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Randall Munroe of xkcd was on the Data Stories podcast. He talks about his work, his process, and communicating complex ideas to a wide audience. It’s amazing how much of his process overlaps with visualizing data.
Tags: Data Stories, Randall Munroe, xkcd
Posted by in Data Stories, design, randall munroe, xkcd
xkcd by Randall Munroe (CC BY-NC 2.5)
Turns out biology is hard because biology is hard.
Posted by in Biology, Curiosities of Nature, dna, Evolution, Linkonomicon, randall munroe, xkcd
From the introduction to Randall Munroe’s What If?:
They say there are no stupid questions. That’s obviously wrong; I think my question about hard and soft things, for example, is pretty stupid. But it turns out that trying to thoroughly answer a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places.
What If? is the book I would have written if I was better at math and had free time*. Much like The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace & Babbage is the book I would have written if I could draw and had free time*.
*This does not imply that either Randall Munroe or Sydney Padua have any free time. It merely implies that my priorities are misaligned.
Posted by in Follies of the Human Condition, randall munroe, Sydney Padua, What If?
If all else fails, use “significant at p>0.05 level” and hope no one notices.
-xkcd by Randall Munroe
I can’t say that I ever thought about doing this, but I can admit feeling enormous stress proofreading for “less than” signs pointing the wrong direction – an anxiety that may have been justified on more than one occassion.
xkcd by Randall Munroe (CC BY-NC 2.5)
Posted by in Follies of the Human Condition, Linkonomicon, p-values, randall munroe, science, statistics, xkcd
UPDATE 12 NOV 2014 11:10AM (ET): Apollo 11 shit went down today. No matter what else we might be, we are a species that landed a robot on a comet about 500 million kilometers away for the purpose of scientific exploration. Not too shabby.
UPDATE 12 NOV 2014 11:54AM (ET): There is concern that Philae has not anchored to the comet properly. They are working on it.
Look, we appreciate you stopping by; but humanity is trying to land a robot on a comet for the first time ever. There is Apollo 11 level shit going down today. You can watch the ESA’s webcast live with us. The Philae lander is scheduled to touch down at about 11:00 AM (US Eastern).
Over at xkcd, Randall Munroe is doing live updates of the Philae lander’s progress (and its internal monologue).
HT: Emily Lakdawalla (whom you should be reading today)
Posted by in comet, Comet 67P, Curiosities of Nature, Emily Lakdawalla, esa, ESA Rosetta, European Space Agency, Items of Interest, Philae, randall munroe, Rosetta, Space, xkcd
I am contractually obligated to discuss the basics, the very basic basics, of protein folding with my class over the next week or so. This strip from Randall Munroe’s xkcd will be appearing in the lecture.
xkcd by Randall Munroe (CC BY-NC 2.5)
I will be watching closely for looks of recognition, which will allow me to evaluate how cool my students are. You decide which direction the “cool” runs on that one.
Posted by in Curiosities of Nature, proteins, randall munroe, xkcd
Posted by in Astronomy, Curiosities of Nature, exoplanets, randall munroe, xkcd
xkcd by Randall Munroe (CC BY-NC)
Bleach also works. And high concentrations of ethanol (works for humans too).
Also, just leaving the petri dish out on your lab bench to desiccate.
Posted by in Bleach, cancer, Curiosities of Nature, Desiccation, Ethanol, randall munroe, This Mortal Coil, xkcd
xkcd by Randall Munroe (CC BY-NC)
Bleach also works. And high concentrations of ethanol (works for humans too).
Also, just leaving the petri dish out on your lab bench to desiccate.
Posted by in Bleach, cancer, Curiosities of Nature, Desiccation, Ethanol, randall munroe, This Mortal Coil, xkcd
It should come as no surprise to anyone who has spent more than 42 seconds on the Internet that there is a small, but erudite niche of love/sex humor based on particle physics and quantum mechanics. I like to refer to this branch of comedy collectively as the Quanta Sutra. I’m telling you this, because I recently found the following effort, at the expense of physics students, by Zach Weiner of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
Previous additions to the Quanta Sutra came from, not surprisingly, Randall Munroe of xkcd:
And Peter Coles‘ “A Unified Quantum Theory of the Sexual Interaction”:
One immediate consequence of this theory is that a “pure” gender state should be generally regarded as a quantum superposition of “straight” and “gay” states. This differs from a classical theory in that the true state can not be known with certainty; only the relative frequency of straight and gay behaviour (over a large number of interactions) can be predicted…
No “Planck length” jokes, please. Y’all are better than that.
