It’s Friday, everyone. And that was a week. And so on the lighter side, here is this work from xkcd about shooting stars.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
The More You Know
Tag: xkcd
Rating Scale
This week is almost over and so instead of a graphic about unemployment numbers, let’s look at a piece from xkcd that provides us all with a new rating scale.
Because, let’s be honest, we all at some point are going to need to rate 2020 come December. And while we still have almost five months remaining, what are you thinking?
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
Habitable Zones Around Masses of Light and Heat
But those masses are campfires.
It’s Friday, everyone, and we’ve made it to the end of the week. And with the successful launch of Perseverance yesterday, this post from xkcd made a lot of sense. For those that don’t enjoy astronomy, basically stars have habitable zones, or sometimes the Goldilocks zone, around the star where planets would likely be neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to form on the surface of orbiting planets. And since life as we presently know it requires water, it makes sense that these zones are where we focus our attention in studies of exoplanets.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
The Golden Ratio
Today is a Friday, an important point for those of us still in or largely in quarantine. So let’s try to ease into a more frequent posting with some humourous content from xkcd. It looks at everyone’s favourite golden ratio spiral and designers’ preferred ISO 216 for paper sizes.
I mean I would love if I could consistently get my hands on some A4. It just looks nicer than US Letter. But I digress, enjoy.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
Corona Curves
It’s Friday. I’d normally say something like we’ve survived this far, but the fact of the matter is that thousands have not. But, still, let’s try to keep it a little light. So here’s something from xkcd about the shape of the various curve potentials for Covid-19.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
UK–Narnia Border
Yesterday the United Kingdom was supposed to leave the European Union. Again. Boris would rather be dead in a ditch. But he’s neither dead nor in a ditch. And the UK is still in the EU. So let’s enjoy the moment and reflect on this xkcd piece from the other day. And then enjoy the weekend.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
I Have an App for That Too
Well, everyone, we made it to Friday. So let’s all reflect on how many things we did on our mobile phones this week. xkcd did. And it’s fairly accurate. Though personally, I would only add that I did not quite use my mobile for a TV remote. Unless you count Chromecasting. In that case I did that too.
If I have to offer a critique, it’s that it makes smart use of a stacked bar chart. I normally do not care for them, but it works well if you are only stacking two different series in opposition to each other.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
Westerns
Next week I am heading west. And by west I mean Austin, Texas. I mean you could argue that Austin is more south than west, but if you throw a “×” in there you get South × Southwest. Anyway, the allure of the western remains strong and that reminded me of an old xkcd piece reflecting on the relative length of the western period vs. the “west” in American culture.
It’s kind of like how M*A*S*H lasted far longer than the actual Korean War.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
Childhood Video Games: You Can Never Go Home
Well, we all made it to Friday. And for those of us here in the States, our bank holiday weekend starts at some point this afternoon. Consequently, here is a post from xkcd that basically describes my childhood and when I would draw the layouts to linear scrolling video game landscapes for Mario.
Admittedly, it really has nothing to do with data visualisation or design, but we can make a tenuous connection to video game design.
But everything is now a standardised and bland national chainstore. And before anyone asks, yes, my favourite game was SimCity. Unfortunately there I only had the power to lay out public transit systems. Strangely, it and later variations avoided the concept of multi-use zoning.
So whenever your weekend begins today, enjoy your holiday.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.
Lunar Cycles
Yesterday in the early hours of the morning was technically the latest full moon. And so since today is Friday and we all made it to the end of the week, it seems like a good time to let xkcd educate us all on lunar periodicity.
Credit for the piece goes to Randall Munroe.