Visions of Type
the type of man with the best words
This section celebrates the words of William Shakespeare.
If you love letters in just the right combination, these pages, the art is for you. If you like to delve into the words yourself, use my plain-text annotated version of all his plays.
The posters are available for purchase.
I've decided to remove all punctuation except ampersands in the titles of plays. Because who doesn't love ampersands?
The last line of Henry IV Part II is the one by Lancaster ("Come, will you hence?") instead of the Dancer's epilogue line ("before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.").
And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.
— Dromio of Ephesus (A Comedy of Errors)
And Robin shall restore amends.
— Puck (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
We were dissever'd: hastily lead away.
— Leontes (A Winter's Tale)
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.
— King (All's Well That Ends Well)
High order in this great solemnity.
— Octavius Caesar (Antony and Cleopatra)
kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.
— Rosalind (As You Like It)
Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.
— Aufidius (Coriolanus)
Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace.
— Cymbeline (Cymbeline)
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.
— Prince fortinbras (Hamlet)
Let us not leave till all our own be won.
— King Henry IV (Henry IV Part I)
Come, will you hence?
— Lancaster (Henry IV Part II)
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.
— Chorus (Henry V)
If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap.
— King Henry VIII (Henry VIII)
But I will rule both her, the king and realm.
— Suffolk (Henry VI Part I)
And more such days as these to us befall!
— Warwick (Henry VI Part II)
For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.
— King Edward IV (Henry VI Part III)
To part the glories of this happy day.
— Octavius (Julius Caesar)
If England to itself do rest but true.
— Bastard (King John)
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
— Albany (King Lear)
Apollo. You that way: we this way.
— Adriano de Armado (Love's Labours Lost)
Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
— Malcolm (Macbeth)
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know.
— Duke Vincentio (Measure for Measure)
So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.
— Gratiano (Merchant of Venice)
For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.
— Ford (Merry Wives of Windsor)
Strike up, pipers.
— Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing)
This heavy act with heavy heart relate.
— Lodovico (Othello)
New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending.
— Gower (Pericles)
In weeping after this untimely bier.
— Henry Bolingbroke (Richard II)
That she may long live here, God say amen!
— Richmond (Richard III)
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
— Prince (Romeo and Juliet)
'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.
— Lucentio (Taming of the Shrew)
Let your indulgence set me free.
— Prospero (The Tempest)
Let our drums strike.
— Alcibiades (Timon of Athens)
That like events may ne'er it ruinate.
— Lucius (Titus Andronicus)
And at that time bequeathe you my diseases.
— Pandarus (Troilus and Cressida)
And we'll strive to please you every day.
— Clown (Twelfth Night)
One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.
— Valentine (Two Gentlemen of Verona)
Using my plain-text annotated version of all of his plays, pulling out the last lines is trivial at the command line.
# last lines in a play are annotated with -p flag > grep -w "\-p" shakespeare.all.plays.plain.text.txt | cut -d "|" -f 1,14 A_Comedy_of_Errors | And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another. A_Midsummer_nights_dream | And Robin shall restore amends. A_Winters_Tale | We were dissever'd: hastily lead away. Alls_well_that_ends_well | Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts. Antony_and_Cleopatra | High order in this great solemnity. As_you_like_it | kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell. Coriolanus | Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist. Cymbeline | Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace. Hamlet | Go, bid the soldiers shoot. Henry_IV_Part_1 | Let us not leave till all our own be won. Henry_IV_Part_2 | before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen. Henry_V | In your fair minds let this acceptance take. Henry_VI_Part_1 | But I will rule both her, the king and realm. Henry_VI_Part_2 | And more such days as these to us befall! Henry_VI_Part_3 | For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy. Henry_VIII | If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap. Julius_Caesar | To part the glories of this happy day. King_John | If England to itself do rest but true. King_Lear | Shall never see so much, nor live so long. Loves_Labours_Lost | Apollo. You that way: we this way. Macbeth | Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone. Measure_for_measure | What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know. Merchant_of_Venice | So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring. Merry_Wives_of_Windsor | For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford. Much_Ado_about_nothing | Strike up, pipers. Othello | This heavy act with heavy heart relate. Pericles | New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending. Richard_II | In weeping after this untimely bier. Richard_III | That she may long live here, God say amen! Romeo_and_Juliet | Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. Taming_of_the_Shrew | 'Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so. The_Tempest | Let your indulgence set me free. Timon_of_Athens | Let our drums strike. Titus_Andronicus | That like events may ne'er it ruinate. Troilus_and_Cressida | And at that time bequeathe you my diseases. Twelfth_Night | And we'll strive to please you every day. Two_Gentlemen_of_Verona | One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.
Nasa to send our human genome discs to the Moon
We'd like to say a ‘cosmic hello’: mathematics, culture, palaeontology, art and science, and ... human genomes.
Comparing classifier performance with baselines
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. —George Orwell
This month, we will illustrate the importance of establishing a baseline performance level.
Baselines are typically generated independently for each dataset using very simple models. Their role is to set the minimum level of acceptable performance and help with comparing relative improvements in performance of other models.
Unfortunately, baselines are often overlooked and, in the presence of a class imbalance5, must be established with care.
Megahed, F.M, Chen, Y-J., Jones-Farmer, A., Rigdon, S.E., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2024) Points of significance: Comparing classifier performance with baselines. Nat. Methods 20.
Happy 2024 π Day—
sunflowers ho!
Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and dig into the digit garden. Let's grow something.
How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything
Huge empty areas of the universe called voids could help solve the greatest mysteries in the cosmos.
My graphic accompanying How Analyzing Cosmic Nothing Might Explain Everything in the January 2024 issue of Scientific American depicts the entire Universe in a two-page spread — full of nothing.
The graphic uses the latest data from SDSS 12 and is an update to my Superclusters and Voids poster.
Michael Lemonick (editor) explains on the graphic:
“Regions of relatively empty space called cosmic voids are everywhere in the universe, and scientists believe studying their size, shape and spread across the cosmos could help them understand dark matter, dark energy and other big mysteries.
To use voids in this way, astronomers must map these regions in detail—a project that is just beginning.
Shown here are voids discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), along with a selection of 16 previously named voids. Scientists expect voids to be evenly distributed throughout space—the lack of voids in some regions on the globe simply reflects SDSS’s sky coverage.”
voids
Sofia Contarini, Alice Pisani, Nico Hamaus, Federico Marulli Lauro Moscardini & Marco Baldi (2023) Cosmological Constraints from the BOSS DR12 Void Size Function Astrophysical Journal 953:46.
Nico Hamaus, Alice Pisani, Jin-Ah Choi, Guilhem Lavaux, Benjamin D. Wandelt & Jochen Weller (2020) Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics 2020:023.
Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12
Alan MacRobert (Sky & Telescope), Paulina Rowicka/Martin Krzywinski (revisions & Microscopium)
Hoffleit & Warren Jr. (1991) The Bright Star Catalog, 5th Revised Edition (Preliminary Version).
H0 = 67.4 km/(Mpc·s), Ωm = 0.315, Ωv = 0.685. Planck collaboration Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters (2018).
constellation figures
stars
cosmology
Error in predictor variables
It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision that the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible. —Aristotle
In regression, the predictors are (typically) assumed to have known values that are measured without error.
Practically, however, predictors are often measured with error. This has a profound (but predictable) effect on the estimates of relationships among variables – the so-called “error in variables” problem.
Error in measuring the predictors is often ignored. In this column, we discuss when ignoring this error is harmless and when it can lead to large bias that can leads us to miss important effects.
Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2024) Points of significance: Error in predictor variables. Nat. Methods 20.
Background reading
Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2015) Points of significance: Simple linear regression. Nat. Methods 12:999–1000.
Lever, J., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2016) Points of significance: Logistic regression. Nat. Methods 13:541–542 (2016).
Das, K., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Quantile regression. Nat. Methods 16:451–452.