sign of a magnetic field eg positive/negative, or a gate as open or closed. This made them the choice for designing computers and is how digital information is stored and transmitted today. When we write a decimal number we use positional notation with each successive position representing 10 to the next power. So 739 is understood as (7 x 10^2) + (3 x 10^1) + (9 x 10^0). 10 to the power 2 is 10 x 10, so is the number of 100s in the number. Anything to the power 0 is 1. The same is true in binary, so 1101 is understood in decimal as: 1101 = (1 x 2^3) + (1 x 2^2) + (0 x 2^1) + (1 x 2^0) or 1101 = (1 x 8) + (1 x 4) + (0 x 2) + (1 x 1) = 8 + 4 + 0 + 1 = 13 Each 0 or 1 in a binary number is known as a bit — named by Claude Shannon as short for binary digit — and 8 bits is known as a byte. Translating to decimal looks fiddly, but computers don't have to do that, they can just add, subtract or multiply the binary numbers directly. Amazing to think that the device you may be reading this on now is just incredibly efficient at manipulating 1s and 0s. For a readable and visual introduction to the history and operation of computers — from binary, logic gates, transistors, circuits, and Moore's law through to software and AI — you could do a lot worse than my Dad's book The Computing Universe 😀

10 Jan 2021

Microadventure

Not all of us can ditch jobs, families and responsibilities and choose to spend the next few months trekking across some tundra or cycling to China. Those are adventures sure, but, argues Alastair Humphreys, we don't need something of that scale to get a perspective-shifting snap out of the daily grind and connection with nature — we can try a microadventure instead. A microadventure might be as simple as camping in the garden with your family, paddling down a local river and camping on the bank, or staying the night on a nearby hilltop under the stars, catching the sunrise with a wild swim to wake up and being back in time for breakfast. The essence is that they are short, simple, local, and cheap. No fancy gear, complex planning, big budgets or long travel. An achievable adventure for normal people without giving up the rest of our lives to do it. In this time when bigger trips are difficult it seems that people have been spending more time exploring locally and finding out the richness of the natural spots that are nearby. We could all use a microadventure from time-to-time. HT: Phil Graham…Not all of us can ditch jobs, families and responsibilities and choose to spend the next few months trekking across some tundra or cycling to China. Those are adventures sure, but, argues Alastair Humphreys, we don't need something of that scale to get a perspective-shifting snap out of the daily grind and connection with nature — we can try a microadventure instead. A microadventure might be as simple as camping in the garden with your family, paddling down a local river and camping on the bank, or staying the night on a nearby hilltop under the stars, catching the sunrise with a wild swim to wake up and being back in time for breakfast. The essence is that they are short, simple, local, and cheap. No fancy gear, complex planning, big budgets or long travel. An achievable adventure for normal people without giving up the rest of our lives to do it. In this time when bigger trips are difficult it seems that people have been spending more time exploring locally and finding out the richness of the natural spots that are nearby. We could all use a microadventure from time-to-time. HT: Phil Graham

3 Jan 2021

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