Where am I supposed to go? Where was I supposed to know?get lost in questionsmore quotes

# laughter: beautiful

DNA on 10th — street art, wayfinding and font

# Dummer — Like Nothing Else

The Hummer font is a slightly modified Antique Olive Nord. The Like Nothing Else tag line is Trade Gothic. Both have character widths increased to 110-120% and individually adjusted kerning. Get the Illustrator CS5 file for both logos.

Hummer logo. (EPS, PNG)
Dummer logo. (EPS, PNG)

This project might give you the impression that I don't like Hummers. You'd be right.

It could be worse. But not by much. (zoom)
It could be worse. But not by much. (zoom)
It could be worse. But not by much. (zoom)

## update

The Maurauder. Over 25,000 lb — five times what an H3 weighs. Enough said.

There is always someone with a bigger one. (Manufacturer's page.)

## Dummer - Like Nothing Else

Hummers are a cultural equivalent of a toxic warning label and have the same effect on me as bug spray on mosquitoes.

I am not the first one to satirize this automotive aberration, so there's some hope.

Dummer. Like Nothing Else. (New York Times — Laugh Lines)

GM's advertisement images require no modification for the satire, which makes it all that much better.

Dumb and Dumber. (New York Times — Laugh Lines)

I could have just as well used the Lincoln Navigator or Cadillac Escalade, but they don't embody the superlative like the Hummer.

The Hummer brand proved itself to be aesthetically, rationally and economically unsustainable and collapsed after a failed attempt to sell it to China. There continues to be a robust market for used Hummers. Let the farce continue.

## I'm hated

It delights me that this project produced my first hate mail.

I want to meet Doug and give him a hug for adding another dimension to this project.

## I'm loved

The images got picked up by the New York Times laughlines blog, which drew a couple of fan mails.

But neither made me feel as good as Doug's email.

## Dummer Images

Dummer. Like nothing else. (zoom)
Dummer. Like nothing else. (zoom)
Dummer. Like nothing else. (zoom)
Dummer. Like nothing else. (zoom)
Dummer. Like nothing else. (zoom)
Dummer. Like nothing else. (zoom)
Dummer. Like nothing else. (zoom)
Dummer. Like nothing else. (zoom)
Dummer. Like nothing else. (zoom)
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# Scientific data visualization: Aesthetic for diagrammatic clarity

Mon 13-01-2020

The scientific process works because all its output is empirically constrained.

My chapter from The Aesthetics of Scientific Data Representation, More than Pretty Pictures, in which I discuss the principles of data visualization and connect them to the concept of "quality" introduced by Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

# Yearning for the Infinite — Aleph 2

Mon 18-11-2019

Discover Cantor's transfinite numbers through my music video for the Aleph 2 track of Max Cooper's Yearning for the Infinite (album page, event page).

Yearning for the Infinite, Max Cooper at the Barbican Hall, London. Track Aleph 2. Video by Martin Krzywinski. Photo by Michal Augustini. (more)

I discuss the math behind the video and the system I built to create the video.

# Hidden Markov Models

Mon 18-11-2019

Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.
—Rene Magritte

A Hidden Markov Model extends a Markov chain to have hidden states. Hidden states are used to model aspects of the system that cannot be directly observed and themselves form a Markov chain and each state may emit one or more observed values.

Hidden states in HMMs do not have to have meaning—they can be used to account for measurement errors, compress multi-modal observational data, or to detect unobservable events.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Hidden Markov Models. (read)

In this column, we extend the cell growth model from our Markov Chain column to include two hidden states: normal and sedentary.

We show how to calculate forward probabilities that can predict the most likely path through the HMM given an observed sequence.

Grewal, J., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Hidden Markov Models. Nature Methods 16:795–796.

Hola Mundo by Hannah Fry. Cover design is based on my 2013 $\pi$ day art. (read)